S-Clarke

One of the worst centre forwards I've ever seen in my life. Utterly hopeless. With a scoring record comparable to Benali, and we don't need squad players anyway. Would be a pretty pointless signing.

4-1 FT (on penalties that is). Pretty annoying, dominated the game for 90% pretty much. Didn't convert the chances we had, look very slick up until the final third but lack idea's at times. Wouldn't say no to a Banega and Damiao type signing in the next few weeks.

Our penalties are horrific. What a rubbish result after dominating the game.

Think this has been a really good outing, we look so much better than them. Frustration stems around the same area's as last year - our faluire to convert chances. A signing of the level of Damiao could complete this team, as everything else looks very slick.

The A-Team theme for the half team walk out, love it

What a miss.

Stream is kind of unwatchable now, annoying.

Gaston looking pretty class out there so far.

What the holy **** jay rodriguez? what the **** was that? we need a striker.

We're playing some great stuff when we have the ball, working through the thirds of the pitch with a real slickness. Just no final chance as yet.

I think we've always been prepared to pay what Internactional want. Still expect it to be around £20m.

Don't quite buy that argument. Lallana got the ball where he wanted it, so did Cork, so did Morgan, so did Chambo when he was here. The fact is that he didn't really know how to take up a position, find space or actually use space when he had the ball. Lots of blind alleys were formed when he had it. He was a good enough lad, nothing against him at all, but there wasn't any talent there in my opinion.

You need to look at why these clubs are near the top of the ''buying league''. Sunderland needed a overhaul, they had a squad filled with utter dross, and if they didn't want to be facing relegation this season - they needed to strengthen. For us, the need is there, but not as a great. We're in a fortunate position to already have some real talent in the core 11 and the key factor being their ages. We've signed players who upgrade the squad in the specific area's and promoted youth to create competition in other areas of the pitch. That's another factor - we have a great academy who produce players that are good enough to play at the level we're at. So no need to panic, and a lot of reason to actually be pretty optimistic with our set up. Many clubs would snap our hands off for similar.

For a winger, I've never seen someone so useless when it comes to deliveries. And also so completely clueless with decision making. There was a reason he wasn't selected or given a continuous run, it was because he was an utterly hopeless footballer.

He's come on leaps and bounds in the last year. Looks a very accomplished player, more than capable of playing a squad role this year. If we're not signing competition at full back, the next best thing is to promote the youth to create the competition. Luckily for us, we continue to produce class youth players.

Ah, should have realized the jist of your post was based on Lambert not being in the team.

I don't necessarily think that means he's playing on his own though, Puncheon and Lallana will be expected to support him on every opportunity in that formation. In fact, i'd expect very little width and more of a dynamic 2 playing behind Jay. (maybe puncheon being the player who pulls out wide now and then)

Good move for the lad. Way too good for Bournemouth to be honest.

Why on earth is everyone so confident on Damiao all of a sudden? Has something changed/news broken? I'll admit i've not really been around much this week to keep up to date with it all....but here and other forums, people are talking as if he's ours....but I can't find any news stories to suggest he is?

That's probably going to be a wasted trip!

To be fair, that post made more sense than any of Barry Sanchez's offerings.

The problem with these ''pre-season'' predictions is that they're all too often based on the run in last year. We had a good end to the season, so ultimiatley we finished the season with most pundits looking at us in a positive light. Same with Charlton, they went on a mega run at the back end of last year. But these predictions are pretty much foundation-less, it's hard to say anything until the windows closed and we're a few weeks in. A new signing for a club in 17th could easily propel them into the top 10, that's how tight that area of the PL is for example.

I dunno, Gazzaniga isn't bad really. I quite like him as a GK.

Nothings going to happen. Neither Monk or K,billy have posted!

Probably a small minority, but a few ''neutrals'' who I speak to claim the GK position being our weakest position, which confused me somewhat. I think if anything it's one of our strongest area's.