Not many positives so far. We look quite lost when defending, and we just hoof long balls to Stead and Yorke. I really don't like the narrow formation. So what I'd do at half-time: Neill on for Flitcroft, De Pedro on for Johansson. Move Matteo to defense, Emerton to midfield and play a 4-4-2.

IMO the squad looks better than it did last season (And I'm not only talking about de Pedro, Dickov and Matteo. Also Stead, Gray and if we can have Thommo and Bazza fit they'll count too) and IMO our competitors haven't strengthened much at all. At least not those who are likely to be involved in a relegation scrap. Everton have lost Radzinski and Linderoth (And they didn't have much midfield cover before that either), and may yet lose Rooney and Gravesen. City have signed Thatcher and some other defender, not a huge improvement exactly. Southampton haven't (IMO) looked that good under Sturrock yet, and haven't strengthened their squad more than we have, although Nilsson is a fine player. Bolton look pretty weak too. Yes; the likes of Boro, Villa, Brum and Charlton have strengthened their squads, and will probably finish ahead of us. And even assuming that neither of those teams or one of the top 5 have a bad season, we're still among the best contenders for 9th-10th or so. And if we don't hit a collective dip in form like last season, we're not much behind Charlton or Brum at all. But I can agree that our strike force look a little worrying. Still, the season we finished 6th most goals came from midfield. And I can see de Pedro, Ferguson, Thommo, Amo and even Neill contributing. And I'm sure our five forwards will score a fair few goals between them, even if none of them hit 25. So I'm not worried about this season. I don't think we'll qualify for Europe through the league, but we won't be near relegation either.

All is guesswork, as I'm useless at this But we'll see how wrong I was in May. 1 Arsenal 2 Chelsea 3 Man United 4 Liverpool 5 Aston Villa 6 Newcastle 7 Boro 8 Birmingham 9 Blackburn 10 Southampton 11 Charlton 12 Fulham 13 Tottenham 14 Portsmouth 15 Everton 16 West Bromwich 17 Man City 18 Bolton 19 Norwich 20 Crystal Palace

He was called up to the last friendly before going to Japan, had he impressed there he would've gone. But he caught a stomach bug and couldn't go... A player should really have played at least one game before being in a WC squad.

I think you are.. you can get all the regular news items with just the standard free membership.

Wrong match...

Good one

I think that what Souness is trying to do is employ Ferguson in the best way possible, and that's probably to NOT tie him down with too much defensive responsibility. Which is why we'll probably see Matteo, a new signing or even flitcroft next to him

Probably meant best attacking player. I'll grant you that Amo is better, but i'll only be on set pieces for him. I don't expect him to run the full length of the pitch to get behind the defenders when Javi gets the ball

You really don't rememeber what you write, do you? Countless times you've said that Souness should give youth a chance, just throw the entire U-17 team in at the same time or whatever. Doesn't matter if they're good or not. One would think that the League Cup games is a good place for this. But no, you've also complained that Souness doesn't take the cups seriously enough. So which way do you want it?? And I suppose that playing Gallagher and Douglas isn't "giving youth a chance"? Alex Ferguson didn't give youth a chance in the early/mid nineties, because he had some 30+ players at the club!! But remember, don't let facts get in the way!! Your 'thing' is to spout nonsense, and I gotta take my hat off to you. You're really good at it! Like MB says, don't even know why I'm bothering with you.

We also signed players for over £10m, so that's half of it gone. The rest I guess went to the loan, and to pay wages. We don't pay less wages than most other teams in the league, but some of those clubs average 5,000-10,000 more per game. Which means that they can spend lots of money, while most of the money we would use for transfers goes to cover that deficit to break even. And staying in the premiership doesn't mean that you EARN 20-30 million ffs. It means that if you get relegated, you lose that much money. But you could probably run this club better. Let's throw in the unproven youngsters in the cup games and then whine about how we don't take the cup games seriously. And why not go out and spend £30m to make us bankrupt?? If we start all our press releases with and end them with then everything will be just fine

A bit like Ljungberg then? Works hard etc but isn't a traditional wide midfielder.

Didn't Souness say we aimed for survival both when we finished 10th and won the WC, and when we finished 6th? As I mentioned in another thread, I hope Souness and Yorke have had a talk. Because I'm sure that a player works better in a team if him and the manager are on speaking terms...

Is Short injured?

Just like every manager since and before '66 then And I won't really comment on any of this as he's the man who turned my club (IFK Göteborg) into a European top club, won the UEFA Cup (Some achievement with a Swedish team, and I believe he's the youngest manager to win it. Wasn't even 35 when he did it I think) and set the club up for another UEFA Cup win. My family are also close friends of some of his relatives and I've met him on family occasions. So I'm very much biased and my comments shouldn't be taken seriously

Maybe it's not the SAME people complaining, ever thought about that? And I'd rather have Fowler than Djorkaeff too, but I don't think he's a bad signing at all.

I think Djorkaeff would be fine. Might not get us 20 goals, but we know he's class. And I know you weren't serious with those names, but I wouldn't say no to Baggio. Yeah he's retired now so absolutely no chance whatsoever (And the chance would've been very slim at best even before he retired), but he's an incredible player. Should be up there when listing the best players ever.. not quite Cruyff, but not far off either.

Lots of sports don't have transfer fees, or at least not on a wide scale. So it's no unthinkable that they could be reserves only for the real big names, or the big leagues.

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Could be a 4-4-1-1 (Which is basicly a 4-5-1 though) like Man Utd used to play with Scholes supporting RvN. Although I don't think that'd work very well with any of our strikers. At least not yet, Stead could become a player that could do well in such a role in the future though. I've never liked playing three at the back, so I really hope we don't.

Tobias Linderoth who plays the DMC role for Sweden, and who tends to do really well, surely can't be much bigger than Thommo. He makes up for it by being aggressive, which I think Thommo can as well.

I've heard that too, or rather that he says he prefers it, but he may well get #11 anyway. EDIT: Ah yes, forgot about Jansen having #10. Dickov will probably have like 16 or something then.

My predictions, which aren't very daring at all 1 Friedel 2 Neill 3 Gray 4 Matteo 5 Amoruso (Could be the other way around ofcourse) 6 Ferguson 7 Emerton (This one is quite open, could well be Thommo too) 8 Tugay 9 Stead 10 Dickov 11 De Pedro Hard to say anything about the rest though, as it could be anything.

From the above report: "Craig Short went on a run down the left" That's not something you see every day

We can field two pretty strong teams actually. I didn't think the lineup in the first game looked bad at all. This eleven may well be the one we start the season with, but lots of things could ofcourse happen. Neill, Thompson and a midfield signing can come into the team.