OTF

Have some genuine excitement abot seeing Ben Arfa (And Tiote) run out in the black and white in a week and a bit.

For mine I'd have: Krul Simpson Taylor Coloccini Enrique Routledge Barton Tiote Jonas Ben Arfa ....Carroll Has the pace and attack for us to genuinely trouble many defenses in the league. Tiote, like many here I don't know a great deal about. I know he's toted to play a defensive midfield role, but I have a feeling that he likes to push up into attack which could be dangerous for us with our slow central defenders. You could just about throw a blanket over Taylor, Coloccini and Williamson for me in selecting my preferred two. Williamson has been solid, and it's been such a long time out for Taylor that we don't know what we're going to get when he's back playing. Campbell could turn out to be good enough top be a starter, but we'll need to see him play first. For all I know it could be four under the blanket. Barring injuries though I hope Hughton can choose a pair and stick with them so they can develop an understanding with each other, and our other defenders. Don't know for sure who's better out of Simpson and Perch, but I feel Simpson may have the edge there. Neither inspire and sort of confidence. THought about playing Taylor there, but don't think he would be too happy to play there consistently and he's not very good on the ball, or pacy so we could miss out on the opportunities to overlap with Routledge down the right.

As long as he speaks football he'll be alright.

He is. Kadar would be a better shout to play there. He seems to like being on the ball a bit, and is actually left footed.

If we'd signed Gosling (AND Goslting) for £7m, then David Moyes and Bill Kenwright would still be dancing in joy. I get your point though.

I like that losing his hair figured in your analysis. I won't bother going through some of the superb baldies.

Hopefully that's not your Best argument...

I was expecting worse and so have been pleasantly surprised. Realistically that was only because I had set the bar so low. A lot will hinge on how Ben Arfa settles in the side, and whether Hughton plays him in his preferred position and gives him time. Lets also not forget that we're not privvy to the details of his signing. If he has a good season it's hard to see other premier league clubs not being interested given the relatively low price tag for a player of his apparent quality. Sol Campbell could prove to be a handy player for us, adds some depth and a lot of experience to our backline. Obviously though there's no long term viability in the signing. Dan Gosling looks to be a handy opportunistic signing, though I'm far from convinced that he will improve our first 11 once fully fit. Tiote hopefully will add the legs and movement that we've been missing from our central midfield for some time. Like Ben Arfa he'll need to be given a consistent run in the side. Something tells me that Chris won't be willing to drop his old guard from the get go, which could hinder his adaptation to the premier league pace. The jury is still out on Perch, but even if he does turn out to be ok, as other have pointed out it has seemingly proved to be a false economy signing young or fringe players to fill the right full-back position. We've now got Simpson, Perch and Ryan Taylor none of whom stand out as definitely being of premiership quality. The collective funds required for their transfers coupled with their wage could surely have afforded us a first choice right back who improves our first 11. Not signing any kind of forward could prove to be a costly decision. I know the plan in a lot of games will be to play a midfielder (Nolan or Ben Arfa I'm guessing) off Carroll, but what guarantee is there that Carroll will be fit throughout the entire season? If he's not the quality drops off sharply. We're putting a lot of responsibility onto Carroll a player who has very little Premier League experience. He seems up to the challenge at the minute, but it's a long season and the better he does the more he will be targetted by opposing defenses, particularly if all of our attack goes through him. I think the fact that we have quite a few strikers prevented any sort of movement in the market there. Quantity unfortunately does not equal quality.

What's the price? We've had an empty goldfish bowl for a while...

How many midfielders (central bolded) do Tottenham want? Huddlestone (£3m), Jenas (£7m+), Palacios (£12m), O'Hara (academy), Modric (£16.5m), Bentley (£15m+), Bale (£10m), Kranjcar (£2.5m), Sandro (£8.25m), Van der Vaart (£10m), Lennon (£1m). Fair wad of cash spent assembling that bunch! £84m+ How far down the order is old boy Jermaine Jenas. A little ironic that he claimed to be going there for European football, and when they finally get to the big show he'll be warming the bench if he's lucky.

