S-Clarke

Good old Nicola driving a hard bargain, as usual.

Jeez, for a player of his ability that's a bloody decent club to find yourself at.

Ah, very handy player. Good signing for Spurs. What's the deal with him anyway? He's a german international isn't he? but has an english parent?

Don't even joke! Christ, that would be awful. But to be honest, I reckon we'll have a decent 2nd half and be more comfortable than people anticipate.

Oh Christ, I totally agree. We're completely rubbish. I mean, look at the complete panic buy of Ramirez. The rushed, end of transfer window deal for Rodriguez. The last minuite deadline day deal for Steven Davis. I totally agree, we're awful. We didn't need any of those players.

Nah, to be fair he was allowed to use a fair chunk of the fee from Bilyaledinov. They have a sell before you buy policy. By selling Rodwell in the summer it freed up the money and wages for Pienaar and Mirallas.

Wow, they are desperate. He is turd with a capital T.

He's a real player, but a very odd mentality. Which is why clubs always seem to let him go. I remember him at Porto though, unplayable at times. He's never really discovered his Porto form elsewhere.

Whops @ that trousers. Imagine he's got confused with Jacob Butterfield!

There is talk of Gazza being sent to Birmingham on loan as part of the deal. Does make me question the Gazza deal if I'm honest, slightly. We clearly wanted Butland in the summer, when it came apparent we couldn't sign him we looked for another good young keeper instead. I think we'd have been a bit more sensible getting in an experienced head, and then trying in January for Butland - as we're doing anyway.

I think he'll be a very good keeper, but he doesn't feel right for me at the moment. If he does sign, I hope he goes on and becomes our number 1 for years and answers all our questions, but it just feels - in our situation at the mo - a real gamble in an area which we've already gambled on twice.

He's always been a bit silly, but it never ceases to amaze me at how ignorant people still are to our current situation. I'm not asking the media to be experts on every single aspect of the club, but for christ sake it doesn't take much research to work out that we're no longer in administration, we've broken our transfer record twice in one season, are spending £15m on a training ground, and £30m+ on players. That's open knowledge, and it's just lazy comments by people in the media. It's not just him either, heard other pundits saying it'll be difficult for us - compared to QPR!!!! - because we don't have the finance.

You're right, football fans are funny creatures. These comments are probably at the heat of the moment after he'd made the error anyway, which clouds any previous good stuff he's done. Interestingly, only 2 days ago, he was being talked up as a £10m player by the same fans.

From a birmingham fan: Butland's shown flashes of brilliance, but he's also shown flashes of ineptitude. He might eventually become as good as he's projected to be, but at this stage he's barely as good as Boaz Myhill.

I'm with you on your last bit, for me - he's one for the summer provided we stay up. What we need now is a 6month loan of someone like Given, Friedel, Steklenburg or the like. But as I said on another thread, the club obviously want him, and transfers are often dictated by the situation of the selling club. It could be that this window is the best opportunity for us to get him.

I hope our players don't lose their confidence and belief on the back of an opposition result, as much as some of our fans.

lol holy ****. Signing of a team on the brink!

What is that based on? I think we've got more than the 3 in the bottom 3 at the mo. But I guess it's predictably all about QPR for the media now, so as they all want - everyone stand back and allow QPR and Harry to wander to safety.

Well, I never saw that coming. Football is a weird game. One of my main frustrations this year, so far, has been our inability to get a shock win. We've come so close, but never quite made it. Think we'll need to get one before the seasons out if I'm honest.

3 stand out to me. Fonte, Cork and Morgan. Probably in that order. Even when we were shipping goals all over the place, I still thought Fonte looked our better CB out there.

Everton don't look great so far, only just starting to get a bit of the ball. Wonder if they'll have a reverse to their usual season. They usually start slowly and have a strong 2nd half of the season, would be a bonus if they have a poor 2nd half instead this year! good time to play them...

People like that wouldn't appreciate a good player if it smacked them in the face. Yet I'm sure they all raved about Chaplow and SDR because they run around a lot.

Wouldn't surprise me in the slightest, he's a massive part of our attack. We don't really have a replacement for him..... The fact that SDR is getting game time says it all for me.

I do actually share your opinion slightly. We keep the ball well, move it around well, but at times struggle with that final third push to create enough meaningful openings. I think we've got the strikers to put it away, but just a little bit more quality in the final third (i.e wide area's) then we'd be laughing. I know that sounds a bit silly given that the attack has been our best performing area' this year, and we always look like scoring goals, but I think we need to have a little more variation up there. (i.e an explosive burst of pace)

Nope, Gaston was actually well on side, linesman flagged for a push Gaston made - which was so slight that it wouldn't have knocked over a feather. Basically, their defender was caught out and had to improvise a way to get himself out of the ****...