David Kelly

Selling on a player who's failled a drugs test and not telling the club he's being sold to sounds exactly like the way we operate these days tbh so I'm fully expecting it to be Carroll and we'll have to pay back the £35m. Which will of course decimate our next ten transfer windows!

The new Planet Of The Apes. Canny enough and I liked that they did something new with it.

I think the missing out on Modric was the first real indicator for a lot of people. Before then most probably thought that it was just a case of Fat Sam not being his man so he wasn't prepared to splash out on his targets. Bringing in Keegan also seemed to be a clear indicator that his intentions were to have fun and try and repeat what KK had done with the Halls. As it turned out it seems he just wanted Keegan to pacify the fans and hadn't understood the type of person Keegan is (ie he wasn't prepared to feed us the shite that Pardew is). Promised KK as much money as he wanted from what I heard like. I'm not quite sure if that was an outright lie (assuming the info is correct) or whether he started having 2nd thoughts after losing all that lolly on the stock markets (pre-crash, spread betting on HBOS shares, was it?). The Dennis Wise appointment threw a real spanner in the works too as there was never a very good relationship between him and the manager. Still utterly ridiculous that Ashley sided with Wise then got rid of him soon afterwards anyway. It may well be that he just changed his mind based on losing money and/or discovering exactly how much it would entail. It could even be the case that now or in the future he may have more disposable money that he could have spent on us but I would imagine that we've burnt our bridges with him now and he's never going to spend any of his own money on us now.

I think the missing out on Modric was the first real indicator for a lot of people. Before then most probably thought that it was just a case of Fat Sam not being his man so he wasn't prepared to splash out on his targets. Bringing in Keegan also seemed to be a clear indicator that his intentions were to have fun and try and repeat what KK had done with the Halls. As it turned out it seems he just wanted Keegan to pacify the fans and hadn't understood the type of person Keegan is (ie he wasn't prepared to feed us the shite that Pardew is).

Lad turned up in the pub with his shiny new trainers and a big smile.... Mate 1 "Where did you get those" Mate 2 "Burtons...two pairs for £40" Mate 1 "Right....you could have got one decent pair for that" Probably had to be there but I was howling at mate 2's cresfallen face. Amazes me how some people function in society if they feel the need to report owt to mods or flounce. Even if you've got nowt to come back with, call them a twat and move on. nope I liked that HF and J69 are right, I always just figured its how lads work, me and mates give each other bucket loads of grief and you either take it in good humour or comeback with something better. you don't get all pissy and storm off. if somethings genuinely out of order say so and it'll get left alone Me ex always used to be confused when I came home from a night out with the lads and she would ask what we talked about and I said nowt really. This was because we'd spend the whole night taking the piss out of each other and other than that said nothing of any note at all. It was a totally alien concept to her.

Much better than the shite I would have expected but as Tom says still totally pointless given who the answers will be coming from.

Which wouldn't be too bad as long as he was contributing in other areas, and other people were scoring goals. I haven't seen enough of him to comment but people are saying his all round play is pretty limited. That's exactly my point. Watching him in the last two games you could see two things. Firstly that he is inconsistent (his finishing in the cup was woefull) and secondly that he offers nothing else to the team.

If scoring goals is all he contributes then he needs to hit twenty. If he offered the team anything else then that figure would be less but he doesnt, the rest if his game is non existent. Its the same as what Bent gets thrown at him and he offers a million times more than what Best does in terms of movement and creating space for others. Bellamy never scored bucket loads for us but he offered a lot to the team. I assumed he would not be playing in a deeper role and that the overall contribution would be unspectacular. A bit like Nolan you could say If he scored 20 i would highly recommend we sell him for £24m and would be in awe of Pardew. If he scored more than 20 I would think we could probably squeeze a good thirty million out of the bin dippers but there's no chance of it happening because he's shite. Fwiw I think if he plays most of the season I think he'll manage low double figures.

