Looks like him and Clayton have similar styles. If we get Clayton you could be right Nin. He gave us 2 good years and was a vital part of our promotion side but all good things come to an end.
Gunner has had a shocker of a season. If anything hes better further forward. I wouldnt have him anywhere near a defensive midfield role. Too slow , players go past him too easily and gives away free kicks. I thought he played ok v Chelsea in the attacking midfield role. But im sure Mason and others could play it much better. Id be trying to move Gunner on.
You pay what you can afford and what he may do for the team. A 20+ striker may help us get back up. Worth it then Swim? Wonder if Huw will open his wallet when Bony goes......
Whittingham is probably one of the finest penalty takers in the country. My point is Grabban is/was the Cherries penalty takers so the 20 or so goals he scored last year is a bit misleading as quite a few of those were from the spot. Cambell will score 20 with no penalties. Hope he is not a waste of Money.
Bluey - wasn't suggesting that Grabban was a big time Charlie - quite the opposite. I'd have thought he was just the right sort of hungry player with ability from the lower reaches who wants to aspire to the best. I meant we don't need to go for players players who might have done it in the Prem earlier in their careers, and as a result demand high salaries as a "pension fund" on their way down. Fowler/JFH spring to mind. Let's face it, anyone capable of playing in the Prem would want to stay there if they could hack it - the problem would be that clubs already up there wouldn't think so and they'd be looking for a big meal ticket elsewhere.
To be fair to him though, how many of those pens did he win? I haven't got a clue and you're right to highlight pen taking in goal totals but if he won 80% of them then he still should take the credit.
I'll let you off then Sparks. Isaw makes a good point about penalties. It would be useful to see how many of his 20+ were pens last season. Got to hope the refs take a different view to those in the Prem as far as we are concerned. Didn't Whitts get about 10 from pens 3 years ago? I've seen Whitts miss a couple in his time. An evening game at Palace 3 or 4 years ago sticks in my mind. Would have got a 1 - 1 draw if he had notched. Speaking of penalties did you see the 2 Benfica misses in the shoot out last night? One awful pen but the other the keeper saved by narrowing the angle and was almost at the edge of the 6 yars box when he got a touch on the ball. Do they bother with rules in Europe?
Also FC has never scored more than 15 goals in a season in English football, with single figures being a much more likely outcome most years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraizer_Campbell
So the song should be: - " Fraizier Campbell won't always score goals"!!! In fairness he has had a few major injuries in his career but did score 24 in 38 games, including cups, for Royal Antwerp. I know you said English football Steve. His career average strike rate is one goal every 3.2 games which is just about what he has achieved with us. With Hull he got one evry 2.5 games so perhaps that makes him more attractive to them. If he goes, good luck to the guy. He could never be accused of not trying his hardest for us in very tough circumstances this season. Never mind Masky, FC was the Lone Ranger.
Cardiff City are believed to have triggered the release clause in Lewis Grabban's contract at Bournemouth with a £3million offer. Solskjaer swoops for Cherries hitman Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's side are set to beat Middlesbrough to the signature of the 26-year-old striker after pitching their bid at the right amount to seal a deal. Grabban is on holiday at the moment but is expected to head to Wales when he returns to discuss personal terms with the Bluebirds. The Cherries hitman, who joined Bournemouth from Rotherham for £300,000 two years ago, had a stunning season in the Championship, scoring 22 goals. If the transfer does go through as expected, he will become Solskjaer's second striker signing after the manager confirmed that Cardiff had Real Valladolid's Javi Guerra on a 'watertight' pre-contract agreement. It had previously been reported in Spain that the deal might collapse because of City's relegation from the Premier League but the club appear confident that the move will still happen http://www.clubcall.com/cardiff-city/solskjaer-swoops-for-cherries-hitman-1725675.html EDIT - Merged this Jay just to keep the Grabban thing on one thread.
15 in 34 plus 7 in 12 is an excellent return, i'd much rather keep campbell who we know will score a minimum of 20 next year, than sell and bring in another player who could be the next maynard and never look like scoring…..
Don't know why we are signing another striker really, we need to sort the midfield out first. Maynard, Mason and Campbell will all score goals in the championship and the other striker we'e just signed!!
I worry about paying £3 million for a bloke who had one good season and didn't look much up till then. Danny Graham - vastly over-priced when Swans signed him after one good year. Jason Scotland - Jacks committed a criminal offence getting £3 million for him from Wigan, as he was never more than Championship level - and only had one good year. Both went on to flop. One season does not make a proven goal scorer. If Grabban plays off the shoulder, just think about the goal that Campbell scored in the last game of promotion at Hull, and the goal he scored against Mancscum United. I doubt very much that Grabban will have that sort of quality - which Campbell showed occasionally even though he was living off scraps for most of his time here. Campbell didn't score many - but he looks the biz. I'd rather us sign a player with a longer proven track record - or somebody who looks like he's got that sort of quality already. Malky's gone - I don't want us to get suckered again on strikers: Veronica, Cornelius. Wish we'd kept Gestede, that would be £3 million we'd have saved.
If the £800k clause exists then FC is gone. He's enough of a handful for a low end PL side to pay that just to have him in the squad. I think it was a Sunderland fan who said before we played them first time that FC had put in his 'one good performance v man city'. That is over harsh but the point is valid He looks a world beater at some points then reverts to a player that looks like with out his physical attributes would do well to play conference on talent alone. His confidence is low but he's been ****ing awful for the last 3 months. We've attacked and made chances but he's been ****. No amount of running around can cover that up. If others with more talent had tried as hard then we would have had a better chance but the complete lack of quality upfront was always going to cause us big problems. Especially when Ole tried to fix it by deserting our defensive principals but that's another story. I've already said I know nothing about Grabbon but I'm ready for something new upfront because we haven't had a striker worthy of the name for 3 seasons + I think FC would score more in the championship than the PL but hes never achieved what Grabbon did last season. That's why I can't agree he's guaranteed to score 20+ anywhere!
If FC's release clause is less than a million he will be gone. Therefore bringing in another striker is good business. We should have 5 quality strikers on our books because I am pretty sure Ole wants to play 2 up front. But we really really need to sort out the midfield. I hope to see at least 2 new signings who have speeeeed in the middle of the park. Just add two pacy players will make such a difference to our whole outlook. The more I think about the squad Malky built, I do wonder what his vision of a team was.
