Thanks for the warm welcome guys! I would say that Stokes is better at shooting than Hooper, but Hooper is better at finishing? I know it sounds odd but you expect Hooper to score when in the box. I've seen Stokes score more spectacular goals/ long shots. Overall though i would say that hooper is faster has more composure and is maybe more aware in the box than stokes. If I compared him to Jelavic when he was here I would say that what Hooper lacks in strength to Jelavic he makes up in pace. Problem would be that Celtic wouldnt want to sell a prized asset and i dont blame them. Anyone heard of this Sagbo Fella? 24 and scored 10 goals for a not so great team last year?
Thanks for such a good summing up conzo. Especially pleasing to see your comments about Stokes (Bandit are you there ?), who I thought we should have bought in January. No seriously, from what you say Hooper does seem to be the one worth going after. Do you think, with all the trauma going on in the SPL and money (from all sources) likely to be tight, that Celtic would be more open now to a reasonable offer? Mind, I don't think Fulham have had any scouts North of the Border for many a year - most of our involvent recently (like Fyvie of Aberdeen and Dalla Valle being loaned to the Tangerines) has been through individual contacts - so the Club probably probably aren't even aware of him. Pity. If you believe the papers, Fulham have shown more than just an interest in Sagbo over the last few days. Looks like we'll make a bid but I suspect less than the £3.5m valuation.
I have the 'no swearing' filter on, and it has starred out the second-through-to-fifth-letters of 'Scunthorpe'. Over-zealous?
Doesn't star the letters for me, although it will for you and your Scunthorpe appears starred to me in your posts. Odd that it shouldn't let me see what you write. I would have thought the filter would only have applied to what you can see.
Not saying they're on the same level, for example, Southampton wouldn't bid anywhere near £7m for a player like Stokes. I wouldn't mind Hooper here actually, I just think he's reluctant to move from a league where he has a chance of being the top goalscorer every season.
Yeah, I could understand why he might be hesitant to move, there is afterall the lure of possible champions league football. Also even with the current farce the spl and sfl are going through Celtic are still maintaining that they are under no real financial pressure, so i couldnt hazard a guess at a suitable fee. On another note Lukaku scored 2 today and seems to have had a good match according to various sources, I personally would like to see him here but admitedly i go into "football manager" mode during the transfer season and want everyone decent to sign.
I'd love Lukaku at CC, but not on loan. If he does well for us, he'll be gone at the end of the season and Chelsea will be stronger for it. The trade-off isn't quite worth it for me.
I'm not so sure Bidley. Lukaku was a AVB signing not Di Matteo, so who knows if he rates him or not. Under Daglish you'd have tipped Carroll to be a big player for Liverpool this season but now Rodgers is there he looks to be on his way out. I expect Chelsea to spend big this season on strikers to replace Drogba so Lukaku could find himself way down the pecking order even if he does do well here.
Maybe a year long loan with an option to buy at, say, £15m? Obviously that's a huge amount to us, but if he does turn out to be brilliant it would be preferable to have that option to keep him around. And since Chelsea paid £18m for him, I imagine they wouldn't really accept less. The thing is that we need someone beyond Trotta to compete with Hugo. Petric is more likely to play in a Dempsey like role, in my opinion. The question is whether Lukaku would be a legitimate option up front or whether he'd be a development player like Trotta. If the former, sign him up. If the latter, pass on by.
I'd be shocked if Chelsea were putting him out on loan with a view to getting rid of him. They paid big money for him when he was one of, if not THE hottest prospect in Europe. He's still only 19 and not really had much of a chance at Chelsea, they clearly want him loaned out to get more experience and competitive game time. Of course, I'm happy to be wrong if we end up signing him up - he's like a young Drogba, but pacier.
I think Lukaku’s a good player and has bags of potential given he is only 19… I see a load of sites are linking us with a loan move with I’d personally be against it. I’m not a big fan of loaning in players unless it’s with the option to purchase at the end of the load period – which with Lukaku is extremely unlikely... When you sign a loan player you may get a temporary lift but you are just really putting off finding a permanent player to fill that role. If we get Lukaku on load and he scores 25 goals for us it works out well for us other the short term but really only Chelsea gain, and he leaves CC for nothing. We are then back to square one having to find a striker and long term it prevent us building a decent squad. Bolton survived for the last few seasons (up to last season) on loan signings and then every season had to bring new plays in, it prevented them building a proper squad and they went down.
I'm not too sure on this one. I think if you asked any Bolton fan if them having Wilshire and Sturridge on loan hindered them they would say no, in fact both players were probably the reasons behind them doing so well the past two seasons (excluding last season) The fact that they come in for free means the manager has more money to spend to look at possible replacements, which Coyle should have done as he knew he would not be able to sign either player permanently. They went down because they replaced Sturridge with N'Gog.
After hearing Lukaku's interview on SSN, I don't think we should be interested. He clearly wants to stay at Chelsea and is just looking for somewhere to show what he can do (like Sturridge). I'd much prefer for us to identify a real long term striker option to compete with Hugo and Trotta.
Dunno if it has been said in here yet but apparently we have put a bid in for Douglas from FC Twente, i remember see him against us he looked a very solid and tall defender, if we sign him then we will have a good partnership in BH and Him,
He would be a great signing, but I think he'd be destined for bigger clubs than us, sadly. He's been linked with a few big clubs in the past, he'd be a decent signing if he's as good as I (vaguely) remember.
