A so called "plodder" in a side that finished considerably higher than us though last season you will have to admit!.

What a load of old tosh. All eleven players whoever they are, in whatever position, NEED to come in and perform from day 1 next season. There's no room for any passengers at this level unfortunately. And what if they don't perform from the first day? Get rid of them because we can't afford any passengers? If that's the case, we would never had seen Henry, Pires, Okocha and a list of other foreign players if we adapted your view on new foreign players. The only recent foreign player I've seen come in and play well from the start is Nistlerooy. If anything clubs like ourselves need to be more patient with new players because we can offer them a chance to play regularly and without the pressures of Man Utd or Chelsea where they need to win every single match or they wont play. That should be one of pros for a young player to join our club. Thank god you aren't our manager. O.K. then lads, just come in and start playing when you feel like it, doesn't matter if we get relegated down a division or two, you can always find your feet from the middle of division two. Why should foreign players be allowed or expected to come in and play poorly simply by virtue of the fact they are foreign? IMO the reverse of what you say is true in our case. Arsenal or Man Ure can afford to carry a bigger squad arguably allowing a foreign player a bit more leeway and time to acclimatise. We can't.

What a load of old tosh. All eleven players whoever they are, in whatever position, NEED to come in and perform from day 1 next season. There's no room for any passengers at this level unfortunately.

Of course we already have someone in that category............... Douglas . As far as Pederson goes I haven't seen him play, so can't comment on how good he is, but how old is he, 21 or so? The age thing is a red herring IMO, he's either good enough or he isn't. If he isn't good enough now, he never will be in all likeliehood.

I'ts just a convenient way of excusing poor performances in advance.

If the content on the Sky site is correct we have offered only £900k with £600k dependent on appearances etc. then?

Very good post indeed from philip l. However I do feel that this "punching above our weight" and "defying gravity" stuff is somewhat overexaggerated. If we had to rely solely on our gate income and merchandising receipts then yes we would have difficulty in competing. The way the place and TV money is allocated offers a unique opportunity to the smaller clubs. Gate receipts form a relatively small proportion of turnover. So if we were to finish 5th next year we would have one of the largest income outside the Champions League Clubs regardless of fan base. Secondly to that, no other club enjoys the backing of a trust fund regardless of whether it's "only" £3m per year or a larger amount on special request. No club has had an academy and training facilities of such quality laid on for them by a benefactor. Is Souness the man to take us forward and capitalise on these unique advantages? Personally I agree with KSB on this one, Souness earned the right to lead us into next season courtesy of that four game rally but there must be a huge improvement this time round.

The Jansen of today or pre accident? If the former your comments fall in the "insane" bracket. Let's at least give the guy a chance before writing him off. Errr........ no not really, it's not in dispute that the post injury Matt has lost a certain "Je ne sais quois" but even now on an off day I reckon he's more than capable of running his socks off (like Dickov) and chipping in with 5 goals a season (like Dickov). Still hope he doesn't sign, but if he does I'll be more than happy if he proves me wrong. P.S. You still sound a bit peeved I was right all along about Grabbi!

This signing comes into the "insane" bracket if it is intended as a replacement for Cole. If it is intended to provide competition for places behind Cole and Stead I still don't think he's a patch on Gallagher or even Jansen so I'd put it in the "squad player, no better than what we've got" category. Wonder why he chose us over the other clubs. Higher wages or the promise of first team football? Either way I do worry about the direction the club is taking. When we were promoted Souness said that staying in the Premiership for five years would be the making of us. In practice quite the opposite seems to be happening, we seem to be going backwards at a rate of knots.

We don't want any undue noise in the JW Upper , Rev.... Turn your hearing loop off then!

Maybe not, if we sign Breen and Dickov and lose Cole and Tugay.

Excellent news on the interest free direct debit front, really well done to the club on this one. I shall be taking advantage of it and upgrading to a more expensive seat. Just hope that the offer is in place permanently and not withdrawn at a later date. Surely now, no-one can use price as a major excuse for not buying. Poor performances maybe but not price.

