I've seen him linked with a move to either Galatasaray or Fenerbahce. Anyone getting the feeling the dodged bullet thread is missing someone?
West Brom make 8 changes from their last game and Berahino still doesn't get a start. Pulis singles him out in the pre-match interviews too, having a pop at him for something that's left unexplained. He's "lucky to make the bench", apparently. £3m bid in January, perhaps?
I would like the record to show that I regrettably withdrew my sponsorship of this thread after RCL was indicted for accepting bribes to drum up support for FIFA presidency hopeful, Mr Tokyo Sexwale. The Blatter scandal has reached the shores of our humble forum, it would seem.
No thanks. He’ll take minutes away from Son. Let him go to a club that has to take risks on talented malcontents.
Was just reading reports about the rain and gales in the north (where there be dragons) and a thought crossed my mind. Dwight Gale for back-up to Kane? Doesn't have the best scoring record but ticks a load of boxes. Barely plays for Palace anymore, young, home grown, bags of pace and always struck me as a really hard worker comfortable drifting wide or playing off the shoulder of the last man. Also has a bit of strength to him. Knows the league, already based in London, easily affordable wages... It's a long shot but...
...dammit, I already eviscerated the speculation about Wimmer being loaned to OM in another thread. Axel Witsel has confirmed he wants to leave Zenit in January, although both Chelsea and Milan are considering bids - although in Milan's case any move rests on them selling Diego Lopez and Keisuke Honda in January, so on that basis it's currently between us and Chelsea. On the subject of speculation that doesn't make any sense, there's one thing that's been bugging me about a lot of the strikers we've been linked with for January: Batshuayi, Embolo and Baradi are all expected to cost at least £20m, which considering they'd be playing second fiddle to Kane makes as much sense as paying £16.5m for Barren Dent when we had Berbatov, Keane and Defoe at the club. This is why moves for Pato, Dembele II and Sandro Ramirez sound more likely, as any of those players being signed both makes far more sense from a financial standpoint, plus by having a player who doesn't have a £20m+ price tag around their neck greatly reduces the pressure on the player to perform as well as on Poch to play them regularly.
It's a really tough call for them because whilst he can leave for free in the summer, is it worth it for them to cash in no more than £10m for him now and thereby almost certainly scupper their best chance of getting back to the PL next season? They're too far adrift from Middlesborough and Derby to go for automatic promotion, yet - despite languishing in 13th - are only 7 points off of the play off zone. There's no way in hell they can close that gap without Austin's goals; and promotion to the PL is worth far more than whatever they'd receive for him now. My head tells me they need a few years of transition before they can mount a promotion charge again, and will cash in on him now to help fund that. My heart tells me they still believe promotion can happen this year, and will hold onto him as a necessity to achieve this. In other news, Naismith moves to Norwich. Good signing for them.
It was a legit payment for services rendered in 2002 actually and you'll be hearing from my lawyers in the morning unless you make a payment to the charity of my choice. .. namely Charity Against Human Slavery. .. make cheque payable to C.A.S.H
He'll do a good job for you. No offence but some of your current team are frankly ****e. He's definitely PL quality, just absolutely not for a top half team, let alone a team pushing for CL. If it goes through you'll have replaced Hull as our official B team
Townsend can be a very effective player in a system that suits him and he'll have a point to prove, too. Leaving Spurs will give him one kick up the arse and trying to keep his place in the England squad will give him another. Stick him on the left, get him running at defenders and play two up top, which Allardyce favours. He's perfectly capable of returning to form and doing a good job for you. Too one dimensional on the right in a 4-2-3-1, which is all he's been used for in our squad recently. Plus, he's capable of scoring goals like this in Sunderland games:
I wouldn't play him before Johnson and Watmore on the wings and he's probably about the same level as Borini. He's not going to improve our first team, but he will improve the quality of our squad.
Watmore is a bright prospect. I'd thought he was more of a central player but I stand corrected. Andros would definitely be a good option to have on the bench if you're chasing a game. Not a good option if you're looking to see out a narrow win or a draw as he contributes next to nothing defensively, but a good impact sub to run at tired legs. I'd personally prefer him to be used as a makeweight in a deal for Berahino as that would kill two birds with one stone for us. From the little I've seen of you this season I would've thought that the key area in need of strengthening is your defence as they have been appalling at times. I don't rate Coates at all and O'Shea and Kaboul are past it. Best of luck tonight - prove me wrong by winning 6-0
If people let me know who has been signed and who has been sold as well as those returning from loans and going out on loan I will try my best to update the front page during the window. Cheers
except to say that Watford (who start two of our castofsf) are more surprising to me this year than Leicester. PNP said it, play him on the f#cking left. He’s much better there. So much so you might just find you have a really good player. One of our interesting features the last couple of years is that we only buy left-sided midfielders, so anyone who can play on the right, even a little, does. Lamela has finally made the right side work for him, but Townsend never did, and looked far better on the left the few times we played him there.
