The Kraken

Boruc really isn't an option, whatever any of us think. He went from first team to our of the squad entirely; so he's clearly massively out of favour in Nigel Adkins' eyes. Its a straight choice between Gazzaniga and Davis (ergo not much of a choice at all).

I don't think that would do it.

John; I suggest you step away from the computer; quickly. Maybe go out for a walk or something, at least do something to calm yourself down. "You lot make me puke". Seriously, if you're going to get this rattled about some random throwaway comments then I'd perhaps suggest that message boards are not for you.

The three of us should meet up pre-game! I was sure, after his promises to do so, that MiltonRoader was coming to say hello to me in the Alex yesterday. If you're on the milton PM rota than lets make it a happy group!! Me and my mates, you and your mates, and Milt. What could possibly go wrong??!!

I'm pretty sure Olly Lancashire is a terrible analogy. But otherwise, yes.

F*ck that. Alpine Saint says its a no and that's enough for me; he's never wrong about Saints.

Actually TurkDog told me who his mate was. It wasn't Bruce Buck, but it was just as valid. You should be less quick to judge, doing so gets you snippets of actual proper ITK info by PM. Just saying.

That's it, Front Sweeper. Get that on board right now, Nige. But, hang on. We need to get "Seabs" back from Charlton first; he's the only man that can do it. Unless we bring big Radhi out of retirement, of course, which should never be discounted.

Hi from me too, Fratts. It seems like I'm actually as "banned" as Pamplemousse here. Despite a few months ago you in your Scumfinder General role telling all the minions that you'd ousted me and "got the one that I wanted". :lol: Poor old Fartoniser. He drives a van for a living, don't you know? True story.

Skillz. Dan Seaborne should also play as a defensive midfielder. Or defensive shield. F*ck it, I don't know this one. Derry invented it, ask that other nutcase Dig Dig, he knows how it works.

I prefer him up front. I keep hearing some wacky new football talk about a position called "the false nine". Sounds like a load of pretentious bullsh*t to me. I reckon GNig could be our revolutionary NotFalseButRealNine. Is that outlandish enough?

I haven't got a clue what you're on about, Bear dude. But then I've been drinking wine tonight, so its probably me that's not making sense. I just don't know.

To be pedantic, he actually said he needs to stop making the same mistakes.

Beaten to it Pamplemousse

Over on POL, its quite remarkable. I'm not sure if you'll believe this, but.... ....they're blaming the Football League for their goalkeeping crisis!! They. Just. Don't. Get. It.

You have to look outside this country to realise it. Far East is a huge market of course, but even Europe. I lived in the Alps for 3 winter ski seasons and the large local sports (predominantly ski) shop there had a clutch of French clubs shirts, the French national shirt, plus Barca, Man Utd and a Beckham printed LA Galaxy shirt. Its quite impressive, really! Of course, the club has to be set up to capitalise on national and worldwise sales. Ours clearly isn't; we had queues all the way round West Quay to sell 400 shirts on launch day.

That's a pretty long line last line of the poem, Bear.

I was all disappointed, me and my posse were all set to meet a mongboard legend and he went and did a no show.

Get him in. Having seen SFC's last announcement on shirt sales, imagine the hard-on they'll have for the boost D-Beck will give us. Posh can do her shopping at West Quay, she'll love that. And his nippers must be getting towards the age where our academy can have first dibs. Its win-win all the way for me. Welcome aboard Lord Dave.

Milt! Where were you last night?? i thought we were supposed to be meeting in the pub??

I'm not going to comment on Buttner specifically as I've not seen enough of him to comment. But I don't really like the idea of being dependent upon a recently turned 17 year old in such a vital position. He will naturally have highs and lows in terms of performance, his fitness is currently an issue, and at such a young age he's perhaps more succeptible to injury (see Chamberlain in his full season with us). Foz has shown that he's not really an option, and it s difficult line to tread in that if we signed someone good it would block Shaw's progress. But a second left bacl still has much of a part to play for us this season. Saying that, I don't think Fox was quite as bad as some make out and he was seriously let down at times by Lallana's lack of defensive nous.

I did try to quantify it by saying that they were reasonable to differing extents but, yes, fair point. So far he does seem to be a real snip, and a proper touch of class.

There's two different ways to look at it, really. 1) Were the players we brought in ok? For the most part you'd have to say yes, apart from fatty Boruc, so far there's a case to be made for all of them. Clyne, Yoshida and Davis all look (to differing extents) reasonable acquisitions for little outlay, Gazzaniga is a young and cheap prospect, Ramirez is utterly quality (as he should be for his £12M price tag), Rodriguez was very expensive but is still a prospect and potential replacement for Lambert, and Mayuka is a replacement for Billy Sharp plus being a different pacy option up front or wide. 2) Did the transfer summer adequately plug the gaps in the squad? No. We still don't have a decent keeper, there are still question marks over at least one or two of the centre backs, we're totally reliant on a 17 year old at left back, and more than £10M of the talent brought in over the summer sits on the bench most weeks. So did they do well? Its a bit of yes and a lot of no.

Don't know if he posts on here, but Martin Ansell is a long time contributor to F365.

He's conceded some soft goals and been beaten at his near post too often. You also saw the two errors in distribution against Man United; both of which could and should have been punished by goals just as Gazza's against Swansea was. On the flip side he saved two penalties, though both of them were very poor penalties, but still needed saving to be fair to him. Basically i don't see that either Davis or Gazzaniga are good enough. Sadly it will be one or the other, Boruc doesn't even make the bench so is clearly well out of the reckoning.