HertsCanary93

As I said, I think McCormack is a very good player who I''m sure would have at least 2 good seasons for us. My concern is that not only is £15m a huge outlay, but as others have said he will command a significant chunk of the wage budget. He recently signed a new deal with Fulham until 2020, therefore it is reasonably safe to say he won''t sign anything under a 4 year contract for us (I also doubt he would take a pay cut). This will keep him earning big money at Carrow Road until he is nearly 34. Obviously if we get promoted pronto and stay there, this isn''t a big issue and we are all laughing. My concern is more for if we don''t get promoted in the immediate future, and he fades at 32/33 then we are stuck with a huge investment eating up the cash reserves and at an age where no one will take a punt on him. Signing a top striker is no guarantee of promotion, as Blackburn and Fulham can attest to, if it was I''d be 100% behind this transfer rather than 65%. We need quality up front and both Assombalonga and McCormack could provide it, but both come with different risks and benefits. It is of my opinion that Assombalonga is the less risky, but I will be incredibly excited by, and will get fully behind whoever we sign. (That said, I wasn''t aware of all the behind the scenes stuff going on at Forest. The rumors have also quietened up on the Assombalonga front)

I''d rather we spent the money on Assombalonga, we''d definitely get him for the money being thrown around for McCormack. Both fantastic players, but one is 23 and the other nearly 30.

Not really an announcement. He is a contracted player who isn''t a dick, clearly he is always going to say he is up for the coming season. He hasn''t even been linked with anyone. Would be fantastic to keep him if no one comes in for him though, undoubtedly a fantastic center half.

If it is indeed Leicester that are in for him, it would no doubt be a fantastic move for Brady and I doubt we could stand in his way. Obviously it will be sad to see him go, he''s shown that he can be a quality player. Like others have said, selling early for a good fee is important. Seeing as we''ve already lost Redmond, a new winger to help Jarvis and the Murphy''s should be high on our transfer radar now.

He deserves the opportunity to move without a doubt. That said, I really hope he stays. I''d like to see Leicester have a go in the champions league and attempt to defend their title with all of their big performers from last year. If money is the issue, I''m sure Leicesters owners could muster up a pretty impressive wage package to try and deter him from leaving for at least another year.

Better to sell early if we get a good fee arranged. I''d like to see something over £15m but I''m doubtful we''ll get that much. Anything less than £10m and I''d be ok with keeping him until a tribunal fee. If we can sell early, it should give us some time to reinvest the money. Imo we need a pretty big rebuild in some areas and some money in the bank will hopefully mean we don''t make the same mistakes as last summer.

In my opinion he probably needs to drop back to the Championship again and get consistent football at a club which he has a permanent contract for. I''m still quite confident he can be a decent Premier League player. I think last season was a case of him not being quite ready and the two clubs who loaned him not being (understandably) committed to giving him game time in important games when there were more settled players available. He''s proven at this level, and I think he''d be a very good signing, providing he doesn''t have an incredibly inflated price-tag. Last season could well have knocked his value down a tad. No point in loans for him any more. He needs to settle at a club that is committed to his development

The Championship relegation was just awful. How on earth we assembled a squad so bad I''ll never know.

The first was clearly the Newcastle game. How different the rest of the season would have gone had we got a point or won that game we''ll never know. However, the most important were the complete no shows against Bournemouth, Villa and Sunderland. We had numerous other poor games, but they were simply inexcusably and cataclysmicly woeful performances. I cannot fathom how we lost 2-0 to Aston Villa, bloody Agbonlahor even scored... Special mention to the Klose knjury, I think he would have kept us up.

Assuming we lose Redmond, i''d like to see us build the team around a rotation of Murphy, Murphy, Maddison, Hoolahan and Brady in an attacking three behind the striker. We are in desperate need of a squad revamp, and utilising the promising young players is probably the only cost effective way of doing this in the championship. Howson, Klose and Ollson are vital to keep hold of, whether we can is the obvious issue though. A spine of Howson, Klose and Rudd will be enough to put us up there whatever happens with the rest of the squad in my opinion. We spent a decent amount on Brady, and with two consecutive relegations on his CV I''m not sure whether anyone will take a pricey punt on him. The deadwood needs to be trimmed, i''d personally definitely get shot of Andreu, Bassong, Turner, RvW and Whittaker. Bassong and Whittaker can cut it in the championship, but I just feel after so many years that they need to move on Depending on interest, I wouldn''t care much if we lost one or two of Dorrans, Mulumbu, O''Neil, Jarvis or VOO. All of which can do a very good job in the championship but aren''t in danger of being good enough for anything other than that level in the future. I excluded Jerome from this list, simply because we have so few other options available in his area.

