El Hamdaoui ... Cottager, the price is right, but there's no place for him. Who's he going to replace in the lineup? He'd be playing behind BZ, AJ, Sa and the entire Dempsey/Dembele/Ruiz triumvirate. We shouldn't buy if we're not selling. Besides, if a bottle of wine is priced like vinegar, it's going to taste like vinegar. They player we should have bought went to Newcastle - Papa Cisse.
The wine/vinegar thing is classic DR - nice. Would El Hamdaoui be behind AJ and Sa for a starting place though, DR? I thought he sounded pretty good. I also thought he was already at Ajax and they wanted to sell him, or am I completely misreading your post, Cottager?
If El Ham was going to come to us he'd have come in the summer. Jol has already bought him twice, so he knows him well. He's also already had a crack at England, which didn't go well, so DR is probably right, he probably is Sarsons. I was enthusiastic about him coming before but now I'm not nearly as much.
If El Hamdaoui was playing a bit more regularly MJ might consider him. He has fallen out of favour with Ajax manager Frank De Boer since the start of the season but if at full fitness he would definitely be ahead of AJ and Sa. Our Moussa has said that El Hamdaoui is the best player he has ever played with. I think he would be worth a punt in the summer and get a good pre-season under him but not in January considering he hasn't played all season.
A couple pieces of information after yesterday's game: First, Jol said in the news conference that he wants to keep AJ and BZ, which is not surprising considering the thrashing those two gave the Newcastle back line. Second, he's issued a hands-off warning over Dempsey - also no big surprise.
We had been mentioned as interested in Crystal Palace's Clyne - apparently he is in talks with Man U at a rumoured £3m. Other strong rumour today is that Dickson is on his way, possibly to Turkey.
He has been a good servant to us since he came but the harsh truth is that there is no place for Dickson in the team anymore, Murphy, Sidwell, Baird and Gecov are all above him in the pecking order. Still can't believe we managed to get him off Sunderland in exchange for David Healy!
To be fair, when we signed Dickson his reputation was for having a first touch so bad that every second touch was a tackle. As I recall, no one could believe Roy saw him as the replacement for Jimmy Bullard, but after much training ground work he emerged as an excellent player in a particular role in Roy's system. I'll be sorry to see him go, but I agree that we have other strong options for his position, so we can afford to do without him.
