shurlock

I guess one established midfielder, Hammond, is enough. Very good that Cork and Schneiderlin are starting - given people have been talking the pairing up, would have been a wasted opportunity not to have gone with it for the sake of resting Cork or giving Chaplow a run out.

Think AL will be on the right; but won't be surprised if they swap sides and Forte drops right sometimes. A very fluid interesting formation.

Don't know much about the lad other than he's decent in air, relatively inexpensive and so would represent a low-risk gamble and of course he's a saints fan (which is to some extent irrelevant). Doesn't appear to tick the pace box. What are his strengths/weaknesses? Who does he play like?

£5m is relatively good value (at least compared with the transactions done in this window) for a position which desperately needs strengthening; but there's no way we could compete on wages and the prospect of prem football. If he did join, it would be a case for Fringe Division. Even as the deal with Cork showed, its a piece of p i $$ to have a bid accepted; getting players to agree to join is the hard part. They call the shots, especially when, like Danns, they are chased by numerous suitors. Still anyone who would want to play for Blackburn -whatever their premiership credentials- needs to take a long hard look at themselves.

What are you on about? So the links with Sharp, Rodriguez etc and the multi million pound bids mean that we've only been in the market for covers for RL and DC? That's ridiculous. NA has made it clear that he's wanted a proven NPC striker as close to a marquee signing as we're going to get. (At any rate, the whole idea of covers and replacements itself is rather outdated. Its a squad game)

You serious? We'd be breaking 100 points if these results were extended over the season.

I think they have narrowed down the search to Yakubu and/or Maynard.

Cheers, sounds promising. Surprised he would be privy to Clyne-related info but Beckford is interesting. Just can't see him being happy to drop down a division and take a pay cut.

Are these credible sources? Or more cancer spread by twitter and transfer rumours?

Im not one to hype our performances but our 2nd half was better than their 1st half as the overall stats demonstrate. I think after a shambolic opening 20 mins, we actually recovered OK in the first half and our goal was coming (would like to have seen Cork's chance again - was he actually put clean through?) We struggled from setpieces and yes we were wasteful and our Connolly and Lambert weren't firing; but I've seen us play much, much worse and get something. Ultimately, we got f**k all out of the game and the performance/result underlined the case for reinforcements in certain areas (as did previous games). Does it mean we're going to go on another unbeaten run - probably not; might we fall away -maybe. But there are more positives than negatives to take out of the game and there's no reason why we shouldn't head into the Forest game with plenty of confidence.

Rumbled. sloppy stuff

Its nathaniel, not nathanial

Its not black or white: we either take all the credit for a player or no credit. Its about how much value add we add in each case- how far a player like Stephens progresses with us compared to how far he would have gone if he had stayed with Plymouth or had gone elsewhere. You're right, he is not as raw as a youngster who joins the club at 9, so there are limits to how much credit we can claim; but considering that he's only 16-17, made only a few sub appearances for a struggling L1 side and not got any international recognition at u-17s (not like that means much), he is still pretty raw. And as I say, there are more Gareth Bale/Theo/Oxo type examples than Jack Stephens ones.

Nope- take each case on its merits. I would just say that in our case there are more Gareth Bale type examples than Jack Stephens ones.

Poaching? Slight difference between joining a club when you're 9 years old (Southampton) and joining one when you've already played for the national side and in some cases got full international honours (not always but quite often Arsenal) FFS.

Guess it depends on the cut-off age. As I said, Arsenal bought a lot of youngish players who had already played international football - hard to see how they can claim credit for their success. If you believe Arsenal developed Thierry Henry (he joined when he was 22-23), no reason you can't also say the same thing about alonso and mascherano who joined liverpool at a similar age.

yep, hard as nails old testament name. means gift of god.

Do you know if its a broken metatarsal? 6-8 weeks from the time of the break (early August)? That's what the press has been reporting. If so, wouldn't be too serious.

More I reckon. Mind you, he only has 12 months left on his contract.

Would be amazing IF true. People creaming themselves over Danns when their real star is Clyne. Thought there were prem teams sniffing around him?

Fox is cup-tied.

Harding got an extension on merit and rightly so.

Think Cork can play box-to-box and get forward usefully while providing us cover on the flanks where we have sometimes come unstuck against a standard 4-4-2. The irony is that Guly has often been occuping similar spaces to Cork in matches dropping quite deep and central. I would also experiment with De Ridder instead of Connolly letting him run the left and right channels, providing us with extra width. It all depends on what you think of Morgan, whether you think he's worth a start (hard to drop Cork and Hammond at the moment) and whether you think he has it in his locker to get forward (I think he does). From being an Achilles Heel of sorts last sseaon, all of a sudden, our midfield now looks the strongest area of our squad. Shame that one of our midfielders has to lose out. Just a thought; not necessarily what I would do.

Why not? Chaplow's done it. . Why can't Cork, especially as he can play RB and is a better player than Chaplow. The position doesn't require magical wingplay.

Couldn't Cork play in midfield but on the right of a diamond (where Guly is), thereby freeing up space for Morgan?