David Kelly

I watched Cinema Paradiso the other night. Thought it was a bit depressing for a sunday night when I was on a bit of a comedown but canny all the same. The last scene was superb.

You see this is the kind of reply we'd like from you more often Dave

But should we have offered him a contract that he actually accepted? I hope Cardiff are paying 100% of his wages or else it's one of the stupidest moves ever. We could easily be in the position next season where he's just using up a squad place like Obertan et al are this.

Thank fuck for that. I've been pretty much lost with the whole thing. People keep appearing who I think I'm supposed to know but don't have a clue who they are so that has cleared a lot up. When you read it though it's a good plot but I don't think it's been done at all well. It's hard enough keeping track of a film like Chinatown over a couple of hours but when you've got an 8 episode series with such a convoluted plot and you're trying to remember everything week on week it's almost impossible!

Apparently the talk in the chronicle yesterday was that Williamson and Taylor are likely to start in the centre. That's virtually a guaranteed loss then!

This is the problem isn't it. You're looking offloading the likes of Vukic, Williamson and Abeid to make room in the squad. This kid from Northampton is under the age limit so he won't take up a squad place but I really can't see anyone else coming in until someone goes.

They both have an organ missing in their chest that limited their effectiveness!

There's a few sad tales of players who looked very promising at one point but never progressed (Vukic and Bigi being the main two) but there's also some pretty poor signings in there.

A goal from a forward can go a long way to getting them settled too. Of course it can work the other way if they can't score mind. Look at Riviere last season, he couldn't get an early goal and he never seemed to really settle. Tomasson is another player who had that happen. It doesn't work like that for defenders, they don't have something like scoring a goal to kick start their career at their new club.

Karl Darlow Tim Krul Chancel Mbemba Daryl Janmaat Fabricio Coloccini Jamaal Lascelles Massadio Haidara Paul Dummett Steven Taylor Aleksandar Mitrovic Ayoze Perez Emmanuel Riviere Papiss Demba Cissé Cheick Tiote Jack Colback Mehdi Abeid Moussa Sissoko Remy Cabella Rolando Aarons Siem De Jong Vurnon Anita Georginio Wijnaldum Rob Elliot Curtis Good Lubomir Satka Mike Williamson Shane Ferguson Yoan Gouffran Gabriel Obertan Gael Bigirimana Haris Vučkić Olivier Kemen Sylvain Marveaux That's our current squad and it's got 33 players and for me that bottom section should be nowhere near playing. If we could get rid of them, then we'd have 22 (I'm being reasonably generous to Taylor and Dummett here) who could be of some use. By my reckoning there, 8 of the players listed in the squad are young enough to not count as a squad place so that leaves 25 which is the maximum allowed for the league. That certainly does suggest we'll be needing to offload before we can buy. You know Ashley won't want to risk paying players wages who we can't even register.

Nothing but a right humping. And there's a good four or five players there who aren't a kick in the arse away from the first team at the minute!

I think that might well be the case. We've seen Armstrong and Woodman leave on loan in the last few days and now Abeid looking like he's going too. Hopefully this might be enough to start things moving again in terms of more incoming. I'm sure I read the other day that we actually have one of the biggest squads in the premier league but far too many of them simply aren't worth having even as back up. In addition to the ones you've said we've go the likes of Vukic, Good, Biggi, Satka and possibly Kemen (which may be why he's being linked with a move away)who are offering nothing at all.

After the near hysteria of us taking so long to sign anyone, there's not really many of the clubs, outside the top teams,who have really strengthened that much this summer. Some teams have made a lot of signings but many of them seem to be more squad players than ones who will make a big impact in the first tea. Villa may have made a few good signings (I don't know many of them so time will tell) but they've also lost their three best players. Same with Southampton. Stoke look to have made a few promissing signings but they've also signed Glen Johnson so that brings them back down a bit. West Ham might have done as well as anyone but they've not went as mad as some were thinking they would. The others haven't really made much in the way of imressive signings. If we could get a couple more in for key areas we could make a canny improvement this term. Of course if we're still starting games with Williamson, Goufrran and Obertan then we might as well have not bothered!

TBF he's not had a great deal of options has he. Colo's not been available and neither has Dummett. Mbemba has only just signed and he's played as much as you could have expected of him given that. The only other option has been Lascelles. I suppose the concern would be that he appears to feel that Williamson and Taylor are currently more playable than Lascelles. If that's true it's a bit worrying for the kid but then again not that surprising as he's got no top level experience. Clearly the defence needs work, for me there's only two of the four spots that I'm happy with who we have to play in them currently.

To a German second division team. I'm still at a loss as to why anyone rates him or would have him in the team ahead of Colback, Tiote or even Anita (who tbf I'd written off but has quietly impressed me pre season).

I think I heard somewhere that it's not going to be on until a bit later next year. The hope being that it allows for the next book to come out next spring. Not sure if that's right and I think they have begun filming already in Ireland.

It would be a (welcome) surprise if they brought the Greyjoy story now after leaving them out of the last season. Victarion should be a reasonably big role but Euron could fit the description. I could easily see him playing that part too.

Johnny Decka. Fucking legend.

Can't say I'm confident at all. I don't think we're well prepared for the start of the season at all. I'm happy with the signings we've made, they've all got good pedigree and Gini looks a player who will fit in well from what I've see so far. But we're still seeing Williamson and Obertan in the team and there seems to be no clear indication of what sort of team or formation that McClaren wants to go with. I'm not going to get too excited about pre season results but the defence has been a joke and while we've looked to play more football we still don't look capable of creating many chances. I watched Southampton's game against Vitesse the other night and they look in a much better shape than we do despite losing three of their key players. Them playing away on Thursday looks to be our only friend at the minute.

Dunno they'd agreed a fee when I put that on. I'm several drinks down the line now so anything could have happened.

I'd like to see gini a bit deeper with maybe SDJ ahead. Colback and Anita have both been as good as anyone in pre season but neither of them create much at all.

Absolute sitter missed by mitrovic. Looks very good in the air though.

Planning has been poor as always.

Taylor has been dreadful here like. Desperately need another centreback.

Awful goal to concede as per.