David Kelly

Brothers in arms with wild animals! Is this some sort of Keith Lard thing you're admitting to here?

Very little (took Moscow to their lowest position in the reformed Russian league) but he's an exciting foreign coach so must be a better option than the wally with the brolly.

I suspect there are a hell of a lot more people scouting for premier league clubs than Makom thinks. These people won't be on any sort of regularly paid contract but will get paid if they come up with someone a club takes on. My sisters fella has a brother living in Poland where he works doing somthing to do with sports coaching and he has an agreement with some team (might even be us) that he will introduce any players of promise. I'm pretty sure he doesn't pick up a monthly wage for this. This will be type of scouting most teams do (even within the UK where they have links to people at amateur clubs) and then if they bring up someone interesting the full time scouts (which will be far fewer in number) will be sent to look at them. The caller on Talkshite probably is closer to being right than you think.

Not seen loads of him but he's not looked great from what I've seen. Didn't he get championship player of the season? I would guess that should really put him in the £6m-£8m bracket. And we don't need players who have never played at a high level. We need players who can go straight into the team. Taking a chance on players who might make the grade cost us £6m for Riviere last season. We don't have the money to waste. It would make much more financial sense and go and spend a bit more on someone proven. Austin fits the bill for me but I can't really see why he'd want to come.

You need to think we should be chasing managers of this calibre rather than just going for absolute dross like Schteve McClaren who has absolutely nothing positive to offer the team whatsoever!

We walked in one thursday night and out of the fifteen or so people in there, there must have been about eight teeth!

Johnny Decker is better than a lot of the people who get in manhattans on the weekend!

Nowt wrong with a night out down the Gaza Strip!

I'm trying my best to not get into drinking Guiness and the like. Larger is bad enough when you're trying to maintain a physique at 38! Aye Carling is fine when you're out on the drink but I wouldn't pick it to drink in the house if I wanted something decent. I'd probably avoid in the town for the most part too but that probably comes from all of the watered down pints they used to serve in the bigg market when I first started going out!

Don't try and confuse me with foreign languages!

Well I don't see as many rats up here as you get at all your regatta's and polo matches down there so I have to just make do!

I never expected him to be particularly successful and once Gerrard was unable to drag them through games anymore and Suarez was sold it was always going to be all the more difficult. But whoever's had the final say in the signings really has done a cracking job. It's amazing that they decided to follow the Spurs model from Bale's money. Sell a superstar and replace him with ten average plears. Genius!

I've no idea but I find it unlikely they were the two players he picked out as the perfect replacement for the rat.

What the fuck has drinking larger got to do with taste anyway. If taste is what I crave I'd be going for a nice bottle of barolo! But I've certainly never considered Carling as the high end of anything. It's just preferable to Fosters/Heineken/Carlsberg.

It seems to me that Rogers has been hung out to try to an extent with their transfer policy. I'm sure it wouldn't have been his idea to replace Suarez with Balotelli and Lambert but I can't stand the cunt so I'm happy to see the shit fly his way!

Don't give me your southern shandy drinking shite! In all honesty though I'd probably drink Fosters ahead of Heineken!

Location location location is what it's all about! Living in Wallsend we don't get much of a chance to sample any of your exotic brands. And I'm not drinking beer or ale for anyone!

They've massively fucked things up since selling Suarez. Spent £100m on average players (the majority of which admittedly I'd have here in a heartbeat) last season, and now signing players from relegated teams. Going nowhere fast now, no doubt their supporters will start kicking off soon and the pundits will all be backing them!

Perhaps you could listen to Cocker's solo stuff instead? As sad as it is I'm going to struggle to avoid Carling. There's only that or Fosters in the local and I'm not drinking Fosters for anything!

I can see him ending up a fringe player at Liverpool if they manage to create a good team. He's a good honest player but he's nowhere near top class.

No I understand what you're saying (see my other post above) but as I said the trade off is more goals with him and less all round play. I think you'll find that goals are held in higher regard when looking at a striker especially if he's to be your main goal threat. And I know you can use the two previous seasons against him but he did score 13 in all competitions in the season before last and he did struggle with playing out of position and in a team that wasn't bothering in the second half of last season as well as injuries. But when you look at him overall his stats tell you if you create chances he will score goals in over 40% of the games his plays. Compared with 30% for Crouch and 25% for long.

I get what you're saying about other players offering more when they're not scoring but the don't score as often. That's the trade off.

You'd have Crouch or Long ahead of him? Seriously? Crouch is 34 and doesn't score anywhere near as frequently as Cisse. Long on the other hand has never scored more than 8 goals in the premier league. Having other parts to your game is fine but being a striker is primarily about putting the ball in the back of the net. None of the upper mid table teams have better players to do that. Of course his injury problems this season would put people off signing him at the moment and of course there are better players for the top teams but it's daft to say he's anything other than a capable top half player.

I don't know who at (in particular) Stoke, Swansea and Palace you think would stop him getting a game. You could argue that Palace finishing in the top half is an anomaly that is unlikely to be repeated but Stoke and Swansea are regularly in and around the top half. I also wouldn't really rate the likes of Pelle and Long at Southampton ahead of him. His goal scoring record is better than them. I know you're talking about all round game but you simply can't ignore goal scoring which is why the likes of Austin is being linked with top clubs.

I've no idea on your reasoning there but my point is that he could easily get into those three teams who finished in the top half. You could also add Swansea to that (obviously they had Bony for the first half of the season who is better than Cisse) and he could also do a better job than all Liverpool's strikers than Sturridge and Spurs than Kane (if he keeps his form going). There's only really the top 4 that he woudln't get a sniff at.