If scoring goals is all he contributes then he needs to hit twenty. If he offered the team anything else then that figure would be less but he doesnt, the rest if his game is non existent. Its the same as what Bent gets thrown at him and he offers a million times more than what Best does in terms of movement and creating space for others. Bellamy never scored bucket loads for us but he offered a lot to the team. Having a quick peep it doesnt look like Bellamy ever got into double figures for us in a season. Is that right? I thought he might have got into low double figures but that would be about it. Obviously goal scoring wasn't Bellamy's primary function in the team and he played alongside a goal scorer in Shearer.

If scoring goals is all he contributes then he needs to hit twenty. If he offered the team anything else then that figure would be less but he doesnt, the rest if his game is non existent. Its the same as what Bent gets thrown at him and he offers a million times more than what Best does in terms of movement and creating space for others. Bellamy never scored bucket loads for us but he offered a lot to the team.

Best offers us nothing other than an ability to find himself in good positions in the box where he can finish off some of the chances created by others. Unfortunately his finishing isn't good enough, his anticipation is none existent, his pace isnt enough and his movement is gash so he won't score enough and he offers fuck all else to the team (which a forward like Bellamy or Carroll did for us even if they weren't scoring themselves). He's a championship player just like Shola and Lovenkrands but unfortunately that appears to be all we have fir the moment (early signs for Ba aren't promising but he still has time) so he's probably our best bet. What a fucking disgrace that is by the way!

Why the fuck did the search for a striker start early summer? What were they doing for the five months before that? Absolute bollocks yet again but no more than expected. Inexcusable. The fact of the matter is all that they have done is replace who has gone with cheaper options. Ba for Caroll, Cabaye for Nolan, Marveaux for Routledge, Squidward for Barton and Santon for Ricky. Are any of them improvements? Possibly Cabaye in terms of overall play but not goals and that's it but what does that matter when we have thirty million in the bank and are paying less in wages eh?

I could have told him that yesterday!

I've given up now, as I predicted all along we wont sign a striker

Macheda is much more likely unfortunately

Apparently Sochaux's chairman is still saying Maiga's not going anywhere

It's gone very quiet so far today after the excitement of signing Rob Elliot yesterday. I'm getting bored now

Fucking pathetic tbh, can't see him ever being top quality and he would only block the path of our own youngsters. Mirror is linking him with the makems so let's hope thats true.

Can't see us managing to put in a decent performance while Raylor is playing left back or Best and Lovenkrands (or shola) are playing up front. Raylor can't link up with Jonas (or anyone else on the left tbf) so we're getting hardly anything from him on the left wing and those three up front are just shite and that offers very little option fir our midfield to pass to. Whenever there was a pass on Caybaye looks like he can make it.

I thought Marveaux was our only positive in the first half, he looked quite nippy and had the ability to beat a man and unlike Jonas he seemed capable of slinging a decent ball into the box at will. He faded in the second half which is understandable given his lack of football in the last nine months. I'm not sure he's up for the middle of the park but I might be being harsh as it was when he was tiring that he was moved inside.

Glad someone else has seen this. I also think, tin hat on time, that Simpson has looked dodgy as well. Couldn't agree more.

Raylor needs to be out of the team asap. Yes he's scored a couple but he's gonna cost us soon defensively and I think he's harming our attacking play by not offering any link up down the left. Hopefully this deal gets completed in time for Sunday.

Fucking hell I completely agree

Staggeringly over on online they're actually praising Best. Have things gotten so bad that this appalling excuse for a premiership player is classed a good. With the possible exception of Ben Arfa we must have the worst strikers in the league.

We’ve scored one goal from open play in three competitive games (and that was in extra time against a knackered div1 side) and if we sign a left back our top scorer will be out of the team. The lack of a decent striker is a big part of the problem but our overall play has been woeful... no sign of Pardew’s possession based play anywhere. We spent most of this game hoofing long balls at the front men. Yeah I was thinking that too although I think the lack of decent options for passes going forward is a major factor in this. Lovenkrands on the right didn't help either.