TravellingWanderer

If we sign another forward as well, I would take Camara, but not as our third choice striker behind Davies and Elmander

Elmander got 5, not great but let's not make it look worse by putting a lesser number down I am not worried by the lack of players so far, would be more worried if we weren't linked with anyone or if we still have no one in by mid July.

I suppose relegation has seen them relax their ambitions, until recently they deemed it their right to be in the top 4 or 5 every season. I think a top 6 finish in the Championship should be their goal for now, I kind of feel they may think it their divine right to walk the league, and just assume they have to turn up on a Saturday and take the three points.

Don't get the attraction of Fulham away, we never turn up, despite not getting the attraction I tend to always find myself there if it is a weekend one. City away first game, followed by Sunderland at home

The truth is he needs a run of games to judge him fairly and that is unlikely - he was banging them in for fun the other pre season and then got injured first game. When he did have that run the other year he scored a few goals. Basically he needs to be ready for the whole of pre season, get some games under his belt and hopefully a few goals, doesn't matter who it is against, the first job is putting some confidence back into him. If he misses pre season he may as well be loaned out, moved on, as he won't get much of a chance as he would be behind the rest in terms of fitness.

In the short term I think it may beneficial as he will realise that he doesn't need to move to have a chance of getting into the England Squad. If in 12 months time he is a regular in the squad then he will probably move on unless we finish at least 8th. A mate of mine was in the Villa end at the Reebok the other week and the general feeling was that selling Cahill for 5 millions and buying Zat Knight for 4.5 million was not good business (though thought Knight's fee was a little less), throw in paying 8-10 million for Curtis Davies and it seems O'Neill may be thinking he made a mistake.

Referring back to Dunne - the City fan at work says he has had 4 red cards this season, this means part of 4 games with 10 men, I would guess 7 or 8 games missing through suspension, throw a few bans in for yellow cards and that's a quarter of a season. I would rather take a slightly poorer defender who played 95% of the games that someone who plays 75%

I seem to remember Megson saying that when we signed him, we had to agree to a ?8 million release clause for him to sign. Might be why we hava allegedly offered him a much more lucrative deal now.

The officials gave a throw until Brown came screaming out of his technical area

A few months ago people were saying we should replace Megson with Phil Brown, can't hear many subscribing to this now, most will probably now deny they ever thought it was a good idea. A couple of defeats and Owen Coyle will become another bad idea and people will move onto another target.

Ref wasn't too bad, the linesman didn't make a single decision in the first half until the ref had told him what to do. In terms of performance, Tope disappointed, had the beating of the full back, with ease, but wasn't interested unless the ball was played perfectly too him. Wonder if he feels his above the rest of the academy lads now he has played in the first team. Two had did impress were Aaron Mooy, and Rhys Bennett (centre half).

I agree that McCann was a good signing and has played well this season, breaking up play, but not convinced that we need him and Muamba in the same team.

Riga will be here next season, Smolarek won't be, so it is better to give minutes to those who hopefully we will benefit from

Megson has hinted that a few might leave, those who haven't featured much this season (Hunt and Shittu), those on loan (Puygrenier, Smolarek and Makakula) though they haven't featured much and maybe one of our main players may be picked up by a bigger club. He has also said he needs a bigger squad so I think there may be a fair few signings rather than one or two big ones. It's not midfielders we need, we have plenty of them, but more specifically midfielders who offer something new, i.e. a more attacking player. Assuming Shittu does leave I think we need 3 new Centre Halfs.

Just wondering if the game is level / Sunderland are winning late on whether we may benefit a dubious decision, or will that be the week after against Hull. I kind of think Newcastle may get a helping hand in their battle to survive!

Thought this was going to be easy - Andy Walker's second at Anfield, but then people have thrown others into the equation. Vaz Te at Guimaraes Coyle at Everton, probably because we were dead and buried at 2 down. Bobic's hatrick against Ipswich, probably as much about sending them down as keeping us up, hence it being above beating Boro' the season after to stay up, even though I had a quid at 100/1 on Frandsen and 2-1. But I am sticking with my first answer. Though KD in Munich probably would have topped it if I could have been there.

I think Kevin Davies will be well clear with Taylor second and Jussi 3rd

I wouldn't criticise the players Megson has signed, he has a better record than Sam did - just think of the players Allardyce brought in. Sam was just able to bring in some high profile players to take the attention away from some of the others.

Saw Isiah Rankine play for Crawley at Altrincham today, could see that he had played at a higher level, just a shame about the play acting.

Newcastle, there is always the option of a night in Newcastle after the Sunderland game, would you really want to spend an evening in Sunderland? Looking at Newcastle's run in I think they will pick up 10 points, apart from Chelsea their home games are winnable. Whether 39 points will keep them up I'm not so sure. Saturday, 04 April 2009 Newcastle v Chelsea, 15:00 Saturday, 11 April 2009 Stoke v Newcastle, 15:00 Sunday, 19 April 2009 Tottenham v Newcastle, 13:30 Monday, 27 April 2009 Newcastle v Portsmouth, 20:00 Saturday, 02 May 2009 Liverpool v Newcastle, 15:00 Saturday, 09 May 2009 Newcastle v Middlesbrough, 15:00 Saturday, 16 May 2009 Newcastle v Fulham, 15:00 Sunday, 24 May 2009 Aston Villa v Newcastle, 16:00

I would imagine the fans with the sheets will very much be in the minority, hopefully the rest will make enough noise to tell the team most fans are behind them. I believe the fans can make the difference tomorrow, but if we are negative it will pass on to the players. Surely it is not a coincidence that all our away wins this season were accompanied by free coaches.

He might not have known he was off to Newcastle but he may have agreed that if the price was right he could go. Apparently the Pro Zone stats didn't show much of a contribution recently.

There was also Upson's elbow on Jussi. I wouldn't say West Ham played well second half, more Parker was outstanding, up front they lacked the killer instinct, part of that may have been down to Cahill admittedly, and defensively they had nothing to do once we stopped attacking.

Was considering it if I could convince people it wouldn't be as dangerous as people seem to think - but then I saw the ticket prices.

Same I belive for the Newcastle game