max_saints

this player loan issue is pretty contentious. there are those who feel its cheating (both for the club that loans this players as they are able to acquire players of a higher quality at a fraction of the cost and for the club that owns the loanees as theses loanees can play against their closest rivals and yet not be able to play against the parent club.) and those who feel since everyone else is doing it why not us? my problem with this is, if we do qualify for Europe this way, then we need to spend huge amounts to buy back the quality lost from loanees returning to their parent clubs and then some more to upgrade the quality of the squad even further to be able to compete in Europe. Unless we are able to loan an entire champions league ready team

deulofeu from barca too.

I think crossing wise, he's better than clyne already. defending wise, he can be abit naive because of inexperience. Clyne is still a better player overall, but I think chambers has the potential to exceed Clyne's ability. Haven't seen anything to suggest he would be good at CB though

http://www.readytogo.net/smb/threads/artur-boruc.864107/

does anyone feel the loyalty poch has for NC is unreciprocated? this is a man who would leave if NC left yet NC didn't bother telling him that he was going to resign or had resigned? also all the talk about not leaving in the middle of the project from poch yet NC, the man who sold the vision for the project, did exactly that in the face of obstacles. something tells me that this is not the last we'll see of NC and the only reason why poch is staying is cos NC has assured him he'll be back with billionaire backing to buy over the club. or I'm just thinking too much.

Thanks! would keep a look out for those games! tickets generally go on sale a month before the game?

good win! boruc is so so so much better than our other two keepers, if KD or gazzaniga were playing i think the ball would have gone through their legs for 1-1. gaston made the difference when brought on, glad to see that slowly but surely he is starting to improve, almost makes me want the rumours regarding him leaving to not be true. but what was up with his choice of hairstyle lol BTW, not trying to be negative or anything but does anyone agree with my opinion that chambers has a much better delivery of the ball than clyne? clyne's crosses into the box today were frustrating...

I'm from Singapore and will be on a study exchange in the Netherlands for 6 months starting Feb. Would like to use this opportunity to fly over and catch my first live game at St marys. Anyone knows what are the chances of someone, with absolutely no ticket purchase history, getting a pair of tickets for any of the remaining home games? Also, any games you might recommend as 'easier' ones to get tickets to? Or, is our stadium not as packed as I would have imagined from my TV screen? Any other information like cheapest recommended way of travel from Amsterdam to London (would be there for a few nights first) would be appreciated as well. Thank you.

vermaelen, vertonghen and agger. all frustrated by lack of first team action or being played out of position. cheeky bids?

if we were selling shaw, I would rather take cash without any player swaps. we are definitely going to need the money to bring in a replacement of the same level. only once we secured a replacement then do we think about using any excess money, if any. no point having de bruyne in attack when we have fox as our first choice lb.

think he's better than the jleague, can do a good job at a top half championship side or in the main leagues of holland and France. if not for his wanting first team football I would have preferred keeping him as backup

lol so what were you expecting? a 6-0 hammering of a good championship team? would you have imploded if you were a man city fan today?

true only if the other teams have stood still, but fact is they have improved their squads as well.

shows what we were up against when chelsea could take off mata and schurle and bring on oscar and willian! anyway, we are feeling slightly disappointed only because of the increased expectations brought on by our impressive start to the season. it has been a tough run of games against the likes of arsenal, chelsea (x2), city, newcastle, spurs and everton since the end of november and this has to be taken into perspective when considering our recent form. overall I wouldn't say we have done very well over that tough set of fixtures but we have done okay, not being overrun by the big clubs and picking up points where we should against cardiff and newcastle (villa game being the only disappointment) However that is now past us and we can now look towards picking up some form from a relatively easier run of games ahead. If we do continue to struggle and not pick up wins in the next two months, then perhaps we should have a right to be worried, but I'm fairly confident from the way our team has played and with key injured players coming back that we should be able to pick up a decent amount of wins from here on. perhaps one or two signings would help to refresh the squad, maybe a top keeper to instil the confidence back into our defence. But we're fine, really. we will finish around 8-10th and rightly so because our squad is good enough, just not good enough to be fighting for european spots. that is all.

most disappointing has to be the villa game... they literally converted all 3 of their chances to win the game while 90% of the game was spent with us passing the ball around outside box trying to pass it into goal...

so... you just proved my point? read the full post...

see alot of foreign based players being mentioned however I feel we should be signing proven players in this league who can make an immediate impact and help us improve on our final league position. don't want to end up with the scenario whereby the player takes the rest of the season attempting to adapt to the style of the league and becoming another forren. that should be left to the summer window where signings get a proper preseason and a whole season to slowly adapt and make an impact gradually. all IMO of course

if he really is available, man city would swoop in for him. then we could swoop in for one of hart or pantilimon

like shaw was thrown in at the deep end last season when fox was injured, same has happened with chambers and I can only see him getting better next season just like shaw. this is truly a dream scenario isn't it, having at least one young player promoted to the first team every season and proving to be more than capable to hold down a starting spot. who's next! Sam Gallagher? Harrison reed?

showed great character to not let our heads down after going behind so early in the game and we definitely deserved our point if not more. Very good result considering the injuries, might have gotten more if our injured players were available? motm for me chambers, looked like he had been playing in the top flight for years. so proud of our academy grads

this game brought back dark and painful memories of the early days of last season, conceding way too many goals mostly as a result of individual errors, and not tight enough at the back. the record of one of europes best defence destroyed in a matter of 3 games. Watching the game, felt we were mugged, however have to admit that we allowed ourselves to be mugged really. Defensive errors plus inability to convert our chances. - Yoshida 1/10: barely had much to do and when called into action, faltered so badly - Possession: I was rightly corrected in the match thread that having the bulk of it counts for nothing if chances are not converted. - Jan transfer window: Definitely need some action in the window to shake things up a bit and freshen up the squad. Injuries starting to pile up as well, are the replacements able to step up? (Evidence so far show otherwise) - Lambert: Loss of form is becoming quite a concern, if he doesn't pick up, he might not stand a chance of making it to Brazil.

f*cking nightmare from yoshida........ i have never seen such a one sided game ending in a loss for the dominant team. xmas come early for villa

come on... it's not like we're playing terribly?! we're getting 70+% possession. all villa are doing are defending the whole of this first half except for that counter attack... anyone reading this thread would think we're getting pummeled

Gazza. Boruc's injury has presented him with a chance for him to prove himself and for the management to take another look at him since the debacle last season. We are not in a relegation fight and are definitely not going to be challenging for the title/champions league spot anytime soon, so you can say the points against the likes of city and spurs in the next few weeks are not entirely crucial. best case scenario, we find a gem of a keeper (ala shaw after fox's injury) or worst case we confirm gazza's not up to it and look to move him on eventually and continue the search for next understudy to boruc.

loss was inevitable the moment boruc went off, you could see in the body language of the players, they looked deflated. it's not that gazza is sh!t, he just doesn't give the defence the confidence that boruc does, and that leads to the defenders making uncharacteristic errors and subsequently concede goals. fitness is starting to prove an important factor as well. like many have predicted, it was questionable if we could keep up the pressing game for 90 mins every game for the rest of the season after a dream start in the 1st quarter of the season. no matter how much poch's pre-season fitness regime can improve the players' fitness, they are not going to turn into superhumans and maintain the pressing game all 38 games. you could see towards the end of the game, fatigue was starting to set in and players were misplacing passes. this is possibly a weakness in the otherwise effective pressing game that we have, and probably where strength in depth comes in which we do not have especially in defence and attack.