David Kelly

I'd be surprised if QPR sanctioned that. We're a rival to them this season and at the end of it his contract would have another year chalked off and he'd be a year older. So his value would reduce further. We'd have to pay them a pretty high loan fee to make it worth their while.

There should be more than enough defensive graft from Tiote and Sissoko to cover any lack of it in HBA, and it would scare the shit out of most defences but we'll never see that line up as long as fatty and Pardew are here.

It's straight forward if they want to sell him to us and he wants to come. But at this stage we don't have a clue if either of these is the case! Nice one Alan.

It seems to have hurt us a lot less than I was expecting. After the shite we put out I would never have believed we could have signed Ajax's captain, Hollands world cup fullback, a player from Monaco or one of the most highly rated attacking players in the ligue 1 who was called up to the French World Cup squad to replace the injured Ribery. The lack of ambition seems to matter less to these players than a good pay rise, the chance to play in the premiership and the fact that we will allow them to move on to an ambitious club without much of a fight if they prove themselves.

I think Root might well make an excellent captain. Can't see them giving it to him this young like. Broad is probably more likely but I'm not sure he'd be a good choice for different reasons to Cook.

Whilst I don't disagree with the point about only spending what we've got back in from sales and that there should certainly be money to spend, that doesn't change my point. We were apparently in for that Lasogga and he chose to stay in Germany (it wasn't about us not being willing to put the money up), we'd like Remy but he's after a champions league team and Lacazette doesn't seem sure if he fancies coming.

They would have had a lot less striking options than us if he hadn't signed for them.

My mates just text me that this is the turning point for us. I'm not sure everything is rosey and I have massive doubts about Cook as captain but the young players are mainly looking very promising and if the senior players can continue the way have this week, there's something to look forward to. Worry about our seam bowling opions behind the front two mind.

It's not an easy thing getting players through the door these days. Of course we all want another striker and will be pissed off if we don't get one, you can't always get them as early as you want. Especially in a world cup year. Everton have only just tied up the deal for Lukaku, a player who they had last season and had already bigged up the club. The tramps are struggling badly trying to get Borini to go back. The way they're talking I'm reasonably confident we will bring someone else in so I think we just need a bit of patience.

Fantastic work from Ali in this test.

Nope, no sense at all!

Aye that's what I saw earlier on too.

You heard it yet? I'll be downloading it tonight. Love a bit Spoon.

I'm not so sure about that. Yes they may not be desperate to get rid of him but we all know what he's like and I can see him trying to force them to accept a lower fee to get a move (not necessarily to us but to someone). You're right we won't get him that cheap but I think he'll end up moving for less than £15m (if that is in fact the release clause for non europe clubs).

At that point no one was very complimentary about Colo. Just goes to show how much of a turnaround he's managed in his Newcastle career.

Louis used to be good but I think it's shut now.

We'd never get them as main sponsors and tbh it wouldn't be a good thing for us if we did given that it would bring us no money in. But I really think we could incorporate them somewhere. Don't Barca still have Unicef involved somewhere despite now changing to another main sponsor?

The problem is Mbiwa looks shite alongside Colo, they are too similar in how they want to play. He was clearly bought as Colo's replacement and for me he looked good last season when he replaced him while he was injured (probably better than Colo himself looked most of the time). No one wanted to see him as a fullback (least of all him I imagine) and it's clear he shouldn't be playing there. I think he could be a very good centre half for us but I can't really see it ever happening as long as Colo is here. I do feel he might be the type of player who is always close to dropping a bollock mind you. Williamson and Taylor are both shite and we clearly should be looking to improve on them. But I can't see that happening.

Sounds like I'm missing out on something here with Tinder!

I know that's tongue in cheek but actually giving some sort of advertising to the Sir Bob Foundation would be a really nice touch from the club. Therefor it's very unlikely to ever happen with fatty owning it.

Well I've said for a long time that Pardew is fucking hopeless so this is certainly a possibility but that doesn't mean we should go looking for negatives in our new signings at this stage.

I think this is very likely and in that set up only really Sissoko could be considered playing out of position.

Surely we must be excited about signing this bloke! Whatever you think is missing from the rest of the squad or however much you hate Pardew and Ashley, this guy looks like he has the ability to entertain.

I was on Northumberland street at lunch time and I was massively disapointed in the level of fanny out there today. I made a special trip into town too. Massive let down. Hopefully Tynemouth tonight and Jesmond tomorrow will make up for it!

When Cabaye left we had nothing in the team in terms of creativity. We now have Cabella and Dejong. The fact that those players don't play in the same position as Cabaye doesn't change that. Yes Tiote, Anita and Colback (even Sissoko if we played him centrally) don't have the range of passing that Cabaye has but that doesn't really matter with the players in front ot them. Mourinho has often deployed a 4-2-3-1 formation at chelski that has had the central two being players like Mikel and Ramieres. Neither of them are particularly gifted passers of the ball. Instead as Tom suggests, they win the ball and move it on to the more expansive players further forward. I don't see any problem with us looking to play this way.