Joensuu

Post fail. If we fail to complete this transfer we will move to another, more attainable, and almost certainly already being assessed, target.

Agree. However, I think Roy wants to pick the younger of the two. England are always rallying to the future, and never thinking about the present. I think that, barring injury, Lambert will have to virtually double Carroll's goal tally next season to stand a fair shot at selection next summer.

Why? Any evidence to support this? Sorry, can you point us to a link for this claim? The quoted wages I've seen (c. 3m euros pa) seem if anything a little low for a player of his stature. Why come to that conclusion? You have nothing to substantiate what you are saying. In a few days (or even hours) we might find out whether you are correct in your guess. A tip for the future - if you don't know for sure, try adding some doubt into your post and be a little less definitive, eh? Just a thought.

Hodgson was backed into a corner. Desperately short of strikers, he knew that if he didn't take someone else as cover and we failed to win he'd have been slaughtered in the press. His only option was to call upon one of the player's he has so far overlooked. Lambert was probably the strongest of the previously non-selected contenders. Roy probably wasn't consciously hoping that Lambert would fail - in fact I'm sure he was delighted that he scored and spared him a press grilling. What happens next though will be far tougher. Lambert isn't in Hodgson's preferred 5 forwards. Roy's instinct will be to exclude him again, but he will now be well aware that if he does so, and loses (or draws) a game, he will be attacked on all of the back pages. If he stays fit, and depending upon how other forwards fair this season, Lambert probably has at least a 30% chance of receiving a ticket to Brazil.

Beyond my threshold already. Happy to go to 5 or 6 games a season at current prices, but simply can't justify spending more than around £25 a game on a regular basis. Having said that, I'd probably still go to 2 or 3 games a season at £50 a pop.

Agree on all counts.

Consider buying a train season ticket? £15 per week sounds a lot more palatable than £6 per day. Sholing (SHO) to Southampton Central (SOU) Available Standard Class Adult Season Tickets (Travel is allowed via any permitted route.) [TABLE=width: 420] [TR] [TH]Days/Months[/TH] [TH=class: price, align: right]Price[/TH] [/TR] [TR=class: hlt] [TD]7 Days[/TD] [TD=class: price, align: right]£15.10[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]1 Month[/TD] [TD=class: price, align: right]£58.00[/TD] [/TR] [TR=class: hlt] [TD]3 Months[/TD] [TD=class: price, align: right]£174.00[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]6 Months[/TD] [TD=class: price, align: right]£348.00[/TD] [/TR] [TR=class: hlt] [TD]12 Months[/TD] [TD=class: price, align: right]£604.00[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE]

Oh, Turks, I'm sorry if I've misunderstood the 'inner' you. I must have misinterpreted your 'Happy Birthday Nicola' thread. You didn't mean that thread to seem sarcastic did you, you genuinely wanted to be a chairman as an 8 year old, you truly appreciate the art of 'paper shuffling', and the real life Turks actually describes the game to his mates as soccerball. It's just coincidental that your posts all seem to have a political anti-Cortese edge to them, you're just an honest poster, with no axe to grind whatsoever. I feel guilty now. I've slighted your good, honest character, and somehow confused your posting style with that of a troll. That can't be right eh, you're too genuine to be a WUM. You simply aren't the sort of poster who might brand others as being 'a classic example of one of the forum divs'. You're an honest guy. Honest, genuine, and oft inexplicably misunderstood.

I hope you don't believe that Glasgow. I disagree with your interpretation of the forum dynamics. You don't get bullied, and rarely do you contribute constructively. Firstly, you do Alpine a disservice by associating him with the genuine trolls. He has real opinions, and argues them genuinely. He doesn't set out with the objective of antagonising; that's an accidentally consequence, not his intention. Secondly, the 'rat pack' you describe are just a collection of decent posters, they all have interesting and varied opinions. They don't cyber bully the trolls, they just, rightly, react negatively to deliberate trolling. Blaming them for wreaking threads is akin to a criminal blaming a copper for rising crime. Remove alpine from your WUM list, then ban the remaining 2 or 3 out and out trolls who contribute nothing constructive. Problem solved.

Wow, another sarcastic thread, with a healthy dose of anti-club vibe. I for one am more than happy to play it with a straight bat and wish Nicola a happy birthday.

I'm sure, Damiao would have a say in the matter - would you offer the same opportunity to Ms Hendricks? Assuming you answered the above with a yes (as it would be a slight to your character to assume otherwise), then do you feel that probability of Damiao or Osvaldo joining us is broadly equivalent to your odds with said actress? I feel your interest, and our interest have slightly different likelihoods of success. Or should I say, if you honestly feel you have a 1 in 4 (my estimate) chance of success, surely you are on the wrong side of the Atlantic?

