nzlatic

If it works it'll no doubt be Tommy Wright's plan

That's what I thought. Something like it had to be on sale at original price for a certain time before you can advertise it at a discount.

Don't really get your point. Because there are those other options you've listed he shouldn't have even bothered trying?

You're right mate - none of us know! I might have totally got him wrong, or he might be in that 1% of footballers you talk about who are happy to pick up the money and do nothing. I hope I'm wrong, not just for the sake of our sell on but also for England, that he does go on to fulfill potential and doesn't join the far too long list of promising young England players who go on to achieve :censored: all in the game. (he probably has a prem winners medal from a couple of years ago but you know what I mean!)

I don't buy that - if he'd have gone to Roy and said that he really wanted to play, was fully committed blahblah, got 20/30 games and a good run of form under his belt then Hodgson would have told him to do one? He was scratching around for defenders for that squad.

I tried to look at it from an England perspective rather than Latics so mine and Micah's interests should have been aligned a little you'd have thought. And in a World Cup year where there was a distinct lack of defenders with the ability to defend, do you think he did as much as he could do to play for England? Player/agent power is often talked about but as far as I can see there's been no attempt from him to engineer a move away in order to get more games and try and get into the England squad. No matter what he may have been promised by Man City he got no games for them despite it being a club that often rotates. In fact, is RB the only position they didn't rotate?? It should have been pretty obvious to him in January the only hope he had of an England squad would be to leave. 6 months of half decent top flight action anywhere in Europe would probably have got him into the squad ahead of Smalling. Re your point 3 - how do you know for a fact they haven't?

I don't see why it's a big deal? At worse it's a few hundred quid the club could have had a month earlier. I doubt our cash flow is that desperate. Hardly likely to make us a laughing stock to other clubs/fans either. Mountain out of a molehill.

Totally agree with this. Teams who play this way, do well. Teams that don't (England), don't. I'm really surprised that we don't to be honest, hasn't LJ even talked about wanting us to play like this?

Cheers. I've had to take some time to consider these! Personally, I'd have had us signing Barnard or McLeod out of that list based on their age and their scoring record. Not sure if either of those was a possibility for us? Clarke's record isn't great, Paynter hasn't played a lot, Akinfenwa is mainly lg 2 and isn't prolific, Lowe has the goals but is old and has found himself a 2 year deal that would have been foolish for us to give him. Tubbs had a great spell with Crawley but not much since and Zola doesn't have much in this league. All would have been a gamble in some way or another. So I'm still fairly happy that we've not missed anyone obvious. Saying all that, I'd still love us to sign a proven scorer obviously (and not have him die on his arse) but we probably need to get lucky with either one of our young players or with a prem loan.

So you'd just end up playing centre backs in central midfield. We have enough midfielders for that as gets pointed out a lot! It seems right as a fit for the players we currently have, I'm just not sure it works in reality.

Devils advocate mode... As the 4-5-1 seems to be the formation of choice for a lot of teams these days, would 3 CBs leave us a bit overstaffed at the back if they've only got 1 striker to mark?

I agree, it's a concern and a gamble. But what strikers with a proven record at this level are available? I've not checked but has anyone else in our league got someone in who we've should have been in for?

For me if the style of the end of last season continues, we get similar results and are threatening the play offs I'd be delighted. I'm totally sick of this league and having nothing to get excited about post Feb. If we then develop exciting attacking football as well I'd be ecstatic. Not many teams on our budget in this league have done that in the past mind, so I see not complaining about the lack of total football as being realistic rather than happy clapping.

I think people who moan about the moaners moaning are only moaning at certain moaners are nowhere to be seen when there's little to moan about. Not at those who are just expressing valid concerns and who give opinions on the good and the bad.

I'd go a step further about the under 21s and say that the Germans have more drive to be the best footballers. Not sure what it is about the English, maybe things like money and celebrity are more important than winning? There are huge problems from top to bottom in how the English game is run but the players need to accept some :censored:ing responsibility themselves as well. At all levels/ages.

What names have been bandied about? I can't think of us being linked with any big names unless you count that ridiculous rumours site or dickheads on a twitter fishing trip. Positive signs from pre season so far so I'm not too bothered about the lack of big name signings.

What formation did we use? Same as the unbeaten run or a 4-3-3?

An ode to the main standers... ut eam rem adiuvarent (get it forward)

Fair enough. Might have to quote those stats back to the confident blades fan I know!

Didn't it take a while for him to make a difference? If you chopped off his first 10 games it might manipulate the stats in his favour!

If that's where they've got those links from then that's pretty poor. Normally the Chron makes a point of dispelling those sort of rumours so I'm hoping they've done some digging and there's a bit of truth to it, rather than them just regurgitating some twitter kid's wet dream.

I thought we were supposed to have a bloody partnership with them?! Bastards

He's played 18 times in 2 seasons in all competitions. He's at the age where he should have been playing every week. If he had have been he would have been in the England World Cup squad, probably the team. Deyres42 is probably right though, maybe playing for England isn't the draw we think it should be. He's not just a right back, he can play centre too can't he? City have tried a few in there but not him in the last 2 years. Fair enough stay and fight for your place, but it had not changed in 2 seasons. He should have forced his way out in January. He was obviously not going to start and with a move he could have been at the World Cup in Brazil. Looking at it as an England fan, to let that go by without even trying shoes a lack of ambition for me.

Plucking random figures out of the air, would you rather get paid £100k per week to train with Man City and not play enough to get win any medals or £60k per week to play first team premier league football with a realistic chance of being first choice England right back? That's what it boils down to doesn't it? The salaries are so high it almost becomes pointless how much you earn so it's down to how much competitive football you want to play.

Going off recent trends, now he's declared himself English we should be getting 4 times what he's worth!