OTF

Enrique was average going forward, but very solid in defense I thought. Ryan Taylor was hopeless.

Can't afford to be as positionally bad as he is when you're also as slow and non-physical as he is. Has deteriorated since his arrival, which says that a large part of it is confidence. Even still he's not going to get much of a chance in the championship to regain any confidence when opposing teams will be matching him up with their quickest forward. The sad part is that in terms of numbers (forgetting wages for the moment) we really can't afford to let him go without bringing a replacement in. I think we should be playing Kadar in the meantime to give him the experience.

Deja vu... starting the season off with a 1-1 draw away from home against one of the sides fancied to win the league....

Afraid to say, let bygones be bygones. Noone is going to pay anything much for him, and we've already done (touch wood) the hard yards with him. May as well persist and try to get some value out of him on the pitch. I don't agree that he is one of our best players, however he does have the potential to be.

It'a amazing how UN-disgusting the shirts became after the first 15 mins of football. To normal folk, anyway. Yep, shirts have definitely grown on me.

Is he not out on loan until after the end of the transfer window?

Yeah FFS stay on your feet. When he actually did get clobbered in the head with an elbow the ref wanted nothing to do with it because he'd already been down more times than a $2 hooker. Smith actually played quite well. Upped his involvement in attack in the second half, and his timing on tackles was perfect (if it wasn't he would have seen yellow). Edit: Duff looked so much better when he acted quickly on the ball rather than slowing things down then trying to beat his man. Defenders will gobble him up if he keeps trying that.

Feel bad for Harper, but I'd have to say that he categorically would not have made the saves that Krul did. Clearly MOTM even though he only played one half.

Krul point for sure. Fantastic saves (If we had some decent defense he should not have had to make several of them). Heart was in my mouth when they took the free-kick. Great job by the linesman to make the correct call on the offside. We've had calls like that go against us too many times before, nice for them to get it right. That Nolan chance was a bloody tough header IMO. Even though he was in the clear it would have been bloody hard for him to keep that down and on target - needed someone with more height (or the ball to have been a little lower obviously). Happy with 1-1 though. As I'm sure all would be if they'd watched the match. I'm dying for someone to come in for Col O'Cheaney. So obviously not suited to fast paced games. He's going to have the fastest opposing striker giving him tremors all game every game.

He's made a couple of good passes in the box in all honesty. If our striker could have timed their runs better we should have had better chances created. Our best chance in the game came after he got behind the defender and cut it back to Carroll who layed it off nicely for Duff. At the same time he's wasted a number of other chances as well, but they've all been created by himself through beating his defender. On the other side you've got Duff who hasn;t looked like beating his defender and has created stuff all chances. Probably doesn't help that he's got Ryan taylor on his side, with Taylor seeming to really enjoy passing to players in black and white. Nolan missing. Smith is doing ok. Coloccini off the pace. Ameobi unpredictable (optimistic there). Carroll good, hard working good vision. Enrique wastful but doing his job. Raylor awful. Duff looking past it. Saylor solid. Jonas enterprising.

Glad he went to Villa instead of Hull. So far that's the highlight of my off-season.

I'd say: Harper R. Taylor S. Taylor Kadar Enrique Jonas Smith Barton Duff Nolan Shola (or Carroll) This is not what I want, but what I think we will see.

So it should be a decent upgrade then...

I love how they can be so picky as to be reluctant to sell to the plethora of made up buyers.

Surprised he is going to Hull to be honest. Could well find himself in the same position next year.

No.

At the very least it's good to know that he has a sophisticated security system.

What's Glenn Roeder up to nowadays?

More than he is worth as a player, but less than he could have been worth to the club over the upcoming season.

Whoever it is (assuming someone does come in) it would be a shit job to have to take at this incredibly late stage of the off-season. At least if it is Shearer he will have worked closely with the squad so will know who is available (plus he was touted as having written up a list of targets).

linked with a few clubs, hull burnley everton and fulham Was linked with us last season as well. Does well in MLS, which means precisely Sweet FA ...still might be good.

Buying an executive box is tantamount to buying the club according to Times Online? Seems odd that there would be two articles out at the same time essentially about the same bloke, with a vastly different story to tell.

This story will: [A] Prove to be false Prove to be untrue [C] Slide off the face of the planet into obscurity with no further comment from anyone [D] Be denied by JFK who will claim to be the leading bidder [E] Come true Question: Why would the times be privy to this sort of information?

I've been resigned to this for some time. Bring on the season so we can just concentrate on the football rather than all this pointless speculation/shit.

I can't help but feel that something will go horribly wrong for us in this match. Whether it be a penalty, a red-card or an embarrassing loss - the whole build up in the off-season seems to suggest that this match will be the first of many banana skins we encounter this season. I'm really hopeful that this won't be the case. I haven't been following West Brom's personnel changes over the off-season but last season despite their position on the table they were a team that liked to play football (as opposed to the likes of Stoke and Hull). Here's to hoping that it's still the case now. I don't think some of our players will react well to physicality (can see Barton striking out, Coloccini retreating into his hair, Jonas feigning injury and looking diinterested, Smith committing cardable tackles Raylor giving away pens, and Saylor pointing double time).