It really is encouraging to see us linked with Rhodes whilst Stoke look to be signing Shaqiri and Swansea sign Ayew.
Stoke are doing some good business, Sparky using his contacts at Barca by the looks of it, for a couple of their players. Then Shaqiri as you say, maybe as a neutral I won't hate Stoke so much if they steer away from being the BPL bully boys and start playing some decent football.
THIS, THIS & THIS. It's a sad state of affairs when smaller clubs (arguably) are signing players we can only dream about being linked with let alone sign. What good is spending £8m on a Championship striker when we've got 2 on the bench already I know he's a crazy bastard but Monty keeps mentioning Borini & Austin. Spend the £20m on them I say. It's better than what we have & if Dick is intent on playing this 4-3-3 then rotating a 4 of Defoe, Lens, Austin & Borini is a damn sight better than Graham & Fletcher. Also a creative midfielder and a LB is needed for me.
If he wants a player to play up top and lead the line he needs to get his money out for Austin its as simple as that. Rhodes is not that sort of player. I expect in this case it's lazy journalism so not too much to worry about. Austin is going to be 15m plus some very big wages, let's say it takes 80k a week to get him here on a 5 year deal. Thats 20m over 5 years, so 4m a year plus 15m up front fee. Lets face it we are going to be spending 4m a year trying to get someone else in who can score those goals if we don't sign Austin. Get Fletcher and Graham gone as I bet their wages add up to 80k a week. To me its a no brainer, act now and act decisively.
Not Rhodes for me. We have an amazing poacher in Defoe, for when we go two up top. We need a Zlatan type to play off (Kevin Davies at the other end of the financial spectrum, I don't think we're shopping in the Ibrahimovic department right now) Somewhere between the two is most likely
I said Lambert from Liverpool ages ago, he would be perfect for Defoe but a few of lads on here never fancied the idea. How many would go for him now knowing what we have?
I agree with a lot of what you've said here but who in their right mind would take Fletcher and Graham on big wages? We'd probably still struggle to shift them if they were on 20k each, I can't see us getting rid of both unless we heavily subsidise their wages for the rest of the year. For me the club need to accept that the mistakes of the past are biting them in the arse financially in the present, accept that we're going to run over the wage budget for the year and as you've said offer some big money contracts to tempt some better players to the club (whether that is Austin or some one else). We've been massively fortunate to stay in the league the past couple of seasons and I can't see us being lucky 3 years running without adding a good bit of quality to that team so Mr Short needs to put his hand in his pocket.
Rhodes would be lost in 433 at this level. If that's the master plan we are ****ed. We need someone big who could bring the ball down, bring people around him into play, link up and get on the end of crosses. Charles Tiberius Austin
I think Fletcher and Defoe will do for now, if we could give them decent service. Its in defence and mid field were we need the biggest investment imo.
Agreed !...Yes Fletcher looks lazy at times, but I'd rather we utilised Giac in the hole somehow to see how he feeds the top two and if they don't come up with goods then yes we revamp of our fire power.
Giacherinni is a star quality player. He is woefully underused and light years ahead of Rodwell. He could be the spark we need if only he was given a good run in the team. He could be a brilliant No. 10
Obviously mate but I mean when he's been fit he's struggled to make a team with no flair or creativity which is regrettable. Now he's fit I hope he gets a decent run in the team.
In his first season he started to come good once he'd gotten used to the League a bit more before he got injured. Might be wrong but he was used predominantly as an impact sub and did quite well. I'd have him playing ahead of Johnson all day - and that's ahead of a fully fit & firing Johnson, not the one we saw on Saturday by all accounts (I didn't see the game,thankfully).
