David Kelly

There's should be no way we can go into the season with just the two strikers we have regardless of Gayles injury problems. But the fact that he still has an issue makes it absolutely essential that we don't finish August with just him and Mitro.

Was the same for us when we only signed Bowyer. Had we kicked on then we may never have dropped off like we did after SBR. You can't stand still in football.

With the squad we currently have I think we will be scrapping against relegation. I'm not saying we will be relegated because in the likes of the other two promoted teams and Burnley I don't see anything to be concerned about. But with what we have at the moment I don't think we will be comfortable which I think was Rafa's target for this season. Seeing Lejeune, Merino and Murphy in competitive action may change my mind somewhat but as of now I think it's only having Rafa that is our trump card. Two or three decent signings between now and the end of the month could very well make the difference between the 15-18 position that I think we currently stand at, and moving up to mid table security.

I don't actually think there's anything too bad in what Shearer is saying there. We're working in a difficult window with less resources than most of the other clubs so it's not going to be straightforward doing what we want to do. I think a lot of Rafa's frustrations will come from that. We won't be helped by having penfold doing the negotiations or Ashley holding the purse strings but I think the biggest problem is we just don't have the resources we would like. So while there's no doubt he's frustrated and disapointed, it's not something that's catastrophic. They should be able to do enough to get it sorted in the time remaining. The good news I took from what he said was that Rafa wants another fullback in. Given that we've signed Manquillo already you have to assume that's for leftback.

And can you imagine Dummett having to patrol the whole of the left side of the pitch?

Rafa will definitely be world class if he can get away with playing 13 players.

They are collectively retarded. I can't even laugh at them anymore without feeling bad.

So that's Ritchie, Atsu, Murphy and him who all prefer play on the right? Lovely stuff.

City are in need of a fullback aren't they? Not bought one for a day or two.

I'm not saying it's impossible that we use him there but I can't imagine that's the reason we're looking to bring him in. Surely if you want a leftback you sign a leftback not a left winger who can play there? If it were a permanent signing it might be that Rafa sees something in him that he can convert him to a regular fullback but that doesn't make any sense if it's just a loan. There also doesn't seem to have been any talk of us being after a leftback whereas we're constantly being linked to wingers.

I can't see him being brought in to play leftback. Our first choice rightback is very attacking so I doubt Rafa will want a leftback who primary position is on the wing.

Apparently. Can't say I've seen much of him.

I've noticed that Ritchie has ended up as a forward/number 10 in the last couple of games. I know this will have been largely because of Gayle's fitness but I wonder if Rafa is interested in going that way with him. Also you have to think we can't be relying on Aarons even from the bench at this stage.

I wouldn't be counting on Lazaar doing anything for us. I can't see him being named in the squad.

The very top clubs have a tendancy to look for the next up and coming thing a lot of the time rather than someone who has proved that they are top class. For that reason I don't think they would be looking at Rafa anymore. There's certainly a lower level of champions league teams that would be interested in him should he be available though. I actually think he's being pretty smart in what he's saying now. He's obviously trying to push everything he can out of Ashley but I think he realises the conditions in the market just make it almost impossible to provide the funds he would really like without Ashley dipping into his own pocket (something he won't do). So he's giving himself a fallback if things do go wrong he can say well I said from the beginning we weren't strong enough. What he wanted was a team that would keep us comfortably away from the threat of relegation. We haven't manged to get that but there's at least five or six other teams who are in the same position.

We been repeatedly told by the Chronicle that Rafa was after another winger which has always seemed strange to me when we already have the four that KD mentions. So I'd be fairly happy with us signing this kid on loan. No risk deal and it doesn't waste money that we still need to spend on a striker. I've not seen much of him at all but Chelsea obviously saw something in him to spend decent money on a kid.

David Kelly

I'm happy go lucky me. I'm not blind though. But as Gloomy says, we do have a better manager this time even if Hughton is a good bloke who did an excellent job for us. I'd be over the moon if Rafa guides us to a better position than Hughton did.

Prodigious I think.

We had better keepers in Harper and Krul of that time, we had Ricky at leftnback, an outstanding Colo and of course Shola!

Is this first thread we've ever had that has had the word demure in the opening post?

But we had better players.

The full transcript in the Chronicle is a bit better. He's clearly saying that he's going to stay but he's not happy with how things have gone in the transfer window. It's still not clear whether he has been (or thinks he has been) lied to in terms of budget, or whether he's just not happy we didn't move fast enough at the beginning of the window and frustrated we don't have the money to do what he'd like. Good news he's staying for now but there's still serious doubts about his long term future (I suppose there always will be). I think we will definitely see how good a manager he is this season because he's certainly not going to have star players to drag us through. It's all going to be about tactics and how well he can drill the players he has.

Detroit. Good film and well acted although I did think that the kid from Son Of Rambow still looks too young to play the part that he did.

Aye that whole Martin Hardy article on Sky Sports (which is actually generally positive) is a good read. If he does have less to spend than he thought that is a concern. I was hoping it was more that he's finding the money we do have won't go as far as he initially though. But if we have less then he's basically been lied to and that certainly won't play with him. He might hang around this season for the players and fans but there'll be no long term project if he can't trust Ashley.