S-Clarke

Lots of spirit, lots of desire, but very, very little quality on show.

Plucky, but no real quality on show from them, their touches are too heavy and their passes are underhit. Coutinho has been the best player on the pitch.

He's probably not really a defector, but thought this was the only place for these comments from Toby. Is he missing it here already? (ok, minus morgan).

To be fair, on that form Lukaku would out power most full backs. He was pretty impressive.

Ditto, it's just what I want to watch as a football fan. Unfortunately come next season BT won't have the Sat Midday game anymore, so I don't know if BT will re-position fletch and sav to another slot....or they just keep it where it is and have a very early build up to the teatime game (which they'll have from that season).

Not sure, but most viruses can go on for 10 days or so, so possibly. One of the main issues with him on Saturday was seemingly his lack of strength, he just seemed to be walking through treacle when trying to turn. A lot of people are saying he's not good enough, but in my opinion he was hung out to dry with the lack of cover in the first half, and then if he was ill as well....feel sorry for him!

That's weird.

Last summer we lost Shaw - £32m, Lallana - £25m, Chambers - £16m, Lambert - £4m, Lovren - £20m. That's near on £90-100m coming into the club. The wage bill would have been significantly lowered as well, so we had a lot to play with. This summer we lost Clyne, and in theory we'd only have seen £7-8m of that due to the sell on. And we lost Morgan for around £25m. That's a hell of a lot less than the £90m we pocketed last year, and anyone expecting levels of spending close to that again are slightly disconnected from reality. People also have to take into account FFP. One area we need to work on is the commercial side, sponsorship's etc. And until we are higher up the rankings in those area's, then we're kind of restricted in what we can do. It's also worth noting that we'll still be paying the transfer fee's for some of the deals we did last summer, that sort of spending for a club of our size was insane and only allowed through what we sold.

TBF Ronald came out after the game and said that Targett has been unwell and has been playing through illness, so his levels will be lower. And let's be honest, he looked frighteningly off the pace on Saturday. May be worth getting him to sit out for this one.

This is an odd link, there is seemingly something in it, but going by all the other noises it seems as if VVD is nailed on as well. Maybe we're getting this one slightly advanced, so we can move quickly if the VVD deal doesn't happen? Seeing as that's what most clubs run like seaside b&b's would do. I can't see us getting 2, not since we've signed Caulker. 1 or the other it seems, both very athletic, strong and quick center backs, so it's clear what attributes we are after at the back!

Is this the same as your ''let's throw automatic promotion and concentrate on the playoffs?''. That went well. I must admit, I feel slightly calmer about the situation when Alpine starts to insert his pearls of wisdom.

Some of the points you make Joensuu are fair, but it's the ''sell Tadic now'' and the ''We need a better replacement for Clyne'' comments make it hard to take it all too seriously. Slight overreaction methinks.

He got none of it spot on.

Well he's not going to do that, as it doesn't suit his argument.

It doesn't, because it never stood in the first place.

Before you go on the defensive and state how it's your opinion etc, then I will say that the above is a load of inaccurate trash. Before posting a view that you are 'so sure of' then get the facts right. You haven't got an argument there at all.

Didn't have the same effect as last seasons one, in my opinion.

And seemingly his attacking duties.

My opinion is that this is done. Terms are agreed with Celtic, the player and he's passed his medical. We're are just waiting for another week or so before it can happen. It seems there are seemingly no other active links with other clubs because they know it's done with us.

Unfortunately the injury ruined his career. Good player before that.

Sometimes I wonder what fan's want, some seem so detached from reality that it's frightening. I'm not just talking about ourselves either. What's up with Everton fans protesting? I mean, what do they have to protest about? They had a poor year last year, but more often than not they're in the EL. But what more do they expect? Do they really expect to be a CL team? It just seems as if all sorts of fans expectations are all over the show right now. Everton, Stoke, Swansea and ourselves are in a battle of the best of the rest. Sometimes we'll win it, sometimes we'll miss out. Enjoy where we are as it won't always be this good, we're in a good place compared to many others. I might be called happy clappy or whatever, but it's about perspective really and understanding and accepting your teams standing in the world of football.

ART has been let on the PC again, I see.

I think we have been limited with the players we have available. (i.e lack of Ryan, Jordy). I'm sure our prefered lineup is Wanyama and Clasie/Romeu with the likes of Mane, Tadic, Long, Jay in a 3 behind Pelle. The full backs need more protection, In a way I kind of feel sorry for Cedric, although he hasn't covered himself in glory. What we missed in the first half were 2 sitting midfielders who would clean up in the full back positions, that's why we were hit so many times down the flanks.

Seriously, what the **** is your problem? A blind man could have seen the difference he made. I don't understand why I need to justify it, when I have 31,000 people who can do that for me. Christ on a bike. Is this really even worth a debate? We were ****, end of. He looked good when he came on, but the game was already lost. End of story.

Cool story.