alias75

Someone put a link up on here yesterday from soccernet who are usually pretty reliable saying the £16million clause only meant Utd could talk to him but it didn't mean Blackburn had to accept £16million that report said they wanted closer to £26million. They'll probably deal for around £20 million.

Pretty happy with Downing, he is a proper winger and while he isn't flash like a Nani he does the things wingers should do. He keeps his width well and can deliver a good ball from out wide, he also knows what to do when the balls on the other side of the pitch and his goal record is good for a wide player. I know he won't excite everyone but he'll give us good balance on the left side which we badly need, he should be entering the prime years of his career so hopefully theres even more improvement in him playing with better players.

not really its letting other interested teams know a price has been set. Of course if Wickham has his heart set on 1 club then it makes it more difficult for them to play hard ball over the fee although they could always refuse to sell him if their fee isn't met.

They might have agreed a deal with Ipswich but that doesn't mean they've agreed a deal with the player.

Young doesn't improve Utd (imo) i do think he plays better centrally but thats where Rooney plays. Will probably sell Nani and he'll replace him, it was quite telling that Nani didn't start a lot of the big games at the end of the season.

the Daily Mail love us... Link

when Gibbs was fit Clichy still played.

but you won't trust Wenger who keeps picking him??

He has been a good player in the past for them though, its probably no coincidence that as they regressed as a team he got worse, you could probably say the same about a lot of their players over the last 2 years, Fabregas for example was pretty poor last season but it doesn't make him a bad player. When they had a better team he looked a good player so for the price being talked about its worth the risk.

He obviously offers the team something if he were that bad he wouldn't be playing would he?? Like i said they have Gibbs that could replace him, yes Arsenal have been poor defensively but its a team thing rather than a back 4 thing they just don't focus on defence too much, and they're back 4 is pretty exposed most of the time. But if Clichy had been that bad for the last 2 years it would be crazy to keep playing him especially when you have a young player thats highly rated that could replace him.

Wenger isn't a mug if he had been that bad he would have been out of the team, they have Gibbs whose highly thought of so its not as if they don't have alternatives.

we're being linked with a lot of central midfielders, we already have Henderson and it looks like Adam will come too. If we're going to play that way width from fulback is imperative, Kelly or GJ can provide that from the right we need someone who can do the same from the left and Clichy is basically a left sided version of Johnson. Yes he needs to improve defensively but as others have said he's been playing in a side that doesn't seem to concentrate on defence too much. He is a quality player thats been playing at the top level for a long time now, if we can get him for anything under £10 million it'd be a good deal and of course he's an improvement on what we've had in recent times.

There was a lot of speculation on how much we would pay for Jordan and none of the figures I've seen are correct so far. We've paid a price that we are comfortable with, otherwise we would not have done the deal.

is it really surprising that Man Utd can target more established players than us at the moment?? we aren't in the CL and are coming off 2 poor seasons, we need to build again but its not going to happen overnight, brining in talented young players we think will improve lots is one way of doing it. If we're correct with our judgements we'll have the basic of a very good very young team in a few years. Then you can look to add the established world class players. its sad to say but at the moment we aren't really competing with Man Utd.

His attitude which has always been the main worry with him looked really good at Wigan, when they were in a relegation fight he was one of their key players in terms of getting them out of it.

think Downing is going to happen, i know it will disappoint a lot of fans but think he'll be a good player for us. We have to understand where we are at the moment, we're outside the top 4 and our main goal has to be to get back in, we also have no CL football its very difficult for us to attract the type of marquee signings a lot of people are hoping for. But Downing will improve us and give us something we've been badly missing for a long time, he's not flashy but hes a good player, most Villa fans say he's better than Young this season.

according to some on Twitter Jones failed his medical... might be rubbish though but they're saying BBC Radio Lancashire are reporting it.

Yes he can hes a CB first and foremost . I think we shouldn't under estimate how good Kelly could be, personally i think he's just as good if not better than Jones so we shouldn't be too worried about missing out on him ,there's also high hopes for Wisdom. I think we need to sign 1 CB this summer ideally someone aged around 24-25 so with some experience but with a lot of years ahead of them, Kelly needs games at CB but we need to do it slowly and he can get some experience at fullback too where he's looked very good. Of the possibles i think Cahill would be good, not seen much of Dann but he looks like a no nonsense defender.

i know its difficult but we've got to accept we're at a different level to Utd at the moment, they're trying to close the gap on Barcelona we're trying to get back into top 4. Its going to be difficult for us to attract proven international players without CL football so it looks like we're going to target talented young players with lots of potential. As long as there is improvement thats all that matters, and once the season starts if we get some momentumn going who knows what might happen with just the PL to focus on, but we have a lot of work to do before we're ready to compete in the PL and CL. This season gives us a chance to strengthen the team, doing it with young players also improves the squad because we don't have European football we can take our time a bit and look for quality rather than quantity and do the same again next season. We need to do better than one of Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal and Man City and i think with the right signings we can do that.

chuckles is back!

Sunderland linked to 3 of their squad players - what a surprise.

Think he'll end up being a great CB, hes played CB all his career he's done a great job at fullback but he could save us a fortune, given we already have Johnson and Flannagan id like to see him slowly moved into CB and eventually replace Carragher.

don't think Shawcross is good enough especially for the money being talked about, think Sakho is going to be a great player, physically hes a monster, of the rest Cahill is probably the best option, hes experienced enough to come straight into the first team, young enough to be here for the next 5-6 years and hes quick and good in the air as well as being decent in possession.

someone said here he was ranked number 2 in the "key passes" stat last season too, behind just Malouda.

apparently Jones spoke to Wenger but chose Utd... also hearing that we had a deal agreed up until today