Robinho and Adebayor will be on ridiculous wages. No sense in Traore coming here if he's not going to get a game.

Disappointing considering he looked our best outfield player against Accrington Stanley. An injury to Jonas and or Routledge and he's suddenly of a much greater value to the side. Certainly much greater value than someone like Leon Best.

I wonder if he checked why they changed the rules. Perhaps specifically to stop Ameobi from being 'eligible'.

...like a virgin Touched for the very first time

No further word on this, and no major speculation around. I guess we'll find out in the next day, but has anyone heard anything further?

Field a young side I say, our first team don't need the dent in confidence that this is likely to be, plus no sense in risky injury. Fire up the young and fringe players - nothing to lose here.

Where's it from? Presumably somewhere incredibly bad to contain such obvious mistakes.

Some idiotic play from some of our team towards the end there, giving away dangerous free-kicks and picking up needless yellow cards. Perch's was a dead cert for penalty, I was shocked when it wasn't blown. Incredibly lucky there. Joey Barton copped a number of ordinary tackles, how their captain stayed on the pitch is beyond me. Unfortunately towards the end Barton showed yet again (if only we'd had long enough to forget) that he can be a complete dickhead, carrying on like a right twat after giving away a stupid free-kick and getting himself a 3rd yellow in as many games for his troubles. Ameobi is rubbish, but he did almost score/set up Nolan with his first touch (off the head). For me, Nolan should have come off, but in many ways it was a wise decision to take Andy Carroll on a yellow card out of a game like that. I think certainly though Hughton should have made a move a little earlier. 1 point is ok, but the game was there to be won and it felt like we didn't go all out to do so. All said and done it could have been very different if Perch's tackle was given as the penalty that it was. Oh, Harper looked slow out there again.

Moving on quickly from that... I said it before but I reckon he looks a little similar to Jenas, and plays a little similar to Dyer. If he's anything like Dyer in other areas we won't have to worry about him playing 21 games.

If we keep with our current rate of improvement we should score 6 against Wolves, concede negative 3 and soon catch Chelsea's for and against

14th to 17th is where I think we'll be as well. There's a chance we could surprise though, there is quite a few weak sides in the league if we can take as many points off the likes of West Ham, Wigan, Blackpool, Wolves, West Brom, Birmingham, Stoke and Blackburn then we could feasibly finish above them all which would have us in 12th. From there Sunderland, Bolton and Fulham are there for the taking if they have poor seasons. There's 8 teams I just can't see us finishing above (Chelsea, Manure, Arse, Man Clitty, Totspurs, Everton, Liverpool, & AVilla).

No doubt Owen rejected the offer when he realised it didn't include a pay rise or any sort of bonus.

He's not going to get a move away and a massive raise. No way in the world. Club won't let him leave for cheap - anything less than 6 million and they're better off hanging onto him for the season IMO. Noone buying at this late stage will be paying wages over what he gets here, if they do then they've got more dollars than sense.

Wasn't he on trial here some time ago, before his move to Hull? Scored some good own goals IIRC. We should just get Beye. He can fill in at centre back also.

If he does actually want to stay it's a pretty obvious piece of propaganda from the club putting this transfer listing bollocks up in the hope that he will sign their contract offer. If he's actually on the way out it could be their way of softening the blow. At this stage in the season I think it would be foolish to lose him as it's at best unlikely that we have any sort of replacement lined up. Anyone that we would bring in would be a last minute 'he'll do' sort of signing which much more often than not doesn't come off. Do I think Coloccini, Williamson, Campbell and Kadar are enough cover at centre back? Not really. Simpson and Perch can play there at a pinch, but that's not something I want to have to see this season. I doubt the 60k figure being bandied about is true, but if it is someone needs to deflate his head (again).