January Transfer Speculation (or lack of) Thread

[ROBBO]

Who would you rather have Cahill or Samba, Samba for me every time, brilliant in the air and is no hoofer. Scores a fair few too.

[ozzjim]

Yeah Samba is brilliant. Another at the top of houlliers list......

[Dave]

yep. seems the england manager and  possibly the chelsea manager think he's ok. The only possible love affair is those who can't stand to admit MON made a gigantic boo-boo.

Would have been great to keep him when mental figures of £15m+ were being thrown around. He's certainly a decent defender and one who would be an asset, but in terms of bad decisions it was fairly inconsequential. Doesn't even compare to the Harewood and Heskey decisions in my opinion.

As for the England stuff, he's just about managed to replace Matthew Upson as third choice in a fairly mediocre list. That doesn't make him Franco Baresi.

[VillaSpen]

Not entirely convinced our budget could stretch to it but I'd like to see Bassong and Snodgrass in.

[PaulWinch again]

Hoilet would be a brilliant signing....


Spanish paper marca being reported as claiming we are interested in David Villa.  I wish.

That is a good one!

[LeeB]

Not entirely convinced our budget could stretch to it but I'd like to see Bassong and Snodgrass in.

I'd be fucking horrified if our 'budget' was 'stretched' for those two.

[Mazrim]

Hoilet would be a brilliant signing....


Spanish paper marca being reported as claiming we are interested in David Villa.  I wish.

Only if the Qatari royal family buyout rumour was true and probably not even then. Alas.

[Concrete John]

Who would you rather have Cahill or Samba, Samba for me every time, brilliant in the air and is no hoofer. Scores a fair few too.

Thing is Samba does look good, but then so does Hoilett and N'Zonzi from their midfield, plus Yakubu knows where the net is in the PL.  Dann was also highly rated at SHA and has gone there.  So, if they do have this collection of good players, then why are they so awful?  If in the summer we were told Samba and Dann would be our new CB pairing, then we'd have been very happy - I know I would have been, anyway.

Just have a fear Samba is an average player made to look good in a rubbish team.

[SoccerHQ]

The reason I want Samba is he's a real warrior at the back, watched the first half of the game on Saturday and it seemed like he was heading away every single cross.

Another reason is Phil Jones came on a bundle alongside Samba so I'm hoping he would have the same effect on Clark.

Oh and we could send Collins up there.

BTW Shawcross is better than Cahill.

[jonzy85]

Cahill is one of the most overrated players in England in my opinion. The English press love their blood-and-thunder, courageous, lionheart centre-halves and Cahill falls into this mould. He certainly has qualities and as we all know is capable of scoring a few goals.

You just have to look at how poor Bolton have been defensively this year to see he isn't a top rate defender. Ok, the players around him aren't up to much, but you would expect him to shine even more if he was that good. He has shown little or no leadership in anything I have seen of Bolton and many of their goals conceded have come from balls being delivered into an area in the box where you would expect a commanding centre half to deal with it.

If one of the big teams comes in for him, it will be a panic buy. He will need protecting, in a way like Terry, who has often looked poor when he hasn't had a Makelele type (a good one, not Mikel) in front of him or Carvalho/Desailly beside him.

[PaulTheVillan]

Cahill is one of the most overrated players in England in my opinion. The English press love their blood-and-thunder, courageous, lionheart centre-halves and Cahill falls into this mould. He certainly has qualities and as we all know is capable of scoring a few goals.

You just have to look at how poor Bolton have been defensively this year to see he isn't a top rate defender. Ok, the players around him aren't up to much, but you would expect him to shine even more if he was that good. He has shown little or no leadership in anything I have seen of Bolton and many of their goals conceded have come from balls being delivered into an area in the box where you would expect a commanding centre half to deal with it.

If one of the big teams comes in for him, it will be a panic buy. He will need protecting, in a way like Terry, who has often looked poor when he hasn't had a Makelele type (a good one, not Mikel) in front of him or Carvalho/Desailly beside him.

Totally agree. Over the past seasons all of the 'big teams' have needed centre backs. Yet none of them have touched Cahill.

[Ryu]

I agree with those saying cahill is overrated. Not as good as Smalling, Jones or Jagielka, if you ask me.

Back to transfer speculation I think Clyne from Palace is nearing the end of his contract. I'm not as down on Hutton as a lot of people but he's highly rated in a position we all know we've had problems in.
He'll have lots of teams after him though so might be a non-starter.

[Concrete John]

Any move for Clyne is dependent of what the manager's opinion of Lichaj is.

And about Cahill - lets not fall into the trap of talking him down too much, as he is a good player, just not the great and unforgivable loss some make him out to be. 

[Merv]

Just have a fear Samba is an average player made to look good in a rubbish team.

I must admit, I'm not convinced about him either, John. He's a colossus of a defender and looks great when you see one of his occasional set-piece goals, but I'm not sure he's that good. He's been at Blackburn for a number of years, and let's face it, they are a club who will always sell, given the right offer. I think he's the kind of player a bigger club will be happy to snap up on a free or for a nominal fee of a couple of million.
You're right - with a defensive trio of Robinson behind Samba and Dann, I'd expect Blackburn to be a lot tougher defensively than they are. But they're not.

[Mister E]

Any move for Clyne is dependent of what the manager's opinion of Lichaj is.

And whether he has the balls to accept that his summer signing is not quite cutting it.