If Leds has definitely done his hamstring then that confirms it: get Samba in ASAP. Less convinced with James Collins. And I personally think Ba will be heading to WHL, although the revisited interest in Remy may be a distraction.
Why would you want to sell Kranjcar, YV? He'd walk into most club's first teams and he's willing to stay as back-up. I'd like to see him playing more often, both to keep him happy and to avoid any more of our players burning out.
Couldn't agree more. The gooners have a thread on whether they should take him, and the consensus was no. Which I am pleased about, cause he would improve them a great deal. Didn't say that to them though!
Yeah absoultely, you could tell the time out has affected him. I'm not a fan of Pienaar mate but he didn't play bad to be honest. Made a few stray passes but put in a shift. Main thing he annoys me with is his constant "sideways" play, very rarely do I see him make a forward pass. Agree they both look better centrally.
Only for a decent price of course. Niko doesn't fit in anymore, he's best as back up for VDV if we use him properly but we go 442 when VDV is out with Defoe effectively his replacement. I'd rather we had a fast winger that doesn't change our playing style so much when he's in the team.
I still remember when he deputised for Modric for a few months, a couple of seasons ago. He was superb and scored some important goals too. Didn't he also come on and score a couple of winners from long range last season? He needs to be rotated with VdV, Modric and Bale so that all 3 don't get burned out by the 2nd half of the season (like last season) and so he gets match-fit. A match-fit Kranjcar is a commodity i'd like on our bench and anyone who says otherwise clearly has a short memory. Had he been used a lot more last season then I think we would have made the CL again.
I don't understand why there hasn't been more interest in Samba either, with Chelsea, Man Utd and Arsenal all looking weak at the back. Perhaps waiting for Blackburn to be relegated so he can be picked up on the cheap.
Good points, I certainly haven't forgotten how good he was 2 years ago, particularly against City at home which was a crucial game to keep us in the mix for 4th. However, much like Crouch, Keane and Corluka I think it's come to the point where he's just not needed anymore. He might be able to play centre mid against Cheltenham adequetly but he's too slow for the PL and struggled in our opening two games. On the left he's no kind of replacement for Bale and as with playing Modric or VDV out wide you lose some width and the change in shape makes it more difficult to break teams down that defend in numbers against us, which is most teams. He's an option to have in the VDV role but with Defoe being the prefered choice and another striker set to come in, I'd rather we got rid and put the money towards Hoilett. Otherwise we either need to start playing him a lot more or we're just waiting until the next time he kicks up a fuss about lack of matches.
A season or two ago there was, but for whatever reason all the clubs have forgotten about him and have begun obsessing over Gary Cahill.
Luke & WY- if we are truly interested in those players i"m sure Harry & DL will be working on it. Spurs don't play out transfers in the media like some other clubs I won't mention. Also we don't get in there do the deal and get out- we do lets get the best deal even its last minute.
Krancjar is far better than Hoilett and offers a different option. He's got a good shot from distance and as PNP said, is good at set pieces. But you're right, we do need to start playing him and as far as I can remember he played perfectly well against premiership teams. You say he wasn't too good in the first couple games but then who was? We were missing Sandro through injury and Parker hadn't joined yet. I'm sure that played with a decent holding midfielder he will be more than up to the task. As I said earlier some people have short memories.
FYI 'Arry has just been on SSN and was asked what he knew about Ba's £7mill release clause his response was that the papers seem to all have contradicting figures on his clause and that Ba and Newcastle are probably the only parties that know what it actually is. Looks like the Sun/Mirror/whoever were talking out of their 'Arris. Apparently we were interested in Remy about 2 years ago, we still like him but there's no talks.
I take everything that Redknapp says with a pinch of salt, when it comes to transfers. All of that could mean that we've got no interest in any of the players mentioned or that we've virtually signed all of them. If we really want to sign Ba and we're not sure what his release clause is, then all we have to do is bid a million at a time! £1m? No. £2m? No. £3m? No. £4m? No. £5m? Hang on, I'll just check the small print....
Ba, Hoilet, Samba = CL simples. With that champs league money we can pay for Ade We can still ofload Corluca, Jenas, Bentley, Kranjcar + Gio to pay for it all.
Alternatively I believe by law Newcastle must adhere to the "getting warmer/colder" method for bidding clubs
Very good. Are you sure that they don't use the Bruce Forsyth Play Your Cards Right method, though? £10m, you say? Do you want to go higher or lower? Lower? You've got £7m! Lower than £7m? Are you sure, Harry?
That's how they do it in Spain.... Hence Rafa for 8mill and Ronaldo for 80! (worth every penny though)
