tajjuk

Neither do Stoke, Begovic is one of the best keepers in the Premier League, however a potential England No 1 in the future for £3 million ish is a good investment IMO.

Agree I just think in a lot games he's been played wide left, he was in the hole last night but he won't be the last player to have a bad day at OT. He was wide left (or right) at Fulham away, Villa away, WBA away, Sunderland home and thsese seems to have been his poorest performances. he's been poor in the middle against Liverpool and Utd, but then in the 'no 10' he's played a key role in some of our best results like Newcastle home, Arsenal Home, QPR away and Villa home. In that positon he has 10 games, 3 goals, 2 assists. Out wide he has 5 appearances no goals no assists and has been generally poor. I agree he's been inconsistent, but he's clearly very talented and the more he plays (in the right position) the more we will get out of him.

Disagree about Ramirez, we just need to play him in the hole. He plays badly on the wing and with Lallana back he doesn't need to. Also as Wigan play wingbacks are wide players will have less defensive duties. Plus we don't have many options.

A good signing if they pull that off.

He's got a slight point, yes JP was good at Chelsea and he's scored some important goals, but just like Gaston he has a tendancy to go missing in games. To be honest we have 3 fairly young Attacking midfielders behind Rickie in Gaston, Lallan, and Puncheon (yeh he's not that young but development wise he is as he's only started getting his act together in the last few years) and they can ALL be inconsistent. They all have bundles of talent, technically very good but I don;t think the mental side of their games are quite their yet but remember for all of them it's really their first time in this league (Puncheon has a few prem appearances before) they are learning and improving, but I think we have to expect the rough with the smooth. Gaston was excellent against Everton, work rate, running at people, getting shots off, creating chances and we looked ordinairy once he tired. Last night not so good, same with Puncheon, times this season he's been one dimensional and lost possession, then he has games like Chelsea where he shows his quality. It just shows that we need at least one quality option here if not two to provide competition and alternatives to these three when they aren't 'on it'. Still think Gaston will be a world class player, he's got all the talent but he's only 22 give him some time.

I think I said a while back that he could be the difference between staying up and relegation if he got games.

Chelsea yes Villa no. If a player today was choosing between us and Villa it's pretty much 50/50. Although he'd have to be cheap as Villa aren;t spending.

Moura? improbable Leivia? impossible Piazon? on loan I think. David Lucas, a bit lowly. Biglia........?

Like I said hardly makes tham a - or A bit bigger yes, but they are no Liverpool or Utd, not even close.

What is this based on exactly? Their great success of trophies which includes 2 league cups in the last 20 years? Their massive average attendance of 34k? or are being literal and saying they have a lot of tall players?

Simply they aren't and they do not. To be fair I missed the 2 x UEFA Cup Winners' Cups, however from their 18 major trophies, 10 are post 2003, including the most signifigant ones (i.e Champsions league and 3 league titles). They would drop down to about the same level as Blackburn/Wolves.

aah, my bad. Only played 25 times since he signed and is no way worth that much a week.

This post will most likely set some sort of MLG alarm off. In reality they aren't, a tiny bit maybe but if they go down not at all.

QPR fans will tell you (as they have told me) that they are nothing like Portsmouth, all their 'debts' are in house and they have the Mittals (who as far as I can tell have never invested anything into the club pas their initial stake) and that they aren't just bankrolled by Fernandes but actually owned by the Tune Group (which is essentially Fernandes and his malaysian mates version of Virgin in Malaysia) and the profits/losses are shared between the companies. Also Remy is not on £80k a week and they don't have that many high earners. (Even though Onuaha who is nowhere near the first team at the moment is on £60k a week). I'm sure they will have an elaborate excuse about how they aren;t paying Samba over £100k a week (as he will need more than that to get the same NET wages as he is on at Anzhi). I hope they go down as well.

Yep, think our recent transfers inidicate this, yeh Coutinho chose Liverpool, but the fact hat he was even considering between us (32nd) and England's most successful club of all time shows history means little these days except to fans to use in arguments and the odd footnote for the media. We are 32nd in that list. 17 of the clubs with more 'success' are currently below us in the league, with most in the league's below. Man City and Chelsea would both drop down that list as well, pre-abramovich Chelsea have a league title in 1955, 3 FA cups and 2 league cups.

Like I said we have some odd fans as you have demonstrated with this comment.

The worst thing about that photo is the scarf highlighting another 'cheated' cup run.

