David Kelly

The problem is he's a young lad on the verge of the national team who's only recently gone to West Ham (and done well) for between £6m & £7.5. Positive big money move + long term contract (I assume) + good performances = £10m + whether we like it or not (especially as it's well known we're shafted for strikers at at the moment. I don't think it's good value for money but that's the position we're in if we want a decent striker and we're not prepared to take a gamble on players with a questionable attitude (Anelka, Mido). Whether or not we can afford him is certainly up for question but we certainly can't afford to go with what we have and on that basis I would be happy for us to sign him and would accept Milner going as part of the deal. I agree not going for JFH makes no sense at all!

Cheers all. Nice to see from the ages in this thread that I'm not the only sad git in their 30's still posting on a message board

£10M is the fee to sign him next summer. This year we would have to pay his wages (or a good portion) and as Gemmil says probably a fee too (maybe a couple of million?). This is all of course just if we are to believe the Journal. I've seen no quotes from Chelski about this!

Most of them seem surprisingly positive about it! If you do take it as we are looking to sign the likes of Defoe, SWP and Bridge (ie players who have gone to bigger clubs played well or reasonably well but just never quite managed to cement a place in the team - like Parker) as oppose to players like Kluivert and Butt who have come from being big fish at massive clubs and made a step down to us, then it's a transfer policy that I would be happy with. But it just strikes me as it's more likely that we haven't got a pot to piss in and a manager with no pulling power so we will just have to take other clubs cast offs.

159289[/snapback] I know this could be taken in a different we but to me this sounds worrying like we are just looking at players that there clubs don't want. If this is true the rumors about players like Angel could well have some legs.

Is that not what they were saying it was going to be for him anyway? I certainly wasn't expecting him back for the start of the season.

According to Anal in the chronicle (it's ICNewcastle if anyone wants to post the link). I can't say I'm too arsed tbh but everything is pointing to us being well and truly skint and we will be relying on loans, cheap deals and free transfers (which makes our not going for JFH rather curious).

We've heard that before!

If he does take the job it would suggest that Quinn is going to give them a decent transfer kitty.

I'm sure we pretty skint at the moment but Fat Fred has to weigh this up with what our financial situation would be like after relegation (which would be a serious threat given our current attacking options). I don't believe even he is so stupid to allow this to happen so I do expect signings to be made regardless of whether or not we get rid of the dead wood in the squad. I just don't think we should expect anything other than these signings being relatively cheap players coming in to do the job of trying to maintain our current position (ie comfortably mid table with a chance of wafa competition). We won't be making the type of signings that will get us back challenging for a champions league spot any time soon. Especially as we will need to build up a decent kitty for Shearer.

Some people down sarf think we are abroad!

TV On The Radio - Return To Cookie Mountain

When I've seen him just as himself I've found him quite funny. It's just all of his acts that find about as funny as a migrane.

Pirlo would be one of those who would have his choice of clubs if Milan get relegated. I suspect he wouldn't choose us!

It's definitely something we should be looking at but of course there will be clubs all over Europe looking for these players so I wouldn't be expecting Luca Toni, Kaka or Zlatan here any time soon!

I honestly think that if he played the whole season at centre forward he would get 10-15 goals. The stats can be misleading because he has played a large proportion of his games from the bench and he is a fairly ineffective substitute. When he was starting games last season he did manage to notch up a decent rate. That said I still don't think he will score enough for a first choice player and the rest of his game is at times woefully inadequate.

I know this is not going to the answer to our striking problems but I am pretty pleased to hear about us going for someone like this. We all keep saying how we should be bringing in youngsters like we have with the Zog. If it turns out well we could have a future star if not we don't lose much unlike the big money foreign signings of Viana, Boumsong and Luque.

What do you think of it? I've had it for a while now but I've not been able to finish it yet. 154322[/snapback] I've only just got it and I'm only halfway through, but it's canny. Did you Like School of the Flower? I absoloutley love that and can't see The Sun Awakens matching it, but so far so good. Do you have the compilation Devendra Banhart put together called Golden Apples of the Sun? There's a lush Six Organs song on there called Hazy SF. 154327[/snapback] I haven't listened to School of the Flower much but I did enjoy it. I will have to stick it on again and I'll have a look out for Golden Apples. Right now I'm pretty obsesed with Yo La Tengo's new album. I only have a half finished promo but it superb.

I expect to be proved right in my opion that we are a 3rd rate piss poorly ran club who are now firmly one of the also rans. I hope we manage to find some players from somewhere and that our manager far exceeds my expectations of him. I doubt this will happen though. I really do have my lowest expectations of a coming season for as long as I can remember. And considering Souness was our manager this time last year that is saying something.

The lad just can't help himself can he. Not our concern now though.

What do you think of it? I've had it for a while now but I've not been able to finish it yet.

It's a pretty decent start to the season. Hopefully we can get off to a good start for the first time in years. This actually gives me back some optimism after the whole manager and striker fiasco's.

You couldn't afford me!

Tbh all I've seen of either of them is through Showboat on Soccer AM. But their records suggest they might be worth risking a few hundred thousand since I can't see us having much more than that available. Nugent might well be a better bet.

Our options as far as I see them are to sign one player such as Kuyt (although Anal doesn't like him now) and then go either for someone like Hasslebank or look for someone in the lower divisions such as Trundle or Eastwood who will be hungry and might have a chance of making it. Another option is to go for some unproven foreigner but we stuggle enough with big money ones so I can't see us managing to find anyone half decent cheap.