Chewy

Agreed, but having just looked tavernier up on Wikipedia, he's 26 and struggled to make it in English lower leagues. That means he's either a) made to look good by Scottish standards, b) not consistent enough for top level or c) a late developer who needed a run of games to get confidence. Still baffled by the decision to offload McCarthy this summer as if pied is behind make-shift Stephens (not Stephens' fault) then surely McCarthy would have been worth a go? Anyone know how Valery is progressing? Thought we had high hopes for him. But again, if so why play Stephens ahead of him? Like a few recent decisions at saints, it is baffling.

Wow, that's interesting! I mean, can't say it's not deserved but I am surprised. Hopefully it means we are after an upgrade this transfer window?

Thought the same, my motm. Certainly would be better than pied or Stephens as a back-up right back. Given that he can actually cross, could be an upgrad on Cedric? Only thing is, with the lower standard it's hard to judge. Thought one of the Celtic cbs looked good, but he's not up against aguero is he? Liked that tierney had a bit of feistiness, one thing I've noticed is that none of our academy products appear to have real leadership qualities.

Pretty well. Typical old firm game though, so no time on the ball for anyone. Tierney has combined well with Sinclair down the left and brown his been his usual thuggish yet effective self. Only other thing of note is that Sinclair has ridiculous hair.

Rather sadistically, it would be amusing to see Redmond, tadic and balotelli have a competition each match day to see who can moan at their teammates and ref the most. I reckon as a team we'd be record breakers.

I think they want £21m which isn't completely crazy in this day and age. Mind you, he's not been great so far, touch has been poor. He'll probably go and get a second half hat-trick now I've said that ... I have, however, spotted one player in the old firm first half who would definitely suit our current squad Nico kranjcar. Never seen a performance where a player has look less arsed in my life. An embarrassment to his profession today. So perfect for us at the moment ...

On another note, I see dembele has made the starting line up for Celtic, so perhaps not leaving imminently?

Is that the same trail of tweets where griffit goes on to name Plea? The club president says balotelli is staying, plus they'd get significantly more cash for plea than balotelli with his contract status. Plea is more our style I'd suggest, makes more sense to nice and appears confirmed by griffit. We shall see.

You do,list some positives. But they don't outweigh the one big negative which is that it's balotelli who is bonkers. Our squad has a very fragile mentality right now, not helped by a couple of individuals with poisonous attitudes and over-inflated opinions of themselves. Adding to that is really not going to help. Fortunately I've not seen one link to him anywhere so it would appear the club haven't even considered it.

True. And it would add some entertainment to an otherwise depressing relegation fight when he went off and did something crazy / monumentally stupid / both.

It's balotelli. He's mental. Do you remember Dani Osvaldo?

I really, really, really hope you're joking.

I didn't realise Shia labeouf was an actual movie? Now if you were a movie character, you'd be wormtongue from lord of the rings. An annoying, tedious minor baddy, busy trying to poison minds, no chance with a woman, and easily forgotten. And there's no way you'd ever go to a pub, you'd get your arise kicked in 5 minutes. As for the list of people he lost, you're conveniently forgetting that he found most of them in the first place, sold them all for a handsome profit while continuing to oversee our rise from league one to Europe. Last year was the first backward step in almost a decade and we slipped to 8th in the premier league. You're also conveniently forgetting that he didn't exactly "lose" them. I seem to remember most of them wanted to leave, many of them acting like d1ck heads in order to push it through. But of course you need to forget that because it doesn't suit your anti saints agenda. Go and reboot yourself on the golf course. For about 10 years.

So as a summary at this stage we're linked with Walcott, sturridge & plea, with gabbi rumoured to be off. There's been talk (probably just hopeful) of dembele, sessegnon, Mawson, jullien, gaitan, and nothing about a goalkeeper. Any of the resident itks care to confirm if any of the above is right?

Thanks for this,really enjoyed it.

Interesting - would be a shame to se gabbi go, must be soul destroying being the forward in our team at the moment. And not sure I'm so keen on Sturbridge as a transfer. With his fitness record it'd be an expensive risk, worth it for 6 months while he'd be doing his upmost to get to the World Cup, but as a permanent move? Not su sure.

Be interesting to see (assuming it is happening) how it impacts on any interest in Walcott or Sturridge?

Thanks for the link. Always a bit dubious about using YouTube for gauging a player, but certainly looks interesting. And it would appear he can actually score a goal, unlike certain other people I could think of. Next question - is he mad? I mean, the money will soften the blow but life on the French Riviera traded in for a relegation scrap on the Solent?

Is he any good?

Maybe - just trying find some, any, logic. Beginning to suspect some powerful drugs are being used to harbour greater creativity in managements decision making process. Not entirely convinced it's working ...

In all seriousness, I think the only reason (which they'd obviously not want to publicise) for this, um, "left field" decision is that it's a way to try and help with the team's collective morale which has been ruined by a couple of our players. Not saying that makes it any better of a decision, but it's the only vaguely logical explanation ion I can think of.

Didn't dino zoff manage lazio once? Possible in the gazza era? Think he did ok, sat on the bench puffing away on his cigarettes. On the other end of the scale, didn't Peter Stilton manage Plymouth with a slightly lesser degree of success ...

Anything's possible with our manager.

Yes things can change quickly, but I'm not convinced les is about to change the manager, and Everton had the opportunity to recover because they still had a lot of winnable games left which we don't. We've already had opportunities and spurned them, and I struggle to see where enough points are coming from.

What a very odd thing to do, especially when you'd hope the managers got a couple of days left in the job. No idea on how good he is, but level of experience would suggest it's not the most amazing ever appointment. Still, obviously wish him well!