ohmelads

2-0, Shearer and Luque.

I think I've found my new striker for the fantasy football!

Even if he never reaches his potential, or never improves, he's still a better player right now than Lee Clark. If we sell Jenas, he won't be replaced until January at the earliest and we'll be weaker, another player gone with no replacement. I don't want us to be weaker, therefore I want Jenas to stay. I doubt Jenas leaving will make our other players play better, that's a pretty far-fetched idea really, and with Faye and Clark ready to take his place, I'd much rather we kept him. Sell Jenas in January if we have to. Jenas has attracted the attention of big clubs and top managers, Clark has been released by Fulham, a team who battled against relegation last season, because he wasn't good enough for them anymore. If we hadn't taken Clark for largely sentimental reasons, I seriously doubt any other Premiership club would have picked him up. It's easier to argue a case for Clark once he's here, but if anyone had suggested at the start of the summer that Lee Clark would have played in 2 of our first 4 league games, we'd have pissed ourselves laughing. His signing is exactly the sort of thing I worried about when Souness got the job, and I tried to comfort myself with the thought that he would be brought largely as a reserve team coach who would be emergency midfield cover if needed. To see him play in 2 of our 4 games is utterly depressing and symbolic of what has happened to this club.

Yep, Souness has attempted to strengthen our first 11 at the expense of a thin squad. If we sign Owen, I think we will have a first 11 to give any team a game, we more than matched Arsenal until Jenas' red card, and more than matched Man Utd until Emre and Dyer limped off. But a couple of injuries in any position would kill us, as we've seen already. Players like Elliott, Moore, Clark should not be near the first team, those three would struggle to play for the poorest Premiership clubs. Lee Clark was meant to be our 'emergency cover', and yet he's already featured in half of our league games. If we sell Jenas, he could see a lot of action.

He'd walk into our first team and for 1.3M I think we're crazy not to have made an offer. We sold O'Brien for more than that.

As far as I'm concerned, the minute we let Viana go to Valencia selling Jenas became out of the question. We can't afford to lose any more players. Do we want Lee Clark to become a regular performer for us this season? A player released by Fulham because he wasn't needed anymore?

It has to be an encouraging sign that he is even talking to us. Unlike Liverpool we are now just waiting for Owen to agree terms and he's in Newcastle, which is much further down the line than any of us expected this would go. The dreadful start to our season has made our negotiations a lot harder though. Real Madrid are very ruthless and our offer seems like a ridiculous one which I'm sure they're desperate to collect. They may be rich but that's an amazing profit to make on any player in 12 months. They'll be putting pressure on Owen to accept Newcastle, even if they're not saying it publicly. We want this much more than Liverpool, and that could tell in the end. We're desperate for a striker and I'd be very excited if we signed Owen, but at the same time I have some serious reservations. Spending 17M on a striker who has openly stated he would rather be elsewhere sounds like madness to be honest. But, he seems like a real professional and I'm sure he'd give his all if he did come. His stature alone would give us a real lift as well. My other concern would be his injury record, he seems to struggle to make 30 games a season. That much money could probably be more wisely spent, but I'm past caring about player fees or wages with Freddy Shepherd, we just have to take what we can get and Owen is a hell of a lot better than nothing, even if we are getting ripped off.

What happened to our supposed interest in him? I was expecting him to go for three times that price, that is an absolute bargain.

The Depor site www.riazor.org have just made a Luque compilation. You can download it here: http://www.riazor.org/modules.php?name=Dow...wdownload&cid=7

Basically, the lad arrives in the country and within 48 hours he is told to get past Rio Ferdinand and co. (who haven't conceded a goal this season) playing with teammates he doesn't know in a formation he probably hasn't played in. He was completely and utterly rushed into a team desperate to break its goalscoring duck against Man Utd with almost no preparation. He couldn't have asked for harder circumstances to make his debut, and yet people are judging him already! I thought he had a decent debut, he showed some good touches, a bit of flair, his persistance won us set-pieces and he provided the team a lot more balance. He also gave Babayaro plenty of space to run into as he kept O'Shea on his toes and did well to win corners when there was noone to pass to. His 'Gazza' flick made a mockery of Rio Ferdinand, who just happens to be a world class defender. With Shearer almost motionless and Emre and Dyer on the sidelines he had it all to do in the second half.

Sounds like a good deal if that's what's happening.

All pure speculation Alan.