Fair play to him if true. Footballer not wanting to sit on the bench for cash shocker.

Sadly he is spot on. The Financial Fair play rules are too late for Man City and Chelsea as both are establishing themseleves as top European earners so they will still be able to spend (and get round the rules with big sponsorships). These rules will just ensure the status quo, the highest earning clubs will be able to spend the most, i.e pay more for transfers and more for wages. The only way clubs will be able to close the gap is by getting some top youth products into the first team, like Man Utd of the early 90's, i.e get 3 or 4 top level players that would cost £20 million + to buy for free thus not cutting into your turnover. You also would have to say do a West Brom, i.e be very shrewd in the transfer market, buy low, sell high thus bridging the income gap with the top 4. Then increase your marketing and off-field revenue streams, primarily that would get more fans through the door buying tickets, or buying shirts etc. To do that you need success, as our core 'will pretty much always turn up' fan base is about 20k or so based on our admin attendances. The next 10k are 'watch good players in the prem' or 'winning football' type fans, to push above that you need to get some 'watch a successful team with well known players' type fans. If we could get an FA cup and Euro run we could push the fans numbers up by about 15 -20%, if you can then capitalise from there you could possibly keep them and get higher gates (if we had the space) which might put us on a similar level to say Spurs and Everton with regards to spending power. From there though there is quite a big leap to the Liverpool/Chelsea level turnover who would be getting 10k + more fans, plus their overseas merchandising/marketing money.

So Lee deserves game time based on his pretty average (but limited) performances so far to replace Mayuka who has also been average based on limited performances so far. Makes a lot of sense. We have some odd fans. He's had 167 minutes of football for us spread out over 6 games. He's managed a decent cameo against Spurs and won a penalty against Villa, enough to show he's no Ali Dia. Not enough to write him off though or to be automatically replaced by a guy that has managed 7 championship games for us and few cup appearances.

Inclined to think this as well, the rumours have dried up completely. It's the day before transfer deadline day though and would be poor form to complete a transfer today as poor old SSN will have nothing for tomorrow.

Well lawro had us 3-0, so at least we'll get a goal. Entirely possible we will get thrashed tonight, just need to come through it with no injuries.

He got the QPR draw right, but the score wrong, he had Villa v Newcastle as a draw, which is wrong, he got the Sunderland v Swansea game wrong. We'll see the rest go tonight but so far he's got one result out of 4 right and no scores correct. The Magnus guy he was against got 3 of the 4 results correct and he's some random wrestler. Can't see anything but a loss tonight, the QPR result will spur Utd on to open a bigger gap, they have a full team out. Even if we play well RVP will score with one shot as he has done most of the season.

You have highlighted that on your own enough times in other threads.

We aren't going to do a City or Chelsea, a 'Ramirez' is one thing but it's not a Torres, Robinho, Aguero, Toure, etc etc. that have come into Chelsea. Nor do we want to do a Chelsea, like Wes above says for all their spending the core of their succesful teams in recent years have been built on John Terry (youth product) Peter Cech (£7 million), Ashley Cole (£5 million + william gallas), Frank Lampard (£11 million pre-abramovich singing). They have made some horrific mistakes in the transfer market, I read that their spending on Strikers has reached £180 million alone, with only really Drogba being successful. Man City have had Jo (£18 million), Robinho (£32 million), Balotelli (£25 million), Santa Cruz (£17 million), Adebayor (£25 million), Bridge (£12 million) amogst their expensive flops in just a few years. Like I said I look to Spurs, yes a historically a bigger club than us but, mainly a mid table club throughout the 90's, a 2001 takeoever (with Billionaire backer) has seen sensible spending mainly on young promising players, decent control of wages, investment in infrastructure, paying attractive football. They have gradually built the club to one that has in recent years challenged the top 4, all with a 35k average attendance. They still loose players to bigger clubs (modric) but get decent fees and re-invest. Liverpool were huge and they have been in decline for years. Nothing obvious coming from Anfield suggests this will change and the fact that players are even considering a newly promoted club like us at the same time as Liverpool proves the decline. There is only so long they can rely on what they did in the 80's. They'll most likely loose Suarez this summer, their only world class player as well he's the only thing making them top 8. Same for most liveprool fans, they have won f*ck all for ages, lucky 2005 chmps league aside. Since then mid table. Plus like I said 7th highest earning in the world. If Abramovich leaves there will be plenty of takers. Look at them in 2003, about to go bankrupt, but Champions league football and they got one of the world's richest men to takeover.