SM

If we don''t get a cente-half in by the first pre-season friendly I think we should try this team:                              Marshall      Semmy Shacks Drury                  Brellier  Chadwick Etuhu Safs Lappin           Strihavka Cureton   Only against one of the smaller sides because I think the trio in the centre of midfield would give us tackling from Brellier, strength and power from Dickson and the passing from Safs. The defence is obviously week but no disrespect to them but are Lowestoft going to trouble them.  

Agree 100% Etuhu was just starting to get his consistency before the season ended OTBC

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/b/bradford_city/6262648.stm

I didn''t watch the game but according to reports the whole team looked really fit, but lacked match sharpeness. Cave-Brown did play the whole game though. http://www.scottishfa.co.uk/news.cfm?newsid=3025

Great post Wiz, I am delighted that you are finally going to back Grant and the players for this coming season. It also took alot of guts to post this, so well done [Y] Wait for the sarcasmic responses...

If they are interested £2million is the least I would want before add-ons and sell-on clauses for many reasons, one being that he is still only 25 which I would class as young for a midfielder when they come into there prime at 28-30 years-old. Another being, he scored 6 or 7 goals last season which i would class as good for a midfielder in the championship and towards the end of the season he was beggining to get beyond the striker e.g. vs Hull when he scored the header. Lastly, how many central midfielders can you find in the division who have the same or better physical attributes than Dickson. Also many clubs are hiking there prices up for players e.g. Nugent for £7million which I find ludicrous. So why aren''t we doing this? 

For me this is the team: Marshall Otsemobor   Baptiste   Shackell   Drury Chadwick   Marney   Etuhu   Huckerby Strihavka   Cureton   Subs: Gilks, Dublin, Safri, Croft/Lappin, Martin

These are some of his stats I found on the internet: http://www.gfdb.com/Player.9447.David-Strihavka.aspx By the looks of things he is about 6''3'''' so is this a target man to put pressure on Brown, probably even play ahead of him with cureton. He also scores the goals (13 goals in 25 games) this is another big plus point, I know it is in the Czech league but people who score goals can usually do it at most levels. He is apparently in the same mould to Saganowski so if we could get him and maybe one more striker i think we could score enough goals next season. The only problem is we also need to get about 4 more players in addition to this if we are even going to finish in the top half 

Arden Grove First Firside Middle School Hellesdon High School

If a player really wants to be here he will accept the normal wage packet, so I think grant is doing the right thing in not giving in to players high demands. Everyone is always saying how Etuhu has not got any desire, but grant seems to like him and i wouldn''t have thought he is on mega wages like Hucks/Earnshaw. At the end of the day he wants to be here and play for the team, and that is the sort of player we need.

http://www.canaries.premiumtv.co.uk/page/NewsDetails/0,,10355~1037306,00.html

Bly is right you attack as a team and defend as a team, our left side always seems so exposed. That is why Grant wanted lappin, he doesent offer so much in attack but at least he covers drury. A Prime example of this was when martin came on against the binners playing wide left. Martin jogged back and left drury 2 on 1, while they went on to score. So because earnie does not contribute to open play he will always be valued at around £4-£5million.

This is a game I can see us winning by quite a bit if we put out a good team I know our cup record is carp - But this is Barnet surely we have to win

[quote user="USAcanary"] our horrible GD [/quote] By this do you mean goal difference or gary docherty [;)]

I think PE is right, we need to follow the example of derby and west brom who had a decent keeper and back four who they could rely on. Then once you have them areas sorted out you can start thinking about midfield and attack. Even when the teams who get promoted are beaten it is never much, e.g. norwich 1 - 0 brum. That game had to be decided by a wonder goal from hucks. So taking that into account I would push it to £800,000 to get him, because you could certainly see the improvement in the team while he was here.

[quote user="norfolkbroadslim"]Perhaps a possibility of a Sutton, Sutton partnership upfront for us next year.[Y][/quote] Then we would have two sets of brothers The Jarvis Bro''s The Sutton Bro''s I wonder if we could get that huckerbys bro to join? Now that would be good [:)]

I feel we could have another worthy saga on our hands here, selling McKenzie and being pipped by Wigan to Cotterill. Earnie leaves and Wolves beat us to Sharp because of Keogh being there and there better chance of promotion. But as Grant has already said they have an A, B and C list, and they also have more time to organise something else so hopefully this will not happen.

TBH, if i was Earnie i think i would have to leave because at the end of the day i can''t see us getting back in the premiership next season. Many teams would probably say now or never so they don''t make the same mistake we did with earnshaw, waiting till january would thus not be an option. Hopefully if he does leave sharp or whoever his replacement is can be more successful than Earnie has been. Which is pretty hard to beat in terms of goalscoring.

After 4 years of training with senior keepers and learning from them he played about 6 games while on loan at stockport towards the end of last season. Is now the time to play him in the first team? I think that we should give him 3-4 games at the start of the season and see how he performs. Then if he plays well he can stay and fight for the number 1 position, but if not he can again be loaned out to gain some more first team experience. This would also give the keeper who we buy time to settle in, and not just be thrust straight into the first team. Thoughts? 

[quote user="Chris Meadows"] [quote user="Dan Grant"]i have always thought that the u19''s is the championships version of the England u21''s, because if you are 18 but a brilliant player, you get promoted to the u21''s. So all the players who can''t quite cut it are left in the u19''s. this is why you always see our youngsters in the u16''s, u18''s, u19''s, but not the under 21''s.[/quote] to say the under 19 squad can''t cut it is rubbish, there is one 18year old in the thirty man  U21 squad [/quote] This goes to show that most of the english youngsters coming through are not good enough to win a major competition

i have always thought that the u19''s is the championships version of the England u21''s, because if you are 18 but a brilliant player, you get promoted to the u21''s. So all the players who can''t quite cut it are left in the u19''s. this is why you always see our youngsters in the u16''s, u18''s, u19''s, but not the under 21''s.

what does everyone think of this?

It would not be a total disaster, but it would be a big dent in our plans for next season.  How many players that are proven in the championship and regularly score 20 goals a season can you get for £3million. Contrary to what many people believe he does convert a lot of chances he has and does score the odd cracker aswell. Size is not always an issue, you can be small but strong, lots of small players have great upper body strength. If you play the ball to feet he should be okay. There are 2 options as partners for earnie, firstly he can play with a target man such as brown who can hold the ball up and play him in or just flick it on. Secondly, he can play with a link man such as like McVeigh but who plays for the whole season. If we do play down the wings our wingers must learn to go to the byline and either take a cross-shot or cut it back for midfield runners, this will take out the height issue. Van Nistelrooy, although bigger than earnie never made any chances for anyone else but still helped man utd win the title by scoring countless tap-ins. So i think we shoud be trying to keep him for at least 1 more season to see if we can get anywhere near the top 6.    

wayne bridge is much better than cole IMO

http://www.footballmanagerlive.com/en/article/88/index.html forgot the link