OTF

The people of Cardiff must be questioning the merit of having multiple teams in the Championship. Surely they'd be better off combining their second and third placed teams and quite possibly taking out the competition. I suppose that would also depend on the form of fourth placed Cardiff, and Cardiff in fifth who are breathing down their necks.

We've won 7 of our last 7. Took us 38 matches to notch up 7 wins last season.

Nile from an Enrique cross.

Enrique assist.

SHOLAAAAAAAAAA! Nigeria's finest!

The only thing working against us getting him could be a concern that he wouldn't play that much for us. If he did come here and didn't play it would be a minor travesty as he looks to be a wonderful player with composure and skills well in advance of his age. If we got him for the remainder of the year with an option to extend beyond that it would be nice. Obviously he'll always be one for Arsenal (been there since he was 9 according to wikipedia) but he'd be a good player to have here for a year or so.

Poor bugger. Good player, the kind we should be looking for if we get promoted (though not someone so injury prone or old).

Steven Gerrard is a fucking despisable cunt of a human being.

Can you please make your own thread for this? I'd like to comment but don't want to derail this thread or take any of the effect away from his dramatic statement.

Looks like we're all set for a great transfer window then.

I honestly don't think Taylor will want to leave. As it is he'll be confident about us getting back into the Premier League next season. If he was to go to a top half of the premiership team he'd struggle to get a start. If he was to go to a bottom half side there's every chance he could be relegated again, so he'd much rather ride this season out with us and then face the prospect of relegation with us the following year (Not that I think we'll be relegated IF we are promoted - the power of positive thinking). Coloccini has been playing well this season and has his confidence back. At the start of last season for us he was quite decent, fell off horribly late in the season when his confidence was shot. Though confidence has nothing to do with his complete lack of pace..

USA aren't a bad side (evidenced by their results in the recent confederation cup in South Africa where they were 2-0 up over Brazil in the final, having beaten Spain in the semi). Also, from Pot 2 Australia would LOVE to draw England as their Pot 1 team. From pot 3 both Ghana and the Ivory Coast would be very tough opponents.

I'm surprised at the amount of support afforded to Harewood in this thread. He has for th emost part been pathetic for us, and has on several occassions prevented the likes of Nile Ranger (who is actually a Newcastle player) getting more valuable experience. [Larry David]Having said that, we have him already so we might as well hold onto him for the remainder of the season. With Ameobi being injury prone he may provide good cover late on in the season.[/Larry David]

Much more to it that just goals. You can't just look at the stats and say, hasn;t scored goals then he must be average. You have to actually see them play. So many other factors to consider. Sure, they should be capable of scoring goals, but it't not necessarily the be all end all. There will always be big strikers out there who's primary role is to break up and commit the defense in order to open up space for their teammates. These sort of strikers will rarely score more than 10 goals, as they're often playing back to goal and sometimes on their own.

Normally, based on a mixture of current seedings and recent Euros and WCs isn't it? Don't think the Euro form will figure in it (how could it really - because how could you compare a European side with say Argentina). This is how it was calculated for 2006: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_FIFA_World_Cup_seeding Speculation is that more or less the same formula will be used this time around. So it will be a combination of the rankings across the 3 years preceeding the World Cup (07, 08, 09) as well as the rank from the last two World Cups. If this was the case I'd say England will fall inside the first pot.

The biggest thing lacking from our side at the moment is pace. Watching some of the top half sides (Tottenham and Villa) they have players with natural pace (even on the ball). The players who are physically pacey are mentally quick and work well together. I also watched some of the mid to lower sides (Blackburn vs fulham) and there's not a huge difference between us and them. Sure there is some investment required, but I've said it before - any team coming coming up would be happy to have our squad as a basis to work from. The same naysayers who predicted we would be midtable in the championship think we will be cert's for delegation if we go up. Sure there is a huge gulf in quality between the championship and the majority of the premier league, but there's half a dozen sides that we'd be better than with just the smallest amount of investment. Whether or not we see that investment remains to be seen. We still would be a considerable draw card over many of the other sides in the premier league, so getting some decent players in should not be that hard a task.

Whilst Colocini was constantly found out the same is not true for Enrique. He took a little while to settle, however even during that period he was defensively quite good. Thereafter he grew defensively. He did occassionally turn the ball over playing long balls, but I'd argue that a large part of that was down to not having any options to pass to. So Enrique is definitely PL quality. Nolan is as well. He was for several years before falling off the wagon at Bolton. Danny Simpson would be fine in the premier league, but it remains to be seen whether he will be signed permanently. Smith could be ok in the premier league with someone creative alongside him, certainly better than Butt was for us last season. Carroll s developing nicely, but I wouldn't say that he's pl quality yet.

The 5M is bullshot. The rest is possibly true. He can leave for nothing in the summer, so they may try to sell him off now for a million. If they think they're going to get a million out of Ashley when he's already got the 'best defense' in the league they're having a joke. We'll no doubt try to sign in the summer, or get him here on loan now (if Sheffiedl don't want to keep paying the wages of a player who will be leaving) and then sign him permanently then.

We're a worse side than the one that was relegated, however I maintain that the same squad that was relegated in another season would have earnt enough points to finish comfortably mid-table. The relegation was down to several factors not the least of which was the management turmoil. In addition there was typically horrible injury problems (AKA injury prone players) and massive supporter unrest. I can confidently say* If the team we were relegated with was playing this season in the Championship they would be no chance to be relegated again if there was stable management. * - partly because there's no way to disprove it

Guthrie got a goal, but not an assist in the league cup (against Huddersfield).

Good on them.

Agree also, some quality crosses from Simpson - balance of placement and power and didn't waste any of them. We so obviously lacked width on the right from the midfield, so Simpson advancing was invaluable. Hopefully him coming off was entirely precautionary if he felt a twinge or something. Don't know anything about Pancrate but if he's a natural right midfielder/winger than he'll hopefully be given a chance. Guthrie has no pace, and plays much better through the centre of the park. Ryan Taylor is also not quick, and although he can put in a good cross he can't take on a defender and consequently won't even get in behind them. It was good to see Lovenkrands get on the pitch. He's apparently got no heart, but I still think he could prove to be a valuable player for us particularly in home matches.

Yep that was Ranger. A complete lack of communication (though he had not been on the pitch long). It was Jonas' best play of the game - a strong run down the left and a well placed pass into the path of a quickly advancing Danny Guthrie. It was a better chance than the Nolan goal with Guthrie having shown that he can really hit a shot. If I was Ranger I'd claim that the normal product on the end of a Jonas run is that poor that he though the pass was directed at him (even though he had to poke out a leg just to get a touch on it). Jonas can have no complaints though because he wasted an even better chance in injury time after Lovenkrands played him in, and had earlier completely fluffed a great chance to cut it in to Nolan directly in front 6 yards out after being played in nicely by Enrique. At any lengths we can thankfully forget entirely about that game now that the 3 points are in the bank.

I'm going, but will only be seeing three groups stage games with the teams as yet undecided. Will find out of the 4th of December when the draw takes place. I'll be seeing 6 different teams so here's hoping I see a few good ones amongst that bunch.

I'm down for it... if foreigners are allowed