Optimistic Nut

Straight swap for Chimbonda = deal.

You could argue then, how come Newcastle can draw home & away with Arsenal and Arsenal stuff Reading on their own patch?

Agreed, and one of the reasons why Drogba might just nick it ahead of Ronaldo because at the time, the press were creaming about Drogba.

What happened to that Miles Stansforth bloke? He always seemed to talk a lot of sense in the Chronicle whenever he took over from Oliver on his holidays.

Especially when you consider the standard of his team-mates, and that in 70% of his matches he'd have came up against better sides than his own.

We weren't complaining at the time ... £5m for a player like that is too good to pass up. Nobody predicted he'd be so shit though... And at the time, how many were complaining when we signed Luque, Marcelino & Boumsong?

Not wilfully wasting money...yeah, so let's spend £5m on a left-winger when our best player of the previous season plays there, plus having Dyer & Milner who can cover in that role when we could have signed a full-back and/or a centre-back with that money.

Daily Mirror saying £3m to Arsenal in the summer.

Been mentioned before and I have to agree. The same goes for signing players like Luque (who I think people know I'm not a big fan of) then spending no time, money and effort on making sure the lad is getting settled and is as happy as he can be in a new environment. Madness. This is another great point and has been going on for a while now. One of my old teachers used to live opposite Marcelino, and when he first arrived, the club did feck all to help him find a school for his kids which I could imagine would have been a tricky job for someone who couldn't speak English.

Don't think he's clever enough to play mind-games. I just think he's a prick.

Just a few weeks after he slagged Gareth Southgate off for resting key players against Man City, he's confirmed he'll be resting a few of his players tonight against Man Utd. So I don't suppose he'll mind at all if Mourinho has a go at him in the next few days then.

Slightly off topic, but just brought into my head the argument people have that Martins only needs a bit of coaching and he'll be a top top striker. Well he was an Inter first-team squad member for around 4 years alongside the likes of Crespo, Vieri, Recoba, playing under a great like Mancini. If he didn't learn how to be a striker there then what chance has he got here?!

It's a far cry from the Adidas ones of the Keegan era that used to go out nationwide!

If we win today I fancy us to finish 8th.

Exactly. We should do a Liverpool and demand the right to defend our title.

Costing Oliver an extra 25p a minute too the bastard.

Good player but a bit similar to Butt & Parker...and I don't think Roeder has it in his mindset to get rid of one of those.

http://www.soccerfiesta.net/usa-defender-o...s-with-chelsea/

England were lucky as owt in that tournament. Didn't have to qualify, had all their games at Wembley, drew with the sh*ttest team in the tournament in the first game, were lucky in the second game against Scotland, thrashed Holland, robbed the Spaniards in the Quarters before finally going out.

Kevin f*cking Davies? Is this what we're resorting to?

Only Bramble played in those two games though.

Downing - Gerrard - Hargreaves - Lennon

He came off the bench at the weekend to finally make his debut and scored within 4 minutes. His team are in 2nd and looking good for La Liga.

I've stopped naming players to come in now because that's the coaches/scouts' jobs. If we take it that Bernard, Srnicek, Moore, probably one of Bramble & Onyewu, Luque & Emre are probably on their way, and then you have positions where we're just p*ss poor, (full-back positions in particular). So...we'll have.... Given, Harper, Krul. No real problems there. Solano, Carr...two ageing players, one not a natural full-back, the other just not very good anymore Babayaro, Huntington...one not a natural full-back, the other just not very good anymore Taylor, Ramage, Bramble/Onyewu...inexperienced and lacking quality Milner, Dyer...Fine. Duff, N'Zogbia...Fine. Parker, Butt...Decent players, no strength in depth. Owen, Martins, Ameobi, Sibierski...Two quality players, one decent, one not-so-good. I reckon we need, in order of importance... Left-Back Right-Back Centre-Back 1 Central-Midfielder 1 Centre-Back 2 Centre-Forward Central Midfielder 2

I'd have them in a flash.