It''s been a fantastic performance so far. We''re looking so much more dangerous in the final third. So frustrating...

If we do go down, it will at least be exciting to see players like Maddison and the Murphy''s given a shot. That said, we aren''t down yet.

Definitely Leicester. It''s a bit frustrating seeing some of their recent refereeing performances. But from where they were last year, to winning the league with the same spine of Vardy, Drinkwater and Wes Morgan, is nothing short of an unbelievable achievement. It''s always fun to watch the ''big boys'' lose.

No chance. Had we not got promoted last year and attempted to rebuild the squad in the Championship, there is absolutely no guarantee we would have gone up this year. It is so easy to become ''one of those'' Championship clubs who wonder around the 9th-19th spots every year. Another year in the Premier League has been both good for finances and club reputation, allowing us to sign better players wherever we are next year. Football never guarantees anything, therefore it is in my opinion best to assume it is always a good time to get promoted, and never a good time to get relegated. Not to mention that as others have said, winning the play-off final was one of mine, and I''m sure most of our fans'', greatest footballing experiences.

I think we''ve been quite good, Bamford with Mbokani has looked promising in my opinion. However, despite having a fair amount of the ball around the box we haven''t threatened too much, both Brady and Jarvis have been missing that final quality ball. This match is certainly for the taking.

I''d like to think he will, however I can see Mbokani starting.

He went to Bournemouth because they actually tried to sign him in January. We didn''t even bid in January. Instead we spent a similar amount of money on Steven Naismith, probably with a similar wage outlay. We also signed Mbokani after our bid for Afobe was rejected in the summer.

Except Bournemouths bid was actually lower than ours from the Summer.

It probably had something to do with the fact Wolves actually accepted Bournemouths offer. It''s quite hard to agree terms with a player when you''re not allowed to speak to them.

Can you point out where I said that money makes no difference? No you can''t, because I never even alluded to it. What I have said, is that the team that has spent the most money doesn''t always achieve more success. I have provided Leicester as an example of a team that has spent no where near as much as their rivals over the last few years and yet is competing with them. Before that I expressed my opinion that Bournemouth aren''t above us due to spending more than us. If we had £25m worth of Max Gradel, Tyrone Mings and Lewis Grabban in the stands watching the Villa away game, I think the result would have been identical. I say in the stands, as that is where most of Bournemouth''s big spending has been this season.

I''m saying that as much as your suggesting that club management makes no difference.

Well it''s certainly not money that has them ahead of Man City, Man Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and Spurs.

[quote user="morty"][quote user="HertsCanary93"]I agree Splat, Bournemouth are not staying up due to them being backed by a rich owner but because they have looked up for the fight and have stuck by their footballing approach.[/quote]So we''re saying now that money doesn''t make a difference?[/quote] I''m saying that money is not the be all and end all. If there is any premier league season that sums it up, it is this one.

I agree Splat, Bournemouth are not staying up due to them being backed by a rich owner but because they have looked up for the fight and have stuck by their footballing approach.

I strongly disagree that you need wealthy owners to stay up and play at this level. Not only have we done it before comfortably but look at the bottom three at the moment. Two of the clubs coming down with us are both owned by very wealthy owners who have spent this season, and they are both awful. Bournemouth who have admittedly spent a fair bit this season will actually comfortably stay up using the core of their championship team like we did under Lambert. Leicester are looking like they''re going to win the league and a year or two ago over 3/4s of their squad wouldn''t have looked out of place in ours. They haven''t even spent much more than us this season. Swansea, West Brom and Palace will again all stay up without someone pumping silly money in. We''re probably going down not because of our lack of wealthy owners but because in my opinion, the following reasons. We failed to address key areas of the squad over Summer and instead splashed most of our cash in the inflated jan market, asking the new players to come into a team already on the ropes rather than into a fresh season. I also regrettably feel that poor/inexperienced management is partly to blame, there have been far too many complete no shows in the 2nd half of this season in key matches where the manager clearly hasn''t been able to galvanise the squad. The squad fought reasonably well at times earlier in the season and picked up some good wins because of it, but AN hasn''t shown that he is able to lift the squad when the going has got tough. It''s a cliché but the occasional lack of a Plan B has meant we struggle to fight back in games where the opposition have set up well, we also have completely bottled too many leads due to failure to set the team up to kill the game. That said, I doubt a new manager would have enough time to turn us around and give us a much better shot at staying up. It will certainly be interesting the see how AN handles another window and a full season in the championship should we go down with him.