OTF

His head would be on a stick already.

Sear has been pap thus ar, though last season I saw hi min a few games and he looked decent. Very lively, but lacked composure in finishing.

On the strength of his performances and effort so far this season it would be good to see him finally open his official account sooner rather than later. Nailed on for his first goal to be a scrambling effort from a corner that isn't cleared.

Don't know how well he marks off the ball. He actually seems to be able to read the game pretty well. Countless times (but not enough) last season he saved the bacon of our otherwise beaten (usually Coloccini) central defenders.

Gerrard is actually surprisingly quick. A little like Enrique in that he doesn't have explosive pace, but once he gets moving he's very quick. In the match last season against Liverpool Enrique passed Gerrard then Gerrard tried to pull back on Enrique's shirt and comically dived to the ground trying to con a free-kick. The ref wasn't having a bar of it, Enrique was left standing with the ball. Was definitely the Newcastle United highlight of the match. ...And Enrique has busted past the opposing fullbacks at least twice that I recall this season (that's from the 3 game that I have watched this season - hard to tell how a plater is beaten on the radio). He should really be doing it more often though.

Spot on, can be a little slow to get started. Once he does you'll pretty much never see anyone go by him as he also uses his body well.

Has Jesus joined the medical staff? He can knock a short pass ok, though when it's time to cross the ball the walk-on-water trainer is most definitely required.

Enrique's seriously one of the fastest players at the club. Their right winger had a bright start to the game, but definitely didn't get by Enrique 3 times in the first 10 minutes. There was one time though where he was beaten (got in behind him). I think Enrique took a while to get into the pace of the game (which could have been costly). After that early spell their winger did bugger all after realising that he wasn't able to outpace Enrique. Enrique did have a poor game by his standards though - his passing was pretty weak overall. In his defense Geremi was completely inneffectual in front of him never moving into space and providing the passing option.

If he was to be on a pay as you play arrangement I'm sure there would be interest from plenty of premiership clubs who could afford to pay a larger appearance fee.

As someone else mentioned, odd that Lovenkrands was signed today when he could have been picked up at any particular time. Smacks of a PR job to make it look like we were active on the incoming players front. Whatever the case I'm happy he's back. Has genuine pace and his finishing wasn't too bad when he was here previously (apart from a sitter he missed against Everton). Better playing through the middle, but at leasy offers some cover out wide where we are very thin. No players leaving is the best bit of news to come out of today (sadly). I'm sure we can still tie up some loan signings. Once all of the real business is done and dusted premiership clubs will know who they can afford to loan out. That's when we should be signing at least two defenders.

If only Robert had two left feet (or a heart).

And now that Xisco's gone to Racing Santander? Coincidence that Enrique had one of his poorer performances?

I wonder if Steve Brenner actually watched the match.

Was the one that stood out like he didn't really care (and didn't have the fitness). Possibly on the highest wage at the club as well, ridiculous.

I for one welcome accadaccas pointless ridiculous threads. The better we do, the more he posts, so here's hoping he never shuts up.

Can't forget that he was more or less played as a lone striker. His hold up play in my opinion was warranted, particularly as most of it came after we were in the lead.

Way to rain on a parade. Some elements of truth there, but overall in my opinion that's as pessimistic an account of the onfield happenings this season as exaggerated as accadaccas morinic conceited belief that we'll waltz through the season untroubled. Sure we were playing a number of players out of position, but many of them stood up and did the job that was asked of them (notably Guthrie and Simpson). We played in games last season that were much uglier than this one, so your observation that it felt like we're in the Championship now is a moot point really. There'll be much uglier games than that, but that's exactly what our opposition will want. When it comes down to it, even though we've lost a ton of experience and (arguable in some cases) quality we still have numerous players who are a class above your average Championship player. That was still the case today, even with a few injuries and absences starting to affect tha available team. We absolutely need to bring in some experienced defenders, not to mention forwards, and a winger to boot because there's a long season ahead of us. We don't really know what we've got in our youth, because the majority of them have not been played in the first team. I'm hopefully that a few quality players will emerge from those ranks (Ranger, Vuckic, Kadar, LuaLua most noteably) to help fill some of the gaps. What most "lifted my heart" from watching this match was the effort from the majority of our players. The majority played as a team, and worked for each other. That is precisely what we were lacking last season. Not having a dig, just stating my opinion.

