The Kraken

And just as easily I could have pointed out £7M for Rodriguez, £12M for Connor Wickham, £6M for David Nugent plus countless others who have been bought for big money from the lower leagues but haven't made it (in the case of JRod I'll say "yet"....) As I said earlier in this post, the most important thing is the actual ability of the player. But unlike others I choose not to disregard the effect that an experienced player can have on galvanising an otherwise very young team (one of, if not at some times the very youngest in the PL). Yet to some of the blowhards on here that seems to equate to either only spending mega-millions on failures, or filling the team with only those who've played in the top league before and totally disregarding lower league players. Its quite bizarre reasoning really. One, maybe two decent experienced players could and would make a workd of difference to us IMO.

Is it being close minded to lower league players to say that you'd like to see one or two players come in who've done it before at the top level? Very odd if that's how you see it, but fair enough if you do.

Congratulations on missing the point.

They actually signed a couple of players each of the last 2 summers from PL clubs; in particular this summer Bassong and Turner. Don't need a whole team with some decent top level experience, of course; but just 1 or 2 players would be quite nice. Still, probably won't happen as its not really our thing, so it matters not. And its more about the ability of the player than anything else. So we'll see.

1) GK 2) Wide midfielder 3) CB

Great to see we still don't yet show any indication of signing someone with PL experience. That would be terrible.

Whatever we think, he won't get one. The FA will say that the referee saw it and acted on it (by issuing a yellow card). That'll be the end of it. God bless the FA disciplinary system.

Is there anyone who has agreed with ferguson that the ball could have broken his neck? I must have missed that. Ferguson's reaction is over the top; he's right in a way though.

Remember Ricardo Rocha in the derby...............? That was probably different though.

I've made my mind up. Why are you being weird and trying to challenge it? My mind is made up. I think it was disgraceful; whether he meant to strike him or not. Williams entered into a thoroughly unnecessary action, and that happened as a direct consequence. It was an idiotic thing to do.

I said I was 50/50 whether he meant it. if he didn't mean it, it was still disgraceful that he took such reckless action when so close to the player. Just because he may not have meant it doesn't excuse it. Well, it might for you; it doesn't for me.

Doesn't really matter if he meant it or not. It happened. Its a bit like debating whether a defender meant to give away a professional foul; its still a professional foul whether he meant it or not.

I'm 50/50 on whether he meant it. That aside, it was an unneccessary and pretty sh*tty thing to do, and Williams should get done for it.

Hadn't seen it until just now; that's pretty disgraceful, really.

Well, this is just my opinion of course. But I thought we won those games in part because of the way Lambert played. Sometimes because of the goals he scored, or set up, or just his general play. And I don't think we have another striker on our books who is half as good as he is. So I just disagree with dropping him; or that he's the reason we're not comfortably in mid-table and we should therefore change. In fact I find the suggestion of it a bit bizaare. But there we go; like I said, that's only my opinion.

I just wondered how we won 4 games this season. I'm gla to have it pointed out the reason why; thanks.

Ah ok, got it. We've only previously won when other teams have switched off, or when they've been even more rubbish than usual. Got it; that explains things.

Will doing nothing also end in the same types of result as QPR away? Or Aston Villa home? Or Reading home? Or Newcastle home? They seem equally as valid as yesterday's result to me.

Hangeland absolutely destroyed Rodriguez in the home game; even more so after Lambert was substituted. Also I'm not sure what you're saying about Puncheon and Ramirez; why would they not be on the pitch against Fulham?

Who on the left? Its not quite that simple; we have no-one. I'd go with Guly left, Ramirez middle, Lambert up top. Not great but we have little else.

Its all very well saying Lambert needs to play less; it becomes a bit of a daft idea if the replacement striker(s) are not up to the task and we therefore significantly weaken ourselves because of it, all in the name of getting a prime 30 minutes or so every game from him.

God knows that didn't work. Even when Lambert did win a knock down it very rarely went to one of our players, they seemed miles away from him.

Unfortunately I think the loss of Lallana led Adkins to make a number of mistakes yesterday in trying to find the best way to cope without him: Decided on playing a 442. Playing Mayuka off Lambert; they've not really played together before and it showed. Plonking Ramirez out on the wing; it negates his effectiveness and I feel doesn't play to his strengths. I don't think we'll see that starting formation again any time soon. And I hope we won't see 442 again either; the midfield gets too overrun, and if we're going to have a £12M man lets have him in his proper position. I was also quite worried at the number of times we kept lumping up chipped balls to Lambert. It was obviously a deliberate tactic that we kept repeating over and over without really learning. Appalling distribution didn't help that, to be fair.

I'm aware he did that last season; but its no longer the case this season. He's made almost as many starts this season as he did the whole of the last one. Hence why i responded to your "Holt doesn't get that freedom at Norwich" comment. he didn't, but he certainly does now. Hence why I think its a bit of a pish analogy to use.

How Fonte missed that header is beyond me. Completely free, a rare decent delivery, and he spooned it wide.