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[quote user="paul moy"]Good news but I only see him as a squad player at Prem level.[/quote] I half agree, but in our club he is one of the first 11 in most of the tactics where we use 2 strikers as he is quite solid both in attack and defence. Doubt we sign anyone on the left side mid as we have Pilks and Surman. Anyway great news!

I agree we could use someone at DM position, but remember that there is lot of formations where Hooly can be used, not just diamon. Hughton most likely will use boring 4-4-2, but in modern football there is 4-2-3-1 or 3-5-2 or even 3-6-1 where Hoolahan have spot for himself. I could quite easily see us play any of these tactics even with our current team. For example. -----------Holt/Morison--------------- Pilkington - Hooly - E.Bennet ---------Johnson-Howson--------- Tierney- Bennet - Ayala - Martin This tactic thought screams better and faster right back and better defensive middlefielder. And those who dont want to see Hooly on the field just replace him with Howson and add Fox on the bottom middlefield. This formation is quite good by the way to see which area we are lacking most, if you add second choises without going on players who didnt play almost at all previous year.. -----------Morison/Vaughan------------- Surman------- ? -----------------?--------- --------------Crofts --------Fox------------- ?/Lappin --Ward---- Barnett----- ?--- With those we have Jackson and Chris Martin as a supporting strikers and youngsters Adeyemi, Francomb and Smith. So if I would be a manager I would first fill the spots on right and left and then think where we need more class. I personaly keep my fingers crossed that Hughton has balls to pick modern tactic as the main reason we had to pick the ball from our own net so many times wasnt our defenders fault most of the times, it was because they didnt get enough support front of them. But yeah I repeat myself. We could use solid, strong, ball winning middlefielder

[quote user="Eric Pickles Pie Supplier"][quote user="Michael Starr"]This may backfire on Reading. Imagine being an existing Reading player, you''ve scraped to get into the Prem, you''re on say, 8-10k a week max then along comes some guy on 63k a week. Doing the same training sessions, playing the same games as you. If I were another player, i''d be like "hang on a minute! I want more money" Also, the pressure on this one player coming in will be huge. 63K a week! Now he has to justify it, playing in one of the weaker prem sides. Sometimes, step by step progression is better than explosive progression. [/quote] My thoughts exactly on this Michael. I''ve seen a fair few big(ish) names in the Euros that I''d like to see come to Norwich, including some Czechs, Poles and Croats, but I have to say Pogrebnyak was not one of them. I particularly liked the guy from Croatia with the German sounding name (Schedenfeld ?) who could do a great job for us , particularly as he seems very versatile in defence . But 63k a week for any of these people ? Ridiculous. [/quote] Cant agree more :) He looked quite weak in the game where they unleashed him and I think he will be a flop compared his cost. Dont know what they think in Reading''s board. (You by the way probably ment Gordon Schildenfeld who is currently playing in Eintracht Frankfurt which was promoted to Bundesliga previous season. So wouldnt be bad signing as I saw somewhere his cost would be around 1,5mil to 3 mil and his wage should be currently under 15k if not under 10k. Another Centre Back who got my attention and could be in our payrange was that polish Damien Perquis whose fighting attitude was top notch. Finnish commentator said his contract is running out 2013 summer and I doubt his salary is over 15k either as Sochaux is bottom half team.)

With BBC predictor I got us on the 10th place, but same time I get Aston Villa relegated, so I think I might have been a bit biased there ^^ I think at the end champions will be either Manchester teams or Chelsea. Arsenal is fourth and Tottenham or Liverpool goes Europe, if there wont be any surprises in the cup. Relegated teams will be among Reading, WBA, Wigan, West Ham, Swansea, Southampton or us. Most likely we are around 15. Second season is always hard, but I think we have better chances to survive than Swansea as our players are quite cabable to play various different tactics, but as you never know when you get new manager I put us in relegation threat. Thought I stated quite obvious teams to relegation zone I have a feeling one of the established sides will be mega flop. (Stoke or Aston Villa mayby.)

My favourite canarie after Hoolahan gone now :( So we need at least 2 full backs and one center back this summer. As we have only Tierney on left and Martin on right and latter plays better at center. Well if Ayala promises us to stay fit, we might try with Ayala, Bennet, Ward as our top 3 and Martin + Barnet as fourth and fifth choise, Not many teams uses more than four anyway, if not in serious injury problems. But that was offtopic and sorry about that. Anyway very sad to see Drury go, but it had to end at some point. Still hoped few years for him, but hopefuly he has splendid time in Leeds and wish all the best in future. Mayby we see him back when our academy is fully up and running.

[quote]Why does European targets have to mean shopping in the top leagues? Surely there is some untapped talent on the continent in the lower leagues that we could be looking at. Even if we are looking at the tope leagues, we are not looking to raid to Madrid, or Barcelona. The lower league teams will have quality players that may be quality and affordable. Prime example would be Victor Moses.[/quote] This is the point which I would like to put up. There are lot of leagues that have "young and hungry" talent that are equal in levelt with Championship if not over. Eastern European leagues have grown quite big lately and lot of talent get out there. Problem can be to adabt in Premier League, but as said before, if they are scouted properly risk is same with english players. For me as a foreign supporter, relegating would be disaster as following team would be a bit of pain in the arse. So I''m happy if the aim is just staying in the league. Ofc I wish we do better, but as I see next year will be a bit harder than first (depending how we do in transfer market) I''m totally satisfied if Hughton will keep us in the league. For the talent outside England I would turn my eyes to countries like Netherlands, Portugal, Ukraine, Belgium and Croatia. They have quite good league levels and out of the big teams players wont cost that much Also as I know a lot of Nordic football, for example Teemu Pukki and Alexander Ring (both finnish national players and only 22 and 21 year old) cost under 2 million euros and they left from biggest Finnish team and were hottest prospects in ages. Not to meantion they both went to big Bundesliga teams. So talent is cheap in some countries. Pukki''s goal per minute ratio were even better than our Holt''s, but of course league is bit lower level. So I would go for foreign markets as english prices are high.