expat-acklam

McGuire to Blackburn is an interesting one. I live in Orlando and have season tickets to the local MLS team so I have seen him play a lot. He is/was popular here and most are pretty *** off that he is leaving, especially since he ha only been here a year after leaving college. I would say he is a good pure CF (reasonably fast and strong), good hold up, scores plenty, but doesn't really get many assists. My experience watching him has to be tempered by saying this is the MLS and so I think he is going to be challenged by the Championship and I don't think he is a 90 minute player and would have

All our currently available strikers have a problem with their first touch being a little clumsy, which when you are up against a good defender means that you are always back peddling from then on.

But how much do those 5 quality signings cost relative to what we can afford? Let's say it is 5M each so 25M total. Do we have 25M? Further, we have spent a lot on players in the past that we thought were quality only for them to be pretty bad. Apart from those demoted clubs who has spent significant funds on multiple players? Apart from a known striker, I actually think we have done reasonably well this window and I hope to see the team kick on for the rest of the season, especially if we reinforce those weak areas in January. Top 2, probably not, but hopefully we will have enough d

I'm surprised Cooper & Forest wouldn't be in for him as well as he performed under Cooper, especially if they could get him cut price.

We love to blame a single person for the "failure" at the end of last year, Smith in this case. Last time I looked Smith played as a RB and as far as I can remember we didn't start leaking more goals (we did that the whole season), but we did stop creating goals as I think there are a number of players who went off the boil as well as coming up against teams that were set up to stifle our brand of playing. Unfortunately replacing the 3 that you mention (Archer, Ramsey & Akpom), with proven success is not possible due to the costs involved and from what I remember there was a lot of do

Archer scored 1 out of his 11 goals with his head, Chuba on the other hand scored 7 with his head. Apart from Crooks (and his role will probably become less with the recent signings) and Coburn I am not sure we have someone that can score 7 with his head.

I know Carrick is quite tall, but from the photo of him with Latte, Latte doesn’t look tall or physically big, so if Coburn is moving out on a loan, I think we need a larger presence in the box than is available in the current squad. Akpom wasn’t particularly tall, but he had a physical presence in the box and seemed able to get up for those Giles crosses.

To be fair, this time last year nobody would have given Akpom a second chance and when Archer came in he was also somewhat unknown.

... and probably will not know for a few years as the approach is not designed for instantaneous gratifications despite what almost happened last year.

I assume you mean next summer. I certainly don't want an unhappy Akpom, however if we are promoted, I don't think it's the end of the world if he was to leave for nothing next summer.

To buy a striker or to loan a striker, to me that is a tough question. As a club we cannot afford to buy a proven Premiership or even top class Championship striker, that would allow us to be successful this year, as well as importantly, be able to provide us success if we should be promoted at the end of this campaign. The result being a bought striker (unless we get very lucky) will always be a stop-gap position. For this reason alone I would try the loan route for this position and this probably means we will still have to wait a while till teh Premiership clubs sort out their rosters.

I think the last number of wasted pages discussing facilities and Leo have nothing to do with football transfers (unless Leo is becoming our new LB or striker) is irrelevant to transfer rumours and therefore needs its own page.

I agree, we are in the Championship, so how much do you pay for a Championship player and I think Giles is a good Championship player and would have liked to see him back. But, and its a big but in my opinion I don'r think he ia a good (or even reasonable) Premiership player and I think his failings will get exposed at that level (if he ends up at Luton we will see if this is true). Despite having a good season at Boro, Wolves (a club that struggled for most of the season) obviously opted to try and cash in as he isn't good enough to guarantee a place in their side. So assuming any contract of

I think it happens more often than you might believe. The cost of membership and trying to be more than just survival is outrageously expensive.

They (Boro) must have known this was a strong possibility (along with Archer and Ramsey) and so hopefully considering other alternatives already.

Looks like a hard day at the office.

Patience for what? Still 7 weeks to go.

The Gazette already reported that he had a "minor" injury. Not sure if that is a euphemism or not.

You read all of that? I'm impressed.

I may be stating the obvious but I think Giles, like Forss (or Jones) on the other side get that space due to interactions with other players and so it is difficult to look at them in isolation.

This probably is old news, but released PL players AFC Bournemouth Released: Jefferson Lerma, Jack Stacey, Junior Stanislas, Jordan Zemura Arsenal Released: Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Matthew Smith Aston Villa Released: Ashley Young, Jed Steer Brentford Released: Tariqe Fosu, Joel Valencia, Pontus Jansson, Saman Ghoddos Brighton Released: Hayden Roberts, Lorent Tolaj Chelsea Released: Tiemoue Bakayoko, Nathan Baxter Crystal Palace Released: Jack Butland, James McArthur, Luka Milivojevic Everton Released: Yerry Mina, A

My recollection of the season as good as it was, we struggled against teams that sat back in a 5-4-1 system (I include Coventry in that) that would catch us on the break. We found these teams difficult to break down with our finesse style of play as the last third of the pitch would become just too crowded. We have (had) players that can shoot from outside the box (Forss, McGree, even Howsen), but not consistently enough, so I would like someone who can let it fly accurately from positions just outside the box to supplement the players that are good in the box. Hamer comes to mind maybe becaus

Totally off topic so I apologize. Negroni - equal parts gin, red vermouth & Campari, a wonderful drink.

It's simple isn't it. If we continue to play as we have been, and I assume that everyone wants that, then we will get promoted either automatically or via the playoffs. To want the team to suddenly play worse is ludicrous and the people on here would probably be vitriolic in their criticism. So it's as I said simple, if you want Boro to win, then you want them to be promoted. We will deal with whatever the Premiership brings, good and bad, at that time.

For some reason I thought this was the West Brom match thread?