CityRanger

That's how I interpreted the Telegraph article on page 4 of this thread. Quite incredible if so that we have gone all season with him as Captain. Completely undermines Puel. Couldn't imagine Ferguson having put up with that as a manager

Wouldn't be surprised if we are pressuring him to get a sick note considering our current situation.

Patrick Colleter was moutard at left back.

Agree. Our first choice back 4 is class. But put in any cover players, (I'll exclude Targett as I think he can defend) that's Martina/McQueen/Yoshida, and we start getting pulled all over the shop and almost guaranteed the oppo will get at least a goal a game. Bertrand and Cedric are brittle as f though so we need two more quality full backs and PLEASE a decent 3rd choice CB for 1st time in years and we'll be ok. Oh and a top striker to capitalise on the clean sheets. Not much lol.

Looked less than that to me but possibly complimentaries/BS family and friends?

Watching tonight's game and Gibson looks good too. How much to prise him away from Uncle Steve asa Virgil/Fonte replacement? Being talked about as future England player.

I think that's McQueen Sr above. He talks about Sam on twitter. He must be very proud of his son.

I backed the team vocally 100% from the first to the final whistle. Let it be noted that our fans got behind the team far more at a goal down last night at The Generali than the lot in Milan did. However I gave a barrage of abuse at the end! To be honest it was aimed at the overall team selection by the manager as well as the performance of players. We wanted to go through last night, it's no good playing a weakened side, if you don't get away with it expect criticism.

Any fan who want to see the back of Liebherr is a dinlo, as we say down here.

Thats a very big statement. Personally I don't agree. I would go further and say that Targett is a better defender than SM by far. MT doesn't get skinned as easily as McQueen. (McQueen seems to make good decisions with the ball though to his credit) People have been giving Targett stick ever since his debut and I've always said he's a young player, give him time to develop. I'll give McQueen the same treatment, it must be a massive learning curve coming from Southend/Saints u23's. No way is he as good as Bertrand though who just needs a couple of games to get his sharpness back.

So according to the Telegraph and Echo it would seem that Austin replaces Pelle and Redmond for Mane. I would say that is a slight gamble on both replacements.

One of the two. Need four senior strikers in my opinion.

So we are selling Italy's number 9 and have already sold our top scorer but we don't need to replace them? I beg to differ on this. The Echo article is written as if fed from club?

Not a hipster name at all and I'll probably get pelters but Mark Warburton hasn't been mentioned? Earning a good reputation and apparently plays a good style but would he make the famous Black Box? I think he'd be ahead of the inexperienced Giggs/Neville suggestions at least.

Did he?! Haha, that's reassuring.

I do hope we're not using the same "legal eagle" who dealt with the Toby/A Madrid contract fiasco last year.

When Poch left the media were convinced Malky Mackay would be our man. Talk sport tonight reckoned Ryan Giggs would be a good fit for us now

" Victor will be allowed to leave but only if we recoup our initial outlay of £12m" What do we think Levy has bid this year? 3/4 million? Nice idea about Mane but if he's worth that much in today's market I hope we've offered him a salary to reflect that or he'll be another one going cheap next summer.

And it means we can buy our players from Feyenoord, Chelsea, Sporting Lisbon and Athletico Madrid rather than Blackpool, Elfsborg and Skonto Riga (couple of guesses there but hopefully you get my drift!).

Fair enough. The main thing is a settled solid defence. If we can spend 60-70 million on new attacking players could be quite exciting. (Big Vic will leave a whole though).

A Premier League title medal for Nathan Dyer? First academy product since Wayne Bridge to do that? Calling statisticians!

Yes I heard that too. He gave individual instruction to the player closing down their forward and then called for the whole defence to push out. Very loud, very clear and very impressive leadership.

He could sign a pre contract and move here officially in the summer. Meanwhile replacing Caulker as a domestic loan on our books for the rest of the season and he can try and make the Euro's. We'll see.

To trouser the signing on/ transfer fee himself rather than QPR? It is a possibility but personally I agree with those saying it'll be for now.

Could possibly be a pre contract ? Didn't Ings do that with !iverpool last Jan?