David Kelly

There's talk of Madrid switching their attention from Modric to Dembele from Fulham. Is he that good. I have to say whenever I've seen Fulham play (not much recently I admit) I've not noticed him at all.

I see the Chronicle are saying that Anita wants to speak to Pardew before agreeing anything to see where he sees him playing. You would think this would happen with every deal but perhaps not? Anyway I would think this means he does want assurances we'll play him primarily as a midfielder which I would say is the only option as bringing in a midfielder to play fullback makes no sense anyway in the long term.

Conversly, when we don't drive a hard bargan we end up with the likes of Luque, Boumsong, Smith & Xisco. Whilst I am extremely keen to see us get new players in, I would rather we didn't than end up with players like this steeling from us for years to come and producing absolutely nothing!

Looks like another Alan O'Brien to me. I suspect we'll see him fail to make the grade and slide down the leagues.

I love Twelve Monkeys and to a lesser extent Brazil but I'm certainly not a massive Gilliam fan. It's a film I keep noticing more in each time I watch it and I think most of the cast put in career best performances. I haven't watched Platoon in ages so I might dig that out myself tonight.

All of those are must haves tbh but if I had to pick one I'd go with The Philadelphia Story just ahead of The Thing and Twelve Monkeys.

Cabaye and HBA would be a massive miss too. We've looked more than a little bit short of attacking sparkle without them in preseason!

Just going off what I've read about him on Ajax forums but it seems he's said before himself that he doesn't see himself as a leftback and their fans didn't rate him there. And these latest quotes about wanting to speak to us to find out about how he would play suggest to me that he'll only come if we see him playing in midfield. It also seems to me that while he is seen as a defensive midfielder over there, he's very different from the way Tiote plays. He seems to be more of a passer than a destroyer but someone who plays from deep. There might very well be some milegage in playing alongside Tiote and Cabaye giving us a very solid centre of the park but also one that can knock the ball about very nicely. I agree that Ashley's only gonna allow us to spend such an amount on a first team player so we're going to have to fit him in somewhere. To me the options are; Three man centre of the park alongside Tiote and Cabaye. This means Jonas is the odd man out and we still have the problem of how to use Ba. A diamond in the centre with Tiote at the bottom, Anita and Cabaye in the middle and HBA at the top. I'm not sure we will be able to get the best out of Ben Arfa in such a role given that he's never really managed to perform for us anywhere but attacking right side (albeit with the licence to roam a bit). We would also need a lot of width from the fullback positions and I don't for a second believe Simpson is capable of that. Debuchy would allow this or the other option could be to move Santon to the right and play Jonas on the left? Play him leftback which is something he doesn't seem at all keen on. Rotate the players. I'm not sure we're big enough to keep them all happy like this at the moment. A replacement for Tiote. I hope it's not the latter and tbh I don't think it will be this summer. Might well be next though.

Judging from comments from the player himself and what the Ajax fans are saying there's very little chance he'll be coming to play fullback. If we stick with the same formation as we ended the season, that would suggest Jonas would be the one who's position would be under the biggest threat from Anita's arrival. Given Ba's apparent reluctance to play on the left though you have to wonder whether sticking with that is likely. In which case are we back to a 4-4-2 but that either means we only have room for two central players or we play narrow and that raises questions about Ben Arfa's place. It'll certainly be interesting to see how it works.

Anyone actually seen him play?

Played a lovely little ball through for Amalfitano who should have notched.

I really am impressed with Biggi but I don't think anyone will be considering him as Tiotes replacement just yet. Tiote will be away eventually but I dont think it will be this season. Another good season from him and no champions league football for us will see him off though.

If you bouycotted due to Woys interviews I take it you must ran a mile after the embarrassing shite that Kenny spouted!

You have to bare in mind that Henderson's fucking wank like! Mind you, as J69 says Allen did fuck all at the olympics. It's fightening how much they're spending such players.

I was just thinking that myself. Shearer taking the piss out of the manure fans after he'd set up Ferdinands goal in the 5-0 Keegans return against Bristol

I very much doubt he'll still be at Lille come September.

Watched him down at Blackburn in the cup and he was a fucking joke tbh. Colo ended up telling him to just keep putting the ball out of play because he was so terrified of the ball going anywhere near him. That was a low point but tbf he was shite til Christmas at least. Fair play to him he turned it round after that.

Yeah I'd agree with this. And it hurt Cabayes game too. Guthrie replaced Cabaye as the more forward midfielder and although he was the best he'd ever been for us (and generally canny) he still wasn't close to being at Cabaye's level.

Was thinking about going to this but I can't see them giving much insight if it's an official club thing.

I don't really think Guthrie offered any cover for Tiote though. He was only ever going to be able to cover Cabaye or Jonas. Abeid or Biggi probably already offer more than Guthrie could in that sense. We might also end up with the kid from Ajax who can do that role as well as covering the fullback positions. I also doubt the club could have done much more to keep him. He wanted to play football which you can't blame him for and he was never going to be able to force his way into the team ahead of Tiote, Cabaye or Jonas so our hands were tied.

TBF a lot of the rest of what you said is valid (although the evidence of his time in England suggests that this knee issue isn't much of a problem for now at least), he is on the higher end of our desired age range, he will almost certainly be second fiddle to Cisse and most importantly you are right in that the only we are going to be able increase our transfer fund is to buy players low and sell them high. But we are still going to need more than Cisse and Shola as the player who can play and the central point of the front three (if we continue to play the way we ended last season. And there's been very little sign of that so far this preseason) so if we sold him at a large profit to increase what we could spend on a more naturally left sided player, that would still leave us short of strikers and in need of finding some more money to spend on one. This leaves us needing to sell someone else (Tiote being the most likely) and needing to fill their position with either someone already at the club or via more spending. I just don't see that selling Ba would benefit us at all unless he has a stinker next season and we miss an oppertunity.

We'd still lose Tiote though!

Any valid point you made immediately falls down when it's based on the premise that now his release clause has expired, someone is going to be willing to part with at least double what they could have signed him for a few days ago. Unless you agree with Brocks theory that the clause never existed, then the logic escapes me.

The people in Walker were always good to my gran and I never had any issues there when I was a kid. But I can tell you from experience that bars like the Scrogg and The Westbourne club are filled with anything but 'the best people you will ever find'. Unless you're looking for canny coke or someone to murder your ex All in all I'd still rather live there than anywhere in Sunderland like!

Nah, the area around Barnes park is quite nice to be fair. Not saying its' owt special like but there's plenty of worse places in Newcastle and North Tyneside that. My mams family is from Walker and my other gran used to live in Cruddace Park when I was a bairn. Neither of which are places you want walk about with your kids!