Badger

Perhaps easy to suggest after an initial good showing, but he needs to be handled carefully and not thrown in too much too soon. Such immediate elevation to the front line didn't work with Hesketh did it ? Having said that the names Sims has been mentioned a few times in the past as a special talent.

Possibly with a new manager as well...

This is Puel utilising squad rotation at its best though. We have a weekend (or should that be weakened?)XI he puts out, and they're unable to score a goal between them. Then for Europa League and EFL Cup matches he has another XI who are equally as good at putting a chance away.

Austin is the only natural goalscorer we have, and if his goals dry up, as they seem to have, or he is injured then we're in the sh!t. It was glaringly obvious before a ball was kicked this season that we'd struggle for goals but we sign Redmond to play as a striker.

This is the bloke who upset his own supporters. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/37672984 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-3841446/Inter-fans-call-Mauro-Icardi-vile-piece-s-cheer-striker-s-penalty-miss-defeat-Cagliari.html Haven't we learnt about bringing in South Americans from Serie A ?

From that it appears the 'inbreds' at Burnley are on a par with the Skates. One comment from a Blackburn fan, that was not entering into a slanging match, that caught my eye was this: He overlooks that apart from Austin none of them can hit a barn door regularly. Personally I think a full season at Blackburn will be more beneficial for him than coming back.

But if it were a loan, where is the great risk ? Just tie it up i such a way that Liverpool subsidise his wages, and in the event of injury he's shipped back there. From their angle he might be useful in us taking points off of their rivals at the top end of the table. Of course if he performs here,he'll no doubt be looking elsewhere in the summer, but we do seem to be prepared to rebuild year on year so that is not a catastrophe. But, can'tseeithappening#

Possibly our best selection of individuals but I'd be a bit concerned that any of the three in bold could easily 'go missing' so I'm not sure we'll see the luxury of all three starting together. More likely two of them, and the third as an "impact sub".

.. and straight into the Europa League.

As I commented on this earlier:

There is no massiver club than them.

True, although the continual qualifying for European football is not a fair comparison that we can necessarily aachieve. Many of the clubs who continually produce the quality players are probably bigger clubs in their domestic set up than we are. Ajax are probably the best example of this, Celtic another.

Good point. Leaving after only a handful of games for us his career could easily go the same way.

My son went to the Cheltenham v skates match. Cheltenham missed a golden opprtunity to make it 2-0 at one stage. On the way back from the ground a civilised skate told 'young badger' that "no disrespect mate but we need to be despatching teams like you if we're seriously looking at going up". Maybe the penny is beginning to drop with some skates.... The other observation was how most people were knobbed off by TCWTB and the persistent ringing through the match.

Some valid points but the comparison with Clough's Nottm Forest is a little flawed to be honest. I recall Birtles and Woodcock jumping ship,and eventually Shilton moved on but to us rather than one of the big four. Generally though you're right he did keep the bulk of his squad together for two/three seasons. But times were diffferent, and possibly there wasn't such a gulf in salaies between Forest and the big four at the time. If you want another comparison, Leicester lost Kante despite winning the league, and offering CL football. They did of course hang onto Mahrez and Vardy although are paying £100,000 wages.Even so, I think everyone expects Mahrez will still p!ss off at the end of the season.

It will be pure pantomime villain stuff really, not even Redkrappp's first return with QPR was that bad despite the gearing up for it on here. After a first five minutes of booing it settled down again. Sad to say, but gone are the days of a 90 minute hate-fest, the sort of thing reserved for John Bailly on his first few returns with Blackburn, and then the dug-out pioneers. Scouse c^nt.

At the time I also remember reading they any deal with his club was complicated as they wanted to wait until the end of the Norwegian season before considering selling, ( more likely that they wanted to await better offers) and Saints desperately needed reinforcements so we went with Egil O. By the time we resumed interest in Flo Chelsea were also bidding and we couldn't match Matthew Harding's spending on wages.

Gets my vote. Beyond belief that no one has tried to replicate it since. I'd also be happy with the navy/sky away kit from that era.

Interesting analogy which I hadn't considered before, but yes it does look a bit like that.

Perhaps its the Chinese equivalent of Secure Retirement or whatever they were called. That worked out well didn't it?

He should fit in well then.

According to that we are paying marginally more than Dortmund. If true, pretty incredible really, that we're paying more than Germany's second largest club who can get 80,000 crowds (even allowing for the fact their ticket prices are more reasonable than ours).

Wasn't he tied up with the Barry the Briefcase 'consortium' ?

Could be a takeover from a Chinese investor:

Does make good reading. Imagine what they'll be like if they get turned over down here. Some good quotes on that link. Some likening it to time under Martinez. Wonder if they've seen him strolling around in training. I'm sure there are more. Glass ceiling, well and truly smashed, but leaving them with shards of glass in their ar$es as they crash through it. Anyway they can content themselves with knowing how they invented dug outs.