Turkish

Phil the Octopus would have the same success rate.

Yes, because it would be entirely professional and sensible for a respected journalist to come out and state who his source is at the club, especially given what what you say is Corteses view on such matters, wouldn't it you prat. Like a lot of the clowns on here, happy to take what he says as positive as gospel, dismiss anything negative as bollo*ks.

According to some posters on here he knows f*ck all because he dared to say that we didn't know what centre halves we wanted a week before the window shut, despite all you correctly state above.

one thing is for sure if we get Rafa we can certainly gurantee the end to sloppy goals conceded and individual errors.

Are there? Apart from a couple on the internet i'm yet to come across anyone that does and certainly on one in the real world. The fact of the matter is there is clearly some tension and a lot of the speculation is that people expect Cortese to act quickly if things are going wrong.

Didn't we play a friendly against them and Ball was told he was available so snapped him up? Once he got here it came to light he need an op on his back, he wouldn't have it and there was some problem that meant he couldn't play in this country? Memory is a little hazy on this but definitely remember something to do with his back and an op.

Could be like Eklund and Le Tiss, hope it lasts longer!

I particularly like this comment on th first post "will be some almighty scramble for tickets next season" Err, no there isn't...

Yeah, obviously

What are you on about? He's got plenty of respect. It's just most people realise he was shall we say, limited. Although a fitter, more committed player you'll never find.

When we're only playing one up front is it sensible to expect our only striker to drop into midfield? I don't really understand what your getting at. Against City he came on and scored, set up a very presentable chance for Fonte and looked very good. Against Man U he scored one and set up one and for the first 60 minute won an awful lot in the air and looked good on the ground against one of the best defences in England, in around 100 minutes of playing time against the top 2 teams last season he's got two goals and an assist. Pretty good, no?

Lambert got no service against Arsenal. Funnily enough he also played well in a good team performance against City as well. It's obviously because kompany and Vidic stood off him and let him play and Vermaelen didn't.

Dodd was a good player, he'd have been alright.

Looked to me like Lambert dominated them and for the first 60 minutes was almost bullying Vidic. They certainly weren't standing off him.

We read lots of clueless nonsense during the summer about how it was an average league, our players would get more time on the ballso would all be fine, half our squad was good enough for England and so on. The fact of the matter is the premier league is still one of the best leagues in the world, every team has top quality players and a number of international playersin their squad. Even our squad, bottom of the league without a point had 5 players on international duty last week. The players get more time on the ball comment was a classic though, yeah of course the best defenders in the world stand off attackers and give them space.

And how I do.

Even the manager who identified the positions he wanted to strengthen?

No one can bring themselves to say who is responsible for it though.

Not really, like everything Adkins says he was no doubt playing it down. Why say he wanted 'maybe 2' if he only ever wanted one?

I'm sure MLG will be on here to tell us that ours is better because no one needs that many pitches and their ice bath freezers are 2inches narrower.

I don't disagree with that, however Adkins has said many times what he wanted, if the person responsible for recruitment doesn't deliver that then who carries the can?

How is it vague? It's an interview where Reed directly says he is responsible for scouting and recruitment and Cortese oversees it and Adkins job is to coach the team.

What about him? Haivg just looked at the staff list he's scouting and recruitment manager so will work for Reed, one of the 50 people who report into him, not one of the three coaches that report into Adkins. And I've never seen a quote where Adkins mentions him.

Well by Reeds own words, he is responsible for Scouting and recruitment, overseen by Cortese while Adkins coaches the team. So unless Reid is lying or exaggerating, those two are culpable for failing to recruit the players in the positions Adkins wanted.

See the link Kraken posted above.