We're being shafted again, and Shepherd and Souness must both shoulder the blame Souness publicly slated Robert and Bellamy knowing that he intended to sell him. That was incredibly unprofessional as he drove their value down by millions, making it clear to everyone that he was desperate for a sale. When the time came to sell, everyone knew that his relationship with the pair was unsustainable, and as a result other clubs exploited us to get good players on the cheap. Robert is now on loan, Bellamy left for a meagre 4.5M. Souness has done other clubs a favour at our expense, they're laughing and we're not. He's been a liability as far as I'm concerned. He must have expected when he sold players at a fraction of their value that he would be given similarly small funds to replace them. He drove players out of the club and drove their value right down while he was at it, and now he can't replace them and looks like a right prat. We're now in a desperate situation because players were forced out of the club. Many rejoiced at the loss of Kluivert, but we'd love to have him on a free right now, whatever problems he may have. If we could sign Bellamy for 4.5M we'd be laughing. It's incredible to think that 12 months ago we were discussing how we would satisfy three quality strikers, now we can't even field one. Shepherd's bid for Anelka, if it was just 4.5M, was pathetically small and can hardly be called a serious bid. Boa Morte was identified as a target 7 months ago, is it that hard to sign an unsettled player from Fulham? Shepherd has not made any serious attempts to sort out the mess Souness left us in and is now hanging Souness out to dry. We can either buy noone and have a relegation-standard strike force or we can panic buy. We have had months to sort out our transfer business, there are no excuses whatsoever. If the will was there we'd have these players now, but Shepherd is penny-pinching. This is our money, we've put it into the club and we deserve a lot better than this. It's been a disgraceful summer.

5-0. Two injury time goals from Shola.

Not in the league or the cups. Shame really, I'd have felt confident if he was lining up against us because he's a liability, can't keep the ball and an open passage to their defence.

I'd be worried if other club's fans weren't talking about us. Then we'd be another Birmingham, Man City, Everton or whatever who noone really cares about. Everton are in the Champions League qualifiers and noone's really fussed. When Everton were fighting relegation, was anyone surprised? Did anyone start bitter threads about them? No, because they're shite and it's to be expected. If we were another run of the mill team they wouldn't talk about us so much.

The guy hasn't actually signed yet. Do you think this will be a trial game for him? To see if he plays shit/gets injured.

Official site:

It's confirmed on the official site: "Birmingham City Football Club have agreed a deal with Newcastle United for midfielder Nicky Butt on a season long loan with a view to a permanent transfer at the end of the season worth £2million. "The 30-year-old will join up with former Manchester United team mate and Birmingham manager Steve Bruce in the deal that brings Nicky Butt to St. Andrew's." Surely we can't sent Hugo on loan as well?

We've lost another player for nothing. Look at our squad. We've cleared a ton in wages, why would we need to offload Viana for the sake of the wagebill?

Just like the Hughes sale, there is absolutely no logic to this. It's obvious Viana wasn't too happy here, but he came out earlier this summer saying he would fight for his place here trying to mend his bridges with us. Yes we have central midfielders already. But we are very short on creativity and while you may not like left-footed players shoved out to the left flank, it's usually better than putting right-footed players there. We badly need money, we have a thin squad, thin on creativity, so we loan Viana to Celta Vigo! Argh!! Why couldn't we just keep him unless we got an offer of 3-4M? Once again we're a charity in the transfer market. Viana and Robert on loan, Kluivert off for nothing, Bellamy off for 4M-odd. Disgraceful.

From Spanish paper 'Marca':

It's reported in Marca today. He has gone on loan to Celta Vigo for a year. Absolute disgrace this is.

If Souness was a young manager I might give him the benefit of the doubt. If he had shown managerial calibre in his many years in management, I would give him the benefit of the doubt through the bad times, I would give him time to make his mark because I would have faith in his ability to do so. But Souness has never shown anything to suggest he deserves time. History tells us he's at best a very average manager, at worst a childish egocentric bully. Some people seem to think that he will suddenly become a good manager after many years of showing he clearly isn't. He came here and confirmed everybody's suspicions about him, he fell out with the most talented players and moved them on for next to nothing and people are saying he needs time to show us what he can do. We've seen what Souness can do, he's done it at every club he's been at and he's doing it to us. I'm writing this a day after we've confirmed the signing of Craig Moore and the anticipated departure of Hugo Viana.