tajjuk

You have a point, although Allardyce said in his post match comments yesterday that he was looking to get a win so maybe they will play a bit more attacking. Most probably though they will park the bus and nick it with a set piece goal. Don't like them as a club though, terrible football, annyoying fans, massive debt, mugging off the tax payer for a stadium. Used to like West Ham as they played decent football and brought through youngsters but thanks to fat sam they don't do that anymore.

With this current squad keeping up their 2013 levels of performance top 10 ish. A few extra additions and a decent run somewhere then 6th or 7th. Think we would need a sensational season from someone like Gaston though (or half a season) like Cisse pushing Newcastle up the table last year.

He's clearly a confidence player, he had a good season last year scoring regularly, but a new team, new league and hefty price tag meant he got off to a slow start. It's taken him a little while to realise he can do the same sort of things in this league as he was in the championship. It means his thinking is a bit more clear now, earlier on in the season he looked a bit clueless, got the ball caught in his feet, taking too many touches etc. Now he's running at people and finishing first time. He's got all the attributes to be a top striker, pace, height, strength and good finishing. Needs to improve his technique a bit but he's still young, but we shouldn't get carried away. He's only scored 5 league goals.

His predictions are pretty fair to be honest, he's also spot on about us loosing momentum because of the easter break. Not sure about Sunderland sneaking a draw though.

Hmmn they give far too much credit to Wigan and Villa to me, can't see Wigan suddenly pick up 13 points from 8 games.

I can see Wigan and QPR winning to be honest, and then Sunderland, Reading, Newcastle and us all loosing. Toughest one to call is Villa v Liverpool, we need to the real Liverpool to turn up, hopefully they will be smarting after the result against us. Reckon the table will be like this after the weekend: 12. Stoke 34 13. Norwich 34 14. Newcastle 33 15. Saints 31 16. Sunderland 31 17. Wigan 30 18. Villa 30 19. QPR 26 20. Reading 23

Would improve our team even with Forren, we've seen this year that you need plenty of quality options in key positions. Centre-back is also probably still looking like on of our weakest positions.

In a word, yes, but then there aren't many like you. The board certainly would be as well. Being a 'fan' isn't about statistics and there is a massive difference between fair criticism and what you post Barry.

Very harsh, he was very close to Cole at the time, his last couple of years at Saints and first season or so at Chelsea he was excellent and easily deserved an England place, he got 20 caps in this period. He faded away a bit after that from not playing but you could really only argue him getting appearances in 2007 -09 were probably undeserved. He maybe got 10 or so caps more than he deserved, but compared to what 50+ for Neville and Heskey he doesn't deserve to be below them.

Their plan was terrible, in fact I doubt they had a particular plan hence why they bought a keeper and paid him £60k week and then bought another one a few weeks later. We bought better players than we had, that improved the team, are young and can improve and are on sneible wages. Our strategy is clearly way better than QPRs, you are as usual just talking nonsense. If it means we get rid of so called 'fans' like Barry and Turkish we will be a million times better off.

Financially wise we are massively better of than then but the rest I agree with. Our transfer polciy in that period was terrible and we ended up with a bloated squad with no real quality. After selling one our best players in Bridge (and Marsden left) we should have signed 3 quality players, really only Phillips cut the mustard. 2 or 3 more equivalents of Phillips in the £3-5 million bracket would have got us some decent players back then. Should we stay up now I see our fianances being in the position where we will make some key singings over the summer, I can see us spending another £20 million plus, probably with another Ramirez style signing.

Norwich, Fulham, Wigan, Reading, Everton are our current sub 30k attendances. Leaving Everton aside which came directly after the Adkins sacking, most of them have come under our pretty terrible early season form. Since the turn of the year attendances have picked up, I presume based on encouraging performances, QPR sold out probably on the back of the City win. Other games have obviously been Man City, Arsenal, and Liverpool so big sellers anyway but haven't away allocations at Newcastle, Norwich and Wigan sold out? Good football and non-relegation fodder form sees attendances rise, so yeh basically if we replicated 2003 with a top half finish and some good football I reckon we would be selling out each week. Fans are fickle, massive doom and gloom of november has been replaced by slight optimism now, doom and gloom isn;t good for people coming thouhg the door.

Realistically we can't keep him here for his whole career unless he has a Le Tiss level of loyalty or doesn't quite turn out to be the top player we think he's going to be. I reckon however if we are playing premiership football with the good finances we should be able to keep these players until they are about 22-23, rather than them leaving at 17/18 as they have done previously. Some of these youngster have rushed off to the bigger clubs and not done so well, look at Bale for example. Hopefully we will get a couple of seasons of them as top palyers before they move when they are ready for the next step up. We might get the odd loyal fellow that wants to stay here longer but most will leave for the bright lights of the champions league and £100k a week.

All set up for them to fluke a win over Utd, they weren't exactly on the ball against Reading and only won there because of a Rooney deflected goal, they didn't get out of second gear and they probably know second gear will win them enough games to win the title .

Thing is Barry's argument as usual falls flat, "Premiership experienced" players, so like Adam Johnson, Matt Jarvis for example, or maybe Titus Bramble, John O'Shea, Jordan Henderson? Andy Carroll, Joe Cole anyone? Jose Bosingwa, Wright Phillips, Charlie Adam, Jay Bothroyd? A colleciton of 'premiership experience' right there.

People are basing it on momentum, teams are running out of games to run their form around really to make a difference, so Sunderland's terrible run + tough fixtures + some omentum from Wigan and Villa is what is causing it. Fletchers injury will add to the doom and gloom I imagine. At the moment they are like us 4 clear, but give a few weeks and they might not be, thing is I bet they will pick up an unexpected result which will then make them safe.

If Chelsea really want him he'll go, they will pay him much more, he'll play in the champions league, challenge for titles etc (plus he'll get to move back to London), however I think he'll consider his first team options as he did when Utd came calling, that's about the only thing that would keep him here. Cortese though would get much more than £7 million for him.

1, Sign up Boruc or get another quality keeper. 2, additional centre-back quality, preferable someone who's not that slow. 3, additonal wing quality with pace and trickery, Sinclair has been linked and is a good option or another version of Coutinho Those would be my priority first teamers. If we could find a back up defensive mid who could fill in at full bakc that would be a bonus or a fullback for both sides and a 'mulumbu' or 'diame' style mid with a bit of pace and power over cork or morgan. And be on the lookout for a possible 'x factor' player, so if a world class player becomes possibly available we go for it, so like Berbatov to Fulham.

He turned down Utd IIRC in January last year. He chose us because he was going to play regularly. £7 million is too low, and it's a bit silly for him to be a loing term successor for a 23 year old.

Yeh Rafael best right back in the world made me laugh. Shaw isn't perfect but he's better than Fabio by a lot. Fabio isn't even a regular for QPR, Troare gets in a head of him and he's terrible. But like Morgan I'm quite happy for the big clubs and their fans to undrerate our players.

Yep, think this would be a decent signing, the sort of pacey direct player that we probably lack, or at least lack in numbers. Don't think we pay him £70k a week though, get it down to £40 -45k and get Man City to pay the rest, pretty sure they are doing the same thing with Johnson at Sunderland.

ta da https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0T5Ju_9gOE

Attacking Mid.

Your gold, and as usual in the wrong. The valuation in the latest Luke Shaw rumour says £16.5 million, that's an external non-saints related source, so £18 million is exactly of the mark now is it?. We'll all wait in anticipation for your back tracking.

Conveniently ignoring the first few years where he was in and out of the team, considered a jinx and almost sold to Birmingham.