Why the lack of faith? We are obviously in the market; we've been liked with very good forwards, and our manager has confirmed our interest. We wouldn't be chasing them if we didn't feel we had the cash, or if we felt that we had no chance attracting them. Surely the only evidence we have is that the club is doing everything it can to attract a top player? So what makes you feel otherwise? I disagree. Right now we don't have any evidence of negligence. In 25 days time we might have some evidence to support your argument. If we sign, say, Osvaldo (or even a fallback option like Bent) in 25 days time would we still have been negligent? Sure some people are being a bit rude - that's what forums seem to induce. I've been (rightly) slated for things I've posted on here; I can only mark it down as character building.

Excellent point, assuming the window has closed already. If the window closes without us bringing in another forward I will be fully behind you on this. The forum has a healthy range of opinions. The argument you are presenting just happens to coincide with one that is commonly presented by the resident trolls. For example, your argument: seems to be more deconstructive than constructive; seems to be overlooking a number of key facts (like the spending to date, and the lack of having lost anyone we want to retain); seems to overestimate the signings made by rival clubs (c.f. Norwich); seems to compare us to Liverpool and City who are currently far more attractive to most potential signings; seems to be ignoring the difficulties that we will have in punching above our weight, and the obvious delay this will cause as we need to play a waiting game; seems to assume that we aren't actively working behind the scenes; seems to suggest that if we can't land a top player, that we won't have backup options being assessed; and, intentionally, or not, seems to be an indirect attack on the club and it's leadership. You then aren't helping your case, by using rather extreme words like 'inactivity' (when we've been active), and 'negligent' (when we have been anything but). Surely you can see why people might be reacting in the way they are?

There is nothing negligent about our attempts to attract a top striker at all. Are you saying we should have given up and settled for a lesser target? Surely that would have been more fittingly described as negligent?

7th would be lovely, and it might be achievable. If we can land a top forward to supplement Rickie we will stand a good chance. Problem with top players, they don't tend to join ambitious middling outfits unless they are short of options, or unless the team overpays. If we want to try to tempt players who seem beyond our reach, we will have to play the waiting game - and that means we are unlikely to make any further signings until the end of the window. Far better to wait for quality than buy average sooner.

I'd hope for 8th to 11th

Superb window so far. Anyone suggesting otherwise has literally no idea what they are talking about.

This. Until the transfer window shuts and proves me wrong, I'm confident that we will sign another forward. I'm sure we have lined up a few 'second-choices' if we can't land one of our first picks. And I'm sure there are probably some 'worst-case' options to back them up. We might well play the first few games without making any further additions, but I'd be surprised if we let the window close without bringing in the best player we can convince to join us.

Agree Super_Saint. The OP doesn't mention the number 75, just targets for each area of the squad. Those targets are very ambitious, but possibly obtainable. The strikers might well have an awful season, and only net 15 goals between them. But if the defenders scored, say, 12 between them, then they would have exceeded expectations. The OP isn't suggesting 75 goals are obtainable, or realistic. The OP is merely giving each area of the squad ambitious targets. Really not sure what the playground bullies have against the concept.

All targets need to be ambitious. None of the individual targets in that the OP has written are completely inconceivable (e.g. asking the forwards to aim for 30 goals is ambitious, but could be achieved if we have a superb season). If we were to have targets of, say, 5/10/15/20, we'd only really be aim to repeat last season's form. The OP's 10/15/20/30 is probably 30-50% more than we could hope for, but does give each area of the squad an ambitious and potentially achievable target to aim for.

While he continues to out-score his juniors we'd be daft to not give Lambert significant game time. There is nothing to suggest that his effectiveness will reduce next season, he could easily continue for 3 or 4 seasons at this level. I do agree that we rely on him too much, and should bring in someone to share in goal scoring duties, but to label him a plodder, which i can only assume is one step short of calling for him to be dropped altogether is a tad extreme.

I'm sure most of us would love Lukaku. There are some slight problems with this though. He appears to be highly rated at Chelsea - so much so that a £30m bid would almost certainly be turned down. Even if we did get a bid accepted, we'd have to significantly overpay, and would then have to 'sell' the club to the player. The only things we can offer are playing time and wages. If Chelsea are willing to offer him the former we stand no chance IMHO.

Glasgow, I'd personally be a little concerned if we brought in another 5 as you suggest we should. Not only is that more revolution than evolution, and would change dynamics in the dressing room quite significantly. On top of that, if each of those 5 were 'quality' additions we would be looking at spending at least another £30m (probably £40m). That would be a significant financial investment/risk. Honestly, hope we get a maximum 2-3. I'd be more than happy with 1 quality striker being the end of our transfer activity.

Hmm, if so, I wonder if this is the estate finally dividing the assets between inheritors?

In response to the thread - far to early to say. Current team would finish 9th to 15th. Throw a couple of quality players into the squad and 6th to 10th is doable. Ask this question in a months time and we might have a reasonable stab at an answer. Alps, fair enough the post was off topic, was that the only reason it got you choking on your Alpen?