Lille strikeforce: Sow what?

Reports today linking us to Lille's main men, but £40m? Now I would love to see them both at the toon but this for me is a massive gamble. Throw into that the ACN break and the fact that although they are banging them in for fun, it still is only Ligue 1. Thoughts on Pardew's interest in the duo?

 

Get Hazard

 

Not worth 40mil (given that is around 114% of our budget), unless Ashley happens to be giving us an extra 20million to spend on top of the Carroll money...

 

We won't sign both of them, no club would sell both their strikers at the same time. I honestly know nothing about Sow, but Gervinho looks class. I think one striker is enough for the summer, there's no point splashing out on two expensive strikers when one of them isn't going to play (no system is going to accomodate Nolan, Ben Arfa and two strikers), one will do providing he isn't injury prone, and then have Ameobi, Best and Ranger as backup.

 

Would love to see them both here, especially Gervinho! But again, the 40m price tag is a bit much.
Still though, a rather exciting article if I'm honest.
"spearheading a 40m-rated Magpies attack next season" - how often are we gonna be able to read that?

 

Sign Gervinho maybe try to hassle Chelsea on a Aarnholt season long loan with a view to buy clause, and a RM id be happy

 

How about:

--------Barton--Tiote--Nolan

Gervinho---------Sow--------Ben Arfa

?

That said I still think it would be ludicrous to spend more than our budget on 2 strikers when we need 4-5 players.

 

These reports just clearly aren't true, unless we're getting more money on top of this 40m, or we're getting them for less than 40m, as Pards said himself we're looking for 4-5 players. He wouldn't blow it all (plus more) on 2 players.

Good to see us repeatedly linked to Gervinho though!

 

-----------Tiote--------------
Barton-----Nolan----Ben Arfa--
-----Gervinho---Sow----------

OR

------------Tiote-------------
-----Barton------Nolan------
----------Ben Arfa-----------
----Gervinho---- Sow-------

That would take out the need for standard wingers and encourage us to play passing football through the midfield. I don't think Gervinho or Sow are the kind of players who would rely on crosses from the flanks - especially with Ben Arfa feeding the ball through in an AM role.

 

Yes, I wouldnt want both. I would take Gervinho on the basis that he's been good for a few years now, well 2 years anyway. Gervinho for £15m, a right mid for 10m and RB/LB cover and a new CB - 10m.

 

This thread is descending into Tash porn. I was thinking something like:

Harper
Simpson Samba Coloccini Enrique
Ben Arfa Barton Tiote Nolan Jonas
Gervinho/Ba

That formation, maybe with different signings.

 

Unless Gervinho is **** hot, I'd preferably want two people directly attacking the goal. Unless of course we went with a double AM setup:

--Barton----Tiote-----Jonas---
--------Nolan---Ben Arfa------
-----------Gervinho-----------

That would be sweet.

PS: Formation porn is awesome. Just embrace it.

 

Tashs perfect porn tall lass and a small lad standing in front of a whiteboard discussing formations

 

And the small lad writing down tactics for set pieces whilst slipping her a cheeky finger or two.

Even I'd be up for some of that.

 

Or:

Barton Tiote Nolan
Ben Arfa Gervinho Jonas

It's a flexible line up.

 

I'd rather play Gervinho and HBA on either side of a striker. Wouldn't wanna play Gervinho up front on his own.
If push came to shove and this is what we got I wouldn't be unhappy. Love the look of some of these formations. These two could easily be the difference next season between mid table and europe. We do need to bulk out the squad though.
This price tag would suggest we're getting more money though? If so, spend big on these then look for just cheaper squad players?

 

Hey look at what the mackems have done they practically have a team of loanees

 

Is Gervinho an out and out centre forward though? He's hardly prolific 45 goals from 173 appearances in the Belgian & French leagues.

We need a big strong centre forward along the lines of Shearer or the gypsy boy, they've always done well for us whereas we've tried smaller trickier forwards in the past and the only one that really worked was Tino.

 

Yes, but the problem with that is if they do well, bigger clubs coming calling and get the player.

 

Isn't that what Carroll (valued at £39.99m) was doing with Ameoobi (valued at £3.50)?