Spike

Potential. Potential. That is what we paid for but will we give him the time to realise it? Does he have the talent to realise it? I hope so.

Good point - was Cisse the focal point of Auxerre's team or was he just a supportive role?

He's worth what it would cost to replace somebody of his potential. He's a French national. Henry was a flop once too??

Suggests to me that Owen is coming more that Cisse is leaving could also be lazy journalism as both of these names have been linked with us ni the past. It's not beyond the papers' having been so way off the mark to now use budget restrictions as the reason why Owen wouldn't come home.10

they're signing Own too

Wayne, you go to many more aways than I to be more informed on such things (about 19 PL games a year ) and I take what you say on board but Rafa has made the point of strengthening around such inadequacies? In our only away PL game we had many opportunities -most from midfield players granted. This is why the RW position is key to me. Apart from SG tearing up ground or xabi's passes we have little to stretch teams with and thus create space between the CB's for our forwards to attack. By the same token we bring the ball back to draw teams out but we don't have the outlets that we need to stretch defences. A large part of this is confidence to recover from counter attacks and we have seen Sami exposed a few times and are conservative in our agrression as a result. If we pressed up more we'd possibly be able to pressure all areas more effectively especially if we had such wide outlets and our forwards would profit more. Moro does his best and drops deep, lays it off, cisse is too quick for the lino's and thus drifts to allow our midfield time to get in the box. It's little coincdence IMO that both have scored in games where, due to lack of overall ability, we have been able to have our full backs and widemen press forward.

Part of the forwards role is to create space for the midfield to have such opportunities?

lol, that reminds me of a chat I had with a journo recently and they admitted that a lot of the stuff they get nowadays is by hanging around local pubs and chatting to folk as well as forums in order to get news leads. With some of the shyte that's spouted it's easy to see why they are wrong so often Simple fact is that very few have in roads into clubs any more unless a certain player has a column with a paper. I know of two national sports writers that take the above approach.

Tetti, your sig seems quite remarkably relevant in this thread

aye go on then. I'll need to be in a team full of runners though. I'll just pick the balls off to them like a fat xabi. Are St Johns attending? If not I'll have to put them speed dial.

from the beeb report: Newcastle skipper Alan Shearer, who endured a paucity of service throughout the match... and we think we have problems! how many midfielders do they have?

BTW have you thought about positions within this squad. I like to think of myself as a Molby type player so if you want someone to grow a beard and become a property magnate I'm yer man. Would love to come along and help out though whatever way I can. ( as long as I don't have to carry Jon Hall's colostemy bag or summat )

feckin bitter cos with your european history you couldn't even get in G4

LOL

if only we had someone like platini that we could partner him with

Booo @ Stevie. We can still win the CL you know

we could just pile the cash in a massive leather holdall and stick it in the middle of the field. It can have diao's shirt

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO COS I WILL SCWEAM AND SCWEAM AND SCWEAM AND SCWEAM AND SCWEAM

aye and Mido has signed for 18 months

hated the c*** ever since he pointed to his badge and mouthed 'premiership' when wolves knocked the barcodes out of the fa cup. If he signs I for one will not sing his name.

u no eye cant

no wonder the 4-4-3 isn't working. they have too many men on the pitch

paul scholes?

link source sauce?

count me in. Great idea BTW