Great team effort. Cracking goal from Guthrie. Standouts were Ranger and Smith, though just about everyone did their job.

Looking brittle at the back. No surprise really with an inexperienced 5'9" fullback playing in the centre. Taylor was supposedly marking Howard when they had their best chance . Ranger has done well with what he's been given. Nolan will be handy in this role all season. Guthrie has been pretty decent playing out of position. Geremi has been ordinary as, does not give the fullback a good passing option - won't go towards them, and can't beat his marker with pace. A pretty even match overall, we have to be careful about giving up counter attacking opportunities as they have some pace up front and out wide. Good job by Smith to help out in closing down Howard with their primary attacking option being to send a ball his way (makes sense with our central defensive partnership).

Accurate and funny, but ultimately a sad indictment on the current state of the premier league (and other top leagues).

I think you'll agree that last season was out of the usual in terms of the happenings at the club. That was a major influencing factor in our relegation. I think if you take away the off field baloney and played the squad we had last season again against the exact same opponents we would not be relegated. I'd say you could do the same thing 100 times over and 99 times we'd make it through. Seriously, do you think otherwise? I'm comparing the squad we have now with those of the teams I listed. We definitely are short on depth and are desperately short in a few positions (defense and forwards) but injury free we have a squad that I think could realistically be aiming for a mid-to-lower table position (9-15). Competing with is not to say that we'd beat, just that we'd have a decent chance of victory (as would they). Add a few injuries and some bad morale and things could go downhill very quickly of course (as we've seen). GK: Harper RB: Simpson CB: Coloccini CB: S. Taylor LB: Enrique RM: Guthrie CM: Smith CM: Barton LM: Jonas CF: Ameobi CF: Carroll Subs (from): Krul, Butt, R. Taylor, Nolan, Ranger, Xisco, Kadar, LuaLua, Donaldson, Geremi, Tozer Mid-lower table side IMO. There's still a lot of Premier league experience amongst that lot.

Realistically if we do get back into the premiership we're miles behind: Manchester United Chelsea Liverpool Arsenal Manchester City (money talks) Tottenham Aston Villa Everton Then we have teams the likes of Fulham, Sunderland, Wigan and West Ham who are still ahead currently, but that we could realistically surpass in a few seasons if given sound investment in the first team squad (and also the management). Then there are teams like Portsmouth, Blackburn, Bolton, Stoke City, Hull City, Wolverhampton, Birmingham and Burnley that I believe we could currently compete with on a relatively even level IF we were to have no major injuries. With a little investment into our side we should be able to compete with that level of teams immediately if we are promoted. Based on that I think a realistic target for us in the first two years after a promotion (IF we were to be promoted this season) would be a comfortable mid-table finish (9th-15th) in the first year, and then pushing for a top half finish in the second. I don't think that's being too optimistic, but taking into account Ashley's track record there's no way we can expect any sort of proper investment into the side whilst he is still around. ....And when I say target that is something that we should be aiming to do, not something that I am taking for granted that we would do.

Promotion, because we can win a cup in next seasons bullshit poll thread.

I think Enrique as a player will benefit immensely from a full season in the championship (basically a full season in any league). He's a canny defender, and can whip in a mean cross, but like many fullbacks needs to improve on the consistency of his deliveries. Would be good to see him get a tidy amount of assists this season as well as a goal or two. He's made plenty of encouraging runs forward, would be great to see him put the ball in the back of the net (I think we'd see some real joy in his celebration - unlike Geremi who just hobbled back to his position after scoring in the Carling Cup). It's crazy that we moved on Duff for 4 million, but noone has showed any interest in Enrique. If Ashley got a decent offer for him there's sadly no way that he'd say no. Let's all cross our fingers and hope that doesn't happen. As far as importance to the team, I think he's just about at the top of the list. We have very little cover at left fullback (Tamas Kadar only? and he's never played a first string game for us - spare the Carling Cup).

29k is way too much. A lower wage with the chance to increase it if we're promoted might do the trick, though I can't see any money being spent on players. I'm sure they'll keep sniffing around loan deals to partially fill the voids of the departed players. As far as a prospect for loan players from Premier League sides we'd be very high up the list.