Magic8Ball

Babel's not so effective when he can't cut in - keep him wide and he tends to drift out of the game

means we need to shift Voronin before we can get Tuncay

We don't need 25m just enough to get Tuncay and Distin - that would leave us with cover most places - except DM cover for Mash

I see the govt continues to help british football, first it taxes more than Spain, now it wont let footballer's wives in ....

When's Mash signing his new contract ?

442 also suits Owen and Berbatov .... Man u look to outscore everyone, sounds like Newcastle to me

Seems Rafa wants to make us a more attack minded team, despite this I wonder how we'll cope without Mash. If we play 2 in CM and Mash as the defensive midfielder we have attacking options with Lucas and Aquilani but what about defensive options if Mash is out ( we missed him first leg against Chelsea CL last season), is Plessis good enough cover ?

4141 ? variation on 433 - looks ok but who subs for Mash? Lucas, Pleassis?

Been saying that for ages. I like the player, but I don't think he'd improve us. Mata is probably the better player a Valencia

I 'd say he has between 14m and 24/26m Best case Johnson = Keane+ Crouch; Auilani = Alonso -10m; Leto=+3 Anderson etc =+1 = 14M + what the owners promised (10-12m) probable case = above minus the promise of funds, so ~14m Worse case Owners take the money to pay off debts

Less than previously. I think Rafa's the kind to see out his contract then walk

I am ! Gerrard's moved on, and playing him in midfield is not using him at his best anymore

Glad you're so positive - I'm not ! we'll do ok but we're going to need so much luck this year !! We lack cover BOTH offensively and defensively, we also replaced a vital cog late on with a cog potentially made of the right stuff but also of unknown quality in this machine (man what an analogy). Still Win the right games and we'll "do the league" - get the "right draws" and we'll get a cup or two

maybe, but there was enough for a 6m bid for Turner

good point, but surely the manager they have is good enough ?

It's interesting that Man U are talking about us so much, but when it comes down to it Chelsea have to be in pole position this year. They don't seem to have lost anyone meaningful, we have, Man U have, and so have Arsenal. As for Man City, Everton, Villa, Spurs I'm not so sure there's that great a difference between those teams

fair enough, but I've defined "run of games" as a game or two (on the bounce) Oddly enough I'd play Babel against Spurs where they're going to attack us and Reira against Stoke who I'd expect to defend against us. Babel needs to know his hard work is being noticed and rewarded. This can be done without jeopardising the team. It's the only way you'll see Babel improve. If we don't do this, we should sell him this summer as we're going to lose money on him big otherwise. Players are people and some players, need encouragement till they're ready, not every starts off as a Kuyt. But with good mentoring most can learn to give 100 % like Kuyt all through the match in the right areas. Benayoun wasn't like that originally but he's grown into it, I'm sure Babel can too.

If you think Reira is so superior to Babel fine. Rafa implied the reason he wasn't getting games was his defensive weakeness. He'd working on that and - given that he's more effective than Reira at scoring goals a reward for his hard work is merited. Some players need encouragement and getting a game or two because he's worked hard, done the right things and because when he does that he's more dangerous than Reira seems good management to me. Of course we can just play Reira, leave Babel on the bench and watch his head drop - have him be useless cover for Reira, then sell him at a loss

1 I'd expect Rafa to play him on the left, where he'd get in ahead of Reira

good to hear a few things need to happen now 1 - Rafa needs to give him a run as reward 2 - He needs to remain injury free 3 - He needs to score/create and use his left peg

what about the sale of leto ? - guess it means we could get a 'Lavazzi or Silva'

seems we have to keep the A quotient high, we lost Arbeloa and now we've siggned Albert Aquilani ( 2A's ) for the price of 1

Assuming that's true, and we get Distin as well I'd be happy even though I still think we're short in CM

She's a natural beauty, not many of them about any more

Yeah I'd say it was significant. Especially as they have a similar defensive record to ours.