Howay

We'll slide down a bit for sure. I'd be confident that if Cabaye had played we'd have beaten Norwich, the amount of free kicks in good positions and amount of possession we had in good areas it would have been a good bet that he'd score or set at least one up.

Aye he's always a good shout for a possible sending off. Mind I thought last time we played them he was one of the best performers that day. Shite not having Remy for this one, just really hope Gouffran can play and De Jong hits the ground running like some of our recent signings. The thing to remember is despite getting a few draws and wins recently they're still a terrible side, a loss to these at home would be thoroughly embarrassing. As much of a liability he can be at times I actually think Cattermole gave them a boost on derby day as the head case was clearly passionate about it, hopefully they miss that this game and we can set about playing our passing style (like the Norwich game) without lowering ourselves to their level.

She thought that would be her break out role.

I didn't think Venice smelled, tbh I noticed more bad smells in Florence. I went at an awful time right in the middle of summer in all as it's the only time we could get over (since I live in USA now, I was visiting family and friends back home and we took a short trip to Italy during the trip home). We stayed at the hotel al piave, small 3 star family run place just off San Marcos square, nice place for what we needed (spent very little time there). San Marcos is utter chaos through the day and we avoided it at all costs, went to Lido beach, or further round the less touristy bits of Venice. It was nice to walk about there at night when people had went back to their hotels in Lido and stuff. Avoid all the bars and restaurants around San Marcos square as they're not very good and are extortionate. You can get a few days pass for the Vaperrettos (horribly spelt sorry) which is a cracking way to get around. If you are going to get a Gondola ride, don't get one around the grand canal as they add at least 20 to their price. Also don't worry about safety in Venice anymore than you would on any other holiday, I never felt in any danger at any point (aside from the fear of falling into the water on the way back to the hotel after a bit too much drink), I'm fairly sure the place has very low crime rates in any case. The blokes in San Marco square selling roses and stuff will do you head in btw. Also I've heard to avoid the glass blowing place as it's apparently quite boring and they just pressure you to buy (I didn't go though so others may know better). I get what people are saying about Venice but I thought it was a great place (I was only there 3 days mind), Florence was fantastic though IMO.

So since it clearly wasn't a headbutt what was it Remy did to deserve a straight red card? (unless the FA lot are so sheltered that is what a headbutt looks like to them) because there are a lot of these 'head to head' incidences in the Premiership except more often than not both players stay on their feet and are pulled apart, no one is sent off. On video evidence it's clear it isn't a headbutt so surely if this is a straight red we should see a straight red every single time we see these head to head stand offs.

Shocking when you consider how another 9 players were in that area as the ball had been collected by Ruddy about 3 seconds before. Completely unfair card, it's not like Ruddy was forced to kick it from that spot like a free kick anyway. What made it worse is that yellow was in between two shocking tackles made by Norwich players who got nowt for them.

What was it that Sissoko got booked for by the way? the commentary was Arabic on my stream and I missed the actual incident. From the replays it just looked like the keeper booted it off him and he was booked. Agree with Big Walrus on the Johnson thing mind, there was a number of their players that should have received bookings and didn't as well. Remy was an idiot for doing what he did tbh, just hope it doesn't cost us on saturday.

Where did I say they would sell for £15m? I'm just going off what others have said about being £2m or so off in our valuations, my post wasn't in response to your post about the €13m bid being rejected. Also the €13m you have quoted before isn't equivalent to £13m it's closer to £11m.

So we're going to miss out on this lad for the sake of £2m? if we met that amount and they raised it again I could see why we'd tell them to stick it, but howay just shell out the money we'd still be making a substantial profit on transfers this season.

The Villa v West Brom game is a bit mental, 4-3 to Villa now. WBA were 2-0 up after 12 mins.

I hope he starts like, I know it's chucking him in at the deep end and he wont have had many training sessions (which is why I can see Pardew going with Shola) but I'd like to see how him Gouffran and Ben Afra look together (if Gouff is back fit).

Could be right there Brock, plenty of fun seasons ahead of us eh.

Be shocked if we signed him tbh, I see this more along the lines of the N'zogbia farce after losing Carroll "ah well can't say we didn't try, we just ran out of time". I really hope I'm wrong and we sign this lad as he'd be a perfect replacement for Cabaye.

I really dislike having Taylor and Williamson as a centre back pairing. Just have to hope Norwich's shite attack gives them an easy night.

Yup, the way we've played them recently has been completely gutless and that was with Cabaye in the side. We're the better team without doubt but they have had the beating of us recently regardless of form. We're really relying on Sissoko to find form playing in Cabayes position and this De Jong lad to hit the ground running.

Anyone know if there's a fee agreed for the end of the loan? or have they simply repeated the Remy mistake.

Like others have said it's clear after seeing this he's been signed to tick the French player allocation box. I'm sure he's not too fussed mind as he'll have probably doubled his wage and he's back living in his home country, and I'm sure he'll believe he's going to break into their side. It'll be interesting to see where and if they play him tbh.

Chelsea supposedly interested in him now, we were only really interested in him before Marseilles signed him once he went there he was out of our price range tbh. Hard to make a profit on a player you pay £20m for as it's hard to guarantee people will want to pay much more than that for him in future.

Wages are a big stumbling block for us as well, as with no CL footy wages are a big part of what attracts players to us but now our wages are capped we can't expect to attract these lads like Grenier who are making a name for themselves and are probably looking to be on 70k a week or higher when they move. We got extremely lucky getting a player of Cabaye's quality, like Parky says it'll be £15-£20m for the finished article and we wont pay that, it'll be at least £10m for some of these promising lads and it's doubtful we'd pay that. The supposed £50k a week ceiling we have for most players would have to be broken to have any hope of attracting some of those players.

Aye I'm surprised at this £10m, pretty sure there were reports of him wanting really high wages as well. I'd be really shocked if we got this lad for anything less than we sold Cabaye for, and I'd be even more shocked if we actually did that. True, sad that he can't at least put that off for 5 month to benefit the side. Suppose he has been waiting 3 year to sell the lad.

Aye we're in a right state up top, this has been a worrying trend for a while tbh. Losing Best and Lovenkrands, despite neither being great was a blow as we lost a lot of depth up top and never really replaced it. Now a bit of a crisis up top is emerging, this De Jong deal best actually have a set amount option agreed at the end of the loan which we fucked up not putting into the Remy loan. I suppose they'd still be better than Jozy Altidore. That's the one cheers Tom lad, I've only seen highlights of him tbh which as we all know is the perfect way to correctly gauge a player.

Good to hear, the other lad is there again as well isn't he? the midfielder who was there with Dummett, forgot his name. Hope some of these lads can break through into our first team.

Aye I was meaning them two as in Quinn and the lad you mentioned. I'm just still shocked we've let our striker numbers dwindle to this pathetically low amount, as we used to at least have someone in the reserves like a Chopra behind at least 3 seniors but now it seems like we only have that Adam Campbell (is he out on loan again?) and these two young lads behind Cisse who seems to be off and Shola with very little time on his contract.

Ah cheers for making that a bit clearer, seems to be a law that these French chairmen must be mental. £10m would be a steal for a lad like Grenier tbh, especially given his age. Bringing in someone like that would definitely soften the Cabaye blow but unfortunately it seems we've ridiculously agreed to sell in the closing days of a window again, when we should have really just agreed to sell him to PSG in the summer therefore Cabaye was happy he got his move and still had incentive to play with the World cup this summer.

Ah well maybe Beardsley could lace up his boots and get on the bus.