Shearer wanted to join Man Ure for those very reasons. Uncle Jack wouldn't allow him to move to OT and back at the time Newcastle were a viable looking alternative in that respect. Looking at it from a neutral standpoint, still very harsh on Smith. Leeds wanted to sell him far more than he wanted to leave and given a free choice where would you expect him to go, to one of the two clubs where he's guaranteed to regularly win things or somewhere else? Of course if I was a Leeds fan I'd be hugely brassed off and wish he'd gone anywhere else but.

Perderson's club are obviously angling for more dosh to release him immediately with this "We want to keep him until the end of the season" line. It depends how good Rovers think he is. If we really think he's that good then there should be few qualms about signing him up now for £1.5m and allowing him to arrive in October or whenever. Then he can be patient and await his chance behind Douglas.

Good signings (seriously) IMO Hypia £2.6m Henchoz £3.5m (though personally I'm not a particular fan) Riise £4m Kirkland £6m Kewell £5m Possibly Finnan £3.5m Total: £24.6m add Homegrown Owen, Gerrard, Murphy, Carragher and one or two lads from Melwood and bingo you've saved over £90m!. Is this football management lark really THAT difficult? The thing that got on my nerves about Houllier was that he always insinuated anyone who criticised his record was in some ways a traitor and not a true supporter of the club. Mottman if you see this thread what do you reckon?

£15m for Diouf and Diao - ouch! Who the hell is Diomede? Does he even exist?

If Liverpool could tempt O'Neill down you could see them becoming a real force again. I reckon next to go will be Sir Bobby who seems to be similarly going backwards at a rate of knots at Newcastle.

But Scotty before copious amounts of beer after the brum game you came up and admitted Douglas had been excellent. Really. You did.

Edit, Paste, blow up into letters ten feet high, and stick up on wall of John Williams office.

Weren't you having a go recently for all the negative publicity coming out of Ewood and how it might affect season ticket sales? Well, I suspect the club thought that publicising the fact that we're after two players may just help sales. You can't have it both ways. Fair comment although news of a concrete bidhaving been made/a done deal would have been even more beneficial.

As far as Douglas is concerned he's come in and done an absolutely outstanding job on the left towards the end of the season. Personally I would be assuring him that the left wing slot is his as long as he keeps playing to that standard, and ploughing the extra money earmarked for Pederson into a centre half.

Tugay does have an "invisible friend" in central midfield, he's called Garry Flitcroft. Whilst Shagger observes play for 90 minutes his partner has the proverbial broom up their backside having to get through twice the normal workload just to try and hold the midfield together. Whilst at the same time being expected to provide the creative spark. I'd wager that Tugay would look far more impressive alongside a player who performs the holding role in midfield properly i.e. Ferguson. Even Andresson made Tugay look a lot better. On another note, it would another huge body blow psychologically if we lost Tugay. Another fans favourite through the door, the club will be in increasing danger of fielding a team of players no -one wants to watch

Not too sure about that Gav. We saw only one really good performance all season on the opening day of the season and a solid game against the red scum. Home performances weren't particularly good in 2002/3 either. A lot of people are going to want a lot more reason than that for forking out £400. Realistically season ticket sales will fall but hopefully these measures will reduce the bleeding, then the club must set about winning these punters baxck with improved performances on the pitch.

Well if we miss out on Pederson we've only ourselves to blame after announcing we were going to bid for two players nearly a week ago (one of whom was obviously Pederson) thereby issuing an open invitation to other clubs to steam in and spoil the party. The only news that should have come out was after the deal had been done and dusted.

A price freeze was really the only viable option for the Club after the sort of season we've had but fairplay nonetheless. However this will only be of benefit if we actually strengthen this close season. The benefits of the price freeze will soon be forgotten if we see Friedel and/or Ferguson and/or Cole heading for the exit door this summer. (Still can't understand why the club are surprised attendances dropped after selling Dunn and Duff.) Of even greater significance though is what the club are hoping to do with the direct debit scheme and with a bit of luck they really will deserve praising on that front.