Ex Lion Tamer

Sounds about right. I just read that he once went for £8-10m which really is a lot

He's like a cross between Dimitar Berbatov, Carlton Palmer and Paolo Wanchope

Any guesses as to what the fee would be for him?

Interesting post. The problem was we weren't able to get behind the wing backs because we don't have any natural width at the moment. Every time we tried to play it through the centre we were crowded out, and when we had it on the wing we didn't have the tricks to get a decent cross in. So we ended up passing it around aimlessly until we gave it away.

Centre midfield really isn't our priority right now

Interesting. J-Rod completed 56% of passes, comfortably the lowest in the team - to give the benefit of the doubt presumably because he was out of position?

I am now a bit concerned, we may well get relegated if we don't get 3 or 4 players in and we seem to be running out of time. But when you originally posted this thread it was extremely premature, and I maintain that the signings we've made so far have been decent. Clyne has been a revelation!

I would add to this that I'm just not sure about Kelvin in this league. I know it was a 1 on 1 so the odds were against him but he seemed to give Kone the whole goal to shoot into

Should have been a free kick, but not sure what Davis' positioning was about. Basically we overachieved last season with the players we had. Desperately need signings

Wigan are packing the centre of defence, could be tough to find a way through

Amazing shot from Lallana

Guly looking good so far, crowd singing his name at one point

Not sure he fits the system we are trying to play, we tend to attack on the wings

Its not just about crosses, I can vividly remember Guly failing to win clearances from our defence. At least once he did his usual thing of pretending to go for the ball but actually not jumping at all. I'm not a Guly hater like some and I don't necessarily think it was a bad decision to start with Lambert n the bench but we did miss the latter's ability to hold the ball up when it was cleared in the air

Yes, would give us midfield cover in a 442, but I imagine in a 433 he would be left back as a replacement for Fox. Seems like we want full backs who can push on, like Clyne. Assuming this isn't just paper/agent talk of course

Glad we're still in for a left back

Those were the days. Proper exciting as a kid to read a newspaper after going without for a week or so. My inability to leave this forum alone for more than a day is driving me crazy. I've gone from being positive about our transfer dealings to pretty worried and negative. Just need to remember that there is still time

Amazing stuff, brilliant performance. We need more quality but plenty to be positive about

We need a left back

Clyne is just brilliant isn't he, bargain of the season

Never trust an article which ends the first sentence with an exclamation mark

What sexy centre backs are there that we might be considering then?

A smokescreen for what purpose?

Its a very black and white view to say that just because one player can be obtained early, all players can. Some clubs will want to sell early in order to invest, while others will want to hold on in the hope of a receiving a higher bid. Meanwhile, some players will be happy to go to a club that is interested straightaway, but others will want to wait and see if better clubs become available. And as a bidding club, we may not think certain players are worth the money being asked, and so want to wait until the transfer deadline to see if the selling club will lower its asking price because they don't want to be stuck with an unhappy player. This is where the disconnect occurs, because Adkins wants players in early but Cortese will believe that prices will drop when the deadline looms. Its not even as if we haven't signed any players early, anyone can see that, we've signed several. And if the Buttner deal hadn't hit an unusual snag, we would have done even more business. We obviously decided it was worth paying over the odds for Rodrigues as we are so convinced he is quality and had wanted to get some business finalised. If say we need to make 7 signings over the summer, we can't leave them all to the last minute, but now we only need 3 or 4 we may believe we can do it in the timescale.

Because clubs don't want to sell the better players and haggle for higher fees. Reading on the other hand have picked up a load of free transfers because they are available rather than because they are real quality