Filling the Ash void; who or how?

[luke25]

Nathan Dyer looks excellent whenever I've seen him, fast as fuck and extremely direct, reminds me of Shaun Wright-Phillips when he first burst onto the scene, before he moved to Chelsea and ballsed up his career.

[Irish villain]

In response to Redman, I think we need wingers to feed Darren Bent. Could we play a classy number 10 and Darren Bent? Would the classy number 10 do enough tracking back to account for Bent's tendency to hang around looking for a goal?

I think the premiership has changed a lot since the days of the Wing back and the 'player in the hole'. I loved Merson, Carbone etc but the pace seems different now, the most successful teams seem to use the 4-5-1/4-3-3 model.

[ozzjim]

Needing to replace Downing and Young, with frankly sweet fuck all creativity through the middle, and no Reo Coker to win the ball, unless we pull our finger out we will be screwed next season.

[Steve R]

Losing Young (and possibly Downing) shouldn't kill us. It depends upon what the money is used for.

We bought them for reasonable prices once, we need to go out and do it again.  If there is nothing out there right now, fine. Get a cheap stopgap or use what we already have.  Spend the money in other positions where good there is genuine quality available.

What we shouldn't do is fund other clubs transfer activity by buying some  half-name simply because that is the best available at the time.

The club has to stop spending in the Dunn/Warnock/Collins/Heskey sector of the market. It's an expensive way of maintaining mediocrity.

[Villanation]

Needing to replace Downing and Young, with frankly sweet fuck all creativity through the middle, and no Reo Coker to win the ball, unless we pull our finger out we will be screwed next season.

Agree with this, losing Downing looks nailed on, pretty much the core of the better squad built over the past 4/5 seasons is fast beginning to vanish, we will have to wait and see how capable AM is at assembling a squad and who he can convince we are of the right stuff, should be interesting if nothing else.