hypochondriac

You could argue that but Howard is wanted by his club, Chaplow was not.

Yes but be serious, at the time we signed Chaplow he was out of favour and certainly not worth 3 million.

And if you read what I said, I never said that that is not entirely possible. All I'm saying is that Stephens is a gamble.

Then kindly ignore my comments. Something isn't automatically boring just because you disagree with it.

That's a possibility I agree. So possibly we felt that we needed to pay for proven players last year but now we have some of them, we should go for cheaper players with potential now. Perhaps that will give us some clues as to our transfer policy in the CCC. It will certainly be interesting to see that and I shall watch with interest.

We seemed to manage it last year. I'm just speculating on the possibility (and my belief) that finance or circumstances have perhaps changed.

Didn't sound like it from what derry was saying.

A young player is still a gamble. A gamble which I really hope pays off but Brian Howard is a proven championship performer, who certainly would have been more. What I'm trying to say is that I would rate Howard as a Fonte, Lambert type signing (i.e. proven) whereas Stephens is a bit more of a youngster with potential. It may be that we have changed our transfer policy since last year. I'm just speculating about the possibility and wondering aloud whether this will pay off or not. I'm not being negative so there is no need to be defensive, I just find it interesting.

I think you misunderstand my comment. What I found amusing was that there would have been a positive slant from someone whatever the club had done, had we signed someone or not and whoever we had signed.

That is really my point. We have been LINKED with a host of players who are proven succeses and many who look class in the league above. It isn't since last year that we have signed someone in that bracket IMO.

Just my opinions based on the above and with the exception possibly of Butterfield, certainly not in the same calibure as proven successes like Barnard, Lambert and Fonte.

Fair enough I don't know all the details. It does however APPEAR to be the cheap option. I'm giving my opinion based on the probability that he is a cheaper option than Brian Howard.

These sort of comments do make me laugh though how people are always positive no matter what happens. If we had signed no one it would have been 'I'm glad, we have the strongest squad depth in the division and another signing would have frozen out our promising youngsters.' If we had signed a player from a higher league it would have been 'I'm glad, we have brought in proven quality and gone for someone with proper experience.' I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you but it is amusing.

Well yes you have given that opinion but I think differently. We continue to be linked with proven championship players only to go for decent league one players. This may of course be the correct strategy but it is what I believe we are doing nonetheless. When I say the money has run out, what I mean is not that we have no money (we still have vastly more resources than most other league one clubs), simply that we are not as financially well supported as last year and have to be more selective about hat we spend our money on. Before people bang on about Lallana contracts, it makes financial sense to offer Lallana a long term contract.

Having said the above, I would also like to add that I am genuinely pleased we have got someone in. We badly needed some cover following Morgan's injury and hopefully this guy will be good enough to challenge for a starting place.

I'm glad we got a signing. Will be interesting to see if he is a useful addition or an underwhelming one. I will reserve judgement on this one I think. What is more interesting for me is that we are continuing our policy of 'the cheap option,' something we have been doing since the summer. Whether this is the correct strategy I am not sure, it's certainly the most financially sensible one but I continue to wonder if this policy was a conscious decision or whether it was imposed upon us by tighter financial constraints.

Anyone who believes we will be able to keep Chamberlin long term and then sell him for 35 million is living in a world of their own. Chamberlin is nowhere near as good as Bale was/is and how people can say that Theo has not improved since leaving here I just don't understand some of the posters on here. He is a key player for Arsenal when fit, scared the life out of Barca this year and last and has scored a hat trick for England. Yeah no progress at all!

Still to be convinced that our spending power has not been reduced since last year

1.43 miles L1 Southampton Football Club SO14 5FP 0870 220 0150 4.12 miles D1 Hampshire CCC SO30 3XH 0870 243 0291 17.59 miles PR Portsmouth Football Club PO4 8RA 0871 230 1898 22.36 miles L2 AFC Bournemouth BH7 7AF 0120 272 6303 36.77 miles L2 Aldershot Town FC GU11 1TW 01252 320211 39.59 miles CH Reading Football Club RG2 0FL 0118 968 1000 42.55 miles EIHL Basingstoke Bison RG40 1XU 0118 997 4447 43.61 miles BL Guildford Heat GU1 1UP 01483 44 33 33 47.22 miles L1 Swindon Town Football CLUB 51.93 miles PR Bath Rugby

I never said that and I was responding to Fan the Flames' comments about why we could do with a CM signing. I agree we don't need any new defensive signings between now and the end of the season.

We have vastly better players than most in the division but at times they underperform so although we get good results in general, our performances could certainly be better. Just because we have decent players does not mean there is not always the opportunity to improve things. We can't play the same two CMs every week because they will tire.

Yep. Go ahead if you want to sing the song, but don't expect me to change my opinion of it.

Arsenal are in the premier league. We are in league with players who are meant to be much too good for this division. It's a good statistic but not overly impressive considering the facts I have already outlined.

I think it will be Loss Win Win

I don't look at another team doing worse than me as a sign of how impressive something is. If we got relegated to the BSP and then had similar results, would that be impressive to you?