Yes, buddy, I know. We're thick skinned (shelled?) us crustaceans, so sticks and stones and all that malarkey.....
Slightly off topic, but not worthy of a new thread - I've a mate who's a Blues fan (Birmingham) and his Mum is friends with Mrs Redmond (they used to work together) and they met a couple of weeks ago. Nathan's Mum was saying how happy he is in Norwich and wants to stay here. Let's hope his agent doesn't try to scupper that!!!
That's great news JR. It seems that Celtic may have a choice of swap deals involving Virgil van Dijk, as Sunderland could offer Steven Fletcher in their deal according to a Northumberland paper: http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/spor...derland-battling-norwich-city-celtic-9495893?
Apparently we have asked Rochdale for permission to discuss terms with James Hooper, a young midfielder. Any info?
James Hooper is listed as a forward in the U21 development list on Rochdale's wiki page. No page of his own. Whilst there I noticed that Ian Henderson still plays for Rochdale and scored 22 goals in 44 games last year.
I'd also heard Fletcher's wages were beyond Celtic. Although it's not like Sunderland couldn't pay a portion initially, like Spurs did for Bassong. Depends on their interest in van Dijk I guess. James Hooper sounds like another youngster to be loaned out and never seen at Carrow Road.
Surely we've learned a lesson from the Louis Thompson sketch? Why sign a young player, then loan him back out again? This undermines the entire ethos of having a cat 1 academy set up. Youth 'waiting in the wings' for first team experience should ideally be a product of that - if not, what's the point?
I think the point is to buy for small sums from cash strapped clubs, let the player develop in an environment their comfortable in, and hope he either develops into a player who could feature in the first team squad, or his value has gone up enough we can sell at a profit. Thompson and McGrandles seem like business signings, rather than footballing ones.
Couple of minor rumours cropping up about Dame N'Doye and Daryl Murphy. Suspect there's nothing in either of them. At least I hope not.
So that's us interested in N'Doye, Murphy, McCormack, Guidetti, Brady, Van Dijk, James Hooper, Mulumbu, Yedlin ............ have I missed anyone ?
And that's after Alex Neil said he was going to stay with the nucleus of the squad that got NCFC promoted
Well we're still expecting around 5-7 new faces according to McNally. In contrast QPR made 17 signings, and Palace 16!
Well four of that list are strikers and I doubt we'd go for more than one, one is clearly for the future, the others seem wholly reasonable.