S-Clarke

In exchange for David Silva i've heard.

Who you think is the quality we should be aiming for? What sort of names?

TBF West Hams home record isn't the best. and to be honest, the games that are deemed the hardest, often turn out to be the most straight forward for us. I remember us panicking last year as we still had to go to Brighton away, Bournemouth away etc...yet we won both. Let's see what happens, I reckon we'll win a few people don't expect us to.....and probably loose a few we aren't expected to!

An 8 match ban is mental. Worth bearing in mind that the ban is suspended upon the start of any appeal, which they believe liverpool will start asap.

Crystal Palace for me as well. I think we'll use him as a boost in any deal we go in for.....i.e Clyne. £1m and Puncheon for a player out of contract in 6 months may be just too good to say no to.

If anyone thinks we're top by luck, then they haven't got a clue. winning against Birmingham 4-1, Ipswich 5-2, Forest 3-2, Boro 3-0 isn't luck. That's about having a good team. We're still top, even after our blip, because we had generated such a good lead. That wasn't a lucky lead, it was a lead based on us performing at a consistent and dominant level for months.

We do not urgently need a GK at all. We may well get one in the summer, but we don't need one now. a forward and a pacey winger are the urgent requirements for us. I personally don't want us to get players who are either out of favour, or not playing in their premiership teams. We need to target good, young players who are in good form at the moment and can make the step up. I.e Clyne, Adomah, Maynard, Jay Rod etc.

That's a really nice read. Shows what a great job our coaches have done on him, because he was never a CB before he came to us - he was an AMC.

Failed in this league, and quite clearly has failed in Turkey after making just 2 apps. No thanks.

Swansea signed a reliatvley unknown keeper, going by the name of Michel Vorm in the summer. He has been a revelation for them and looks one hell of a prospect. Just because they are playing in a lower standard of league does not mean they don't have the ability to step up. If you go by that logic then Arsenal should stop signing L1 players from us.

He does have a long term injury at the mo though TBF, his knee injury has never cleared up. I reckon he'll end up retiring before the end of the season.

No thanks. He was a total flop in this league with Boro and Forest, and will want stupid wages.

He does seem to struggle in the away games for sure. Similar to most foreign players I guess, tight, dark, damp grounds in the lower leagues of English football don't set the pulses racing for these foreigners.

To go through the dip we have had recently, which has been a pretty poor haul of points, yet still be clear at the top shows how good we've been. Lambo had it spot on today in his post match interview how he said we've been amazing in the first half of the season, which we have been. Beyond anyone's expectations. All I wanted from this season was a good solid showing and a potential push for a top 6 place, now sitting where we are at Christmas I'd be gutted to miss out on a top 2 place! And even if we don't make it this year, which I'd be gutted if we didn't, everything is in place for us to go again next year. It's not like our championship promotion push under Burley which was just a 1 season wonder, if we don't do it this year we'll be there or there abouts again next year. We'll be back in the premiership before long.

I don't think anyone was saying we didn't need a striker. Most were vocal in august that we could do with another option. Unfortunately we couldn't get one done, but that wasn't down to not trying and why do we want to be forced into paying OTT for average players? Best to wait for a chance to grab a really good player for the same price, or possibly cheaper. Anyway, it's not caused us many problems up until now has it? Top scorrers in the league, Lambo is at home, and we're top of the league at Christmas. Quite some way from 17th I think you'd say? A striker will arrive, but thankfully we've coped quite well up until now without additional firepower. So please stop trying to justify your stupid summer predictions.

I don't get the criticism of Lallana, he was a real spark in our attack today. The problem with him at the mo is that it's not quite happening in the final third, he's not making the right calls as he was at the start and he's lost the confidence to have a pop at goal for some reason, but he's still a joy to watch on the ball.

True. Lambo, Lallana and Conners were a great triangle of attack at the start of the season. Some of the interchanging was fantastic to watch. He should be back for Boxing day hopefully.

Because he doesn't think there's anyone on the bench that can do a better job. He doesn't trust SDR, that's pretty obvious. He's not been bad all year, but the funny thing with Guly is that when he's bad he's awful, yet when he's good he's a bloody genius. I guess he's the sort of player you need to take the rough and the smooth with, and you have to say that he's contributed to more good things than bad things this year. I would be nice to have something else on the bench to throw up top though when Guly is having an off day.

We could get an out and out striker, and an AMR...who could also operate as a striker. Sorted. I think that's probably what we'll do. Don't count on Barnard offering much this season though, he's out for 3 months.

You're moaning now, but if I'd said to you that the only thing you could moan about at Christmas.....was the pack closing in on us in first, then you'd have probably said I was mental. We were always going to dip. It's happening, and hopefully happened. Thankfully we had such an excellent spell it has enabled us to go through this poor patch and still stay top of the division. We've been top since the middle of september, that's pretty incredible really. I've gone from not seeing my team ever top a league, to seeing us as a perminant fixture there for the last 3 months. Our away results need to improve, absoloutley, and I have doubts that they will. We've got a terrifc group of players and even though we didn't win today, I felt heartened by the display. We weren't nervous, we didn't freeze, we were bang up for it from the off. It wasn't a pretty game, but that was more down to Portsmouth and how they set the game out. They didn't intend to win that game, their game plan was about stopping us playing and crowding us out in the middle. This is where I felt we fell tactically short at times too, because we didn't have the option to change it and we were all too often crowded out in the middle with 3 incredibly similar players in there. We need a striker for sure, but I don't think we can ignore our need for an out and out winger - someone like Antonio who can pick the ball up and run, run, and run. We don't stretch the game and our breaks often start promising and then slow down to a crawl because we don't have that 'injection' in the final third. I'm sure Adkins is aware of it though and from what I've heard we're looking at a ST and an AMR for the January window. That would set us up nicely, because there's not much missing from this team at the moment.

He did start to struggle, after ''bursting'' into the season. We still look bright with him in the team though, and IMO Lambo's eyes light up when he's playing alongside him. He's the sort of nibble, nippy, technical striker that Lambo is the perfect partner for.

Fox gave a signal that he was injured a few minutes before he came off, I noticed he wasn't moving as freely as he was before this as well. I assume Adkins confused face was him trying to work out what was up with him, and Fox explaining. I think the last few games his passing has been casual and his distribution has been some way off. Defensively he's pretty sound though, much better than when we first had him here and I don't think there's anyone else in our squad with a left peg as sweet as his, some of his deliveries this season have been unbelievable - and Lambo is seriously benefiting from his and Frasers superb supply from the flanks.

That's a point people have clearly missed - he had a free run into total empty space, I'm not 100% sure who was meant to be tracking him, but they didn't do it well.

You're spot on about it being congested. Neither team had any real out and out width, and I think if we had that in our side (I.e we still had Chambo) it would have beena different game, and we'd have given Mattock, who I think is incredibly dodgy, a more difficult afternoon than he was given. The middle 4 we are playing with at the mo are too central and games become bitty and congested in the middle of the park. Get an Albert Adomah type player in January who will pick the ball up and beat players with pace down the flanks, that's what we miss.

Nope, a police request afaik.