David Kelly

Iain Harte. He's at Reading now iirc.

Jesus fucking christ. We are an absolute joke like!

I think Sturridge would do fantastically well for us but I'd be massively disappointed (but not surprised) if we ended up with either of the other two on their own. But either way I'll be disapointed massively when we spend fuck all of the £35m we got for Carroll. Again not surprised though.

I've lost count of the people I've heard that rumour from now like.

Whoever he is his stats are unimpressive for a striker.

An absolutely painful performance from most of them tbh. I'm not judging anyone on one performance but Ba looked less useful than Shola but that's hardly surprising given that Tiote was poor, Caybye was just passed by and Jonas barely touched the ball. Obertan looked pretty good but didn't really manage to produce anything. We've seen players with pace come in before and impress initially but then become more and more frustrating when they get no where. The defence was the obvious plus with Colo pretty much faultless and Saylor getting better and better throughout. I actually even thought Raylor did ok considering he was playing out of position and he's usually shite in his own position. Overall I was happy with the way they stuck at it which I was worried about our ability to do without Nolan (if we lose Barton however I really do think we will suffer) and if you'd offered me a draw before the game I'd have snapped your hand off. But our attacking play was completely non existant and if this is what we have to look forward to it's going to be a fucking long season. For now though I'll go with the idea that you have to consider the standard of the opposition (even without two of their best players) and the hope that things will improve when the team gels, gets fitter and the imports get used to the league.

The mans a cunt. He always knew what he was coming here for and nothing has changed since day one. If he had and self respect or dignity he would walk or have never taken the job in the first place. Guess he owes too much for that though.

thats a little harsh imo. Very harsh. I think you have to bear in mind who we were playing, their possession play and the fact it was his first game in English football and the fact that he's hardly played with Tiote, if ever? You don't have to bear any of that in mind. If the game passed him by, it passed him by regardless of any of the above. I'm not writing him off or anything, I'm just giving my opinion that he was well off the pace. Spot on, it's only harsh if you write him off because of it. It's just a fact the game past him by.

Thought he looked off the pace yesterday. I'm not judging him yet by any means but the pace looked way too much for him and he was completely fucked by the end.

Judging by yesterday we have no style whatsoever. We look like we need a pre season!

He played behind two strikers at Lille in a 442 diamond. Its an option at least. Played nothing like that for France on Wednesday. Played not far in front of the defence alongside Mvia(?) who was being likened to Viera. He got farward a good deal but his starting position definitely wasn't advanced.

I'm really excited for tomorrow but unfortunately it's more for the fact that it gets me back out in the town on piss on a saturday than it is for the actual match. If we actually had a leftback and I was confident Barton would be selected I would be fairly optimistic given their options but yet again we'll shoot ourselves in the foot. I'm kind of hoping Saylor isn't used as rightback given he was shite when used there last time and he was just starting to come good in the centre towards the end of the season. But I'm not sure what better option we have. Possibly Raylor left and Simpson right with the Colo and Saylor in the centre.

TBF this is anything but a no I won't go there but its obviously not sorted which it should have been before we sold ricky. Any club that was being run for any sort of footballing reasons would never have allowed this to drag on and would never have allowed themselves to be without a leftback for the first game of the season. We'll probably end up with no one and then they'll be blaming ricky for not telling them he wanted to go so they had insufficient time to replace him. We should have held onto him until a replacement was signed, if we couldn't sign one and had to piss him off and lose out on the £6m then so be it. But we all know we arn't run this way!

Not quick enough though is it!

Sounds a lot more likely than us paying £8m for Pieters tbh. Looking at his stats he seems to have only ever made about ten apearances in a season and as far as I can see from YouTube he looks more right footed.

Good to see no matter how much the club pisses me off there is always Gemmil and Deadman to make me laugh

I would hope with the two of them being very comfortable on the ball and not afraid to put their foot in, that we will be able to control the midfield a lot more this season.

Watched him for France last night and on the ball he looked very much what I'd expected of him after hearing what others on here had said. But it was in the tackle that he impressed me more. He certainly doesn't look like he's afraid to get stuck in which bodes well.

Lets face it, there was never any doubt that he would be heading to the bin dippers. I'm not even upset now since it's been coming for ages. I will be very upset (though not surprised) however, if his replacement isn't in for Saturday. Not having even one senior leftback at the club is nothing short of criminal!

Yeah if we keep a hold of Barton there's every reason not to be too unhappy. As long as enrqiue is replaced and we sign a striker of sufficient quality, I'll be as content as I can be under the fat cunt.

I dare say that as with any transfer from France/Holland we can still pay considerably better wages. That, the lure of the premiership and us not seeming as big a joke abroad as we do to ourselves possibly means we're still a reasonable draw.

Like a new signing having him back!

Add in Ben Arfa to that too. I think you have a point but I worry that if you take Nolan and Barton out of the team and replace them with this lot you have lost a lot of backbone and players that will grab the game by the scruff of the neck and turn it round. They have more flair but will they have the bottle. We desperately need a quality striker though as without Carrol and Nolans goals we are really short.

Was mint on fm a few years ago! Seriously though this is a disgrace if this is the standard of player we are looking at to replace someone we just sold for £35m. I really do wish more of us had it in us to boycott so we could get rid of these cunts.

On a serious note I'm not against his signing at all as think he shows a lot of promise. If however he is being brought in as a replacement for Barton (which is likely) then for me we have weakened the team in terms of current level of ability and (possibly more importantly) in terms of the aggression of our team. This worries me greatly, especially when we come up against the scum because I think that was why we dominated then last term.