who will win this season's premiership?

[Mobius]

Reyes and Henry don't always work so well together though. Alot of the time you see Henrys face after Reyes messes a chance up (he's a class act but he does hold onto the ball for to long sometimes) and he looks reallly frustrated. Hopefully they will gel together soon.

 

[mank!]

Oh and Mank, I have to ask this as there's a bit of a rumour up here about us moving in for Sam Parkin, I'll be honest and say I havent seen more than his goals he scored last season. So whats the rest of his game like, does he link up play like a Sheringham or is he just an out and out goal scorer? Oh and do you see it happening if we come in with a firm bid ?

There was rumoured interest around January from your lot, but no bid was forthcoming. Super Sam is already a Swindon legend in only his third season at the club, scoring 49 goals in 94 appearances so his record speaks for himself. He's an out and out striker but he comes deep to collect the ball if he needs to, he's strong, holds up the ball well and also shields it well. He's not particularly pacey but he's not a slow coach. He can score with both of his feet and his head but he's never scored a goal from outside of the area, he's more of a poacher style player. I think the player who reminds me of him most is probably Eidur Gudjohnsen.

There was a bid during the summer for him from Hull which was an insulting £250,000. The club immediately rejected it and Sam said he had no interest in the move. I think most fans accept that if we don't go up this season he'll leave, he's got the potential to play at a higher level and given good service he'll do well. I think he'd slot well into a team like Sunderland who are challenging at the top of Division 1, as much as I'd love to see him in the Premiership I think he'd struggle, one of those yo-yo players at clubs who get promoted and relegated from the top flight. His contract contains a minimum fee release clause, rumoured to be around £1m. If an offer came in of £1m and above the club would accept it. However, despite playing for us for two years he still lives in London and has just bought his own place so I doubt he'd want to move that far up north unless it was a really big club. If we get promoted this season I think Sam would reject any offers - unless it was QPR - to stick with us as he likes it here, he knows the fans adore him and we can support ourselves a midtable Division 1 side.

There's more information about him here. He's also the lovely fella in my avatar.

 

[Aph3x]

Cheers Mank, I had a little read through that article you posted just after writing tyhe first post, from what you say and coupled with the fact he scored a bucket load playing alongside a big bugger last season he might be a good buy, although saying that we've been linked with Dean Ashton (who I'd personally prefer) as well as Shaun Bartlett and aload of other strikers, so who we end up with is anyones guess.

Cheers for the reply fella

 

[mank!]

Buy Ashton!

Seriously though, Ashton's done it in Division 1 and he's younger than Sam. Crewe would probably want more than we'd want for Sammy though.

Sam scored a lot of goals alongside Mooney (who waltzed off to join the scum) but scored even more in a very poor side the season before, he's the type of player who could get 20 goals in any team.

 

[Aph3x]

Mank, I really hope we do, there's been loads of rumours circulating up here for a week or so and theres a couple which seem to crop up more than others, the main one being that Crewe would accept 1.5 mil for him and from what I'm lead to belive we can stretch to that to get the player. Crewe were also up here last night (3-1 ) so maybe something was said between Mic Mac and Dario about it. Here's hoping.

 

[Mobius]

30mins to kickoff! Shame I'm working 1pm to 10pm.

 

[Jonaldo]

Indeed, I'm a little worried about the fact Spurs are playing 6 debutants today.
I'll stick by my prediction of 10-12th place for us this season. Frank Arnesen seems to be the man at Spurs and a lot of people seem to know him well and respect him. I just have this funny feeling that he will be our manager in about 2 seasons and we only got Santini just for a big name as most Spurs fans wouldn't be happy with Arnesen as no-one really knew who he was.

 

[mank!]

I see Spurs have handed a debut to the younger brother of Town player Jerel Ifil. Nice.

 

[Dillinja]

I'd have to say Arsenal to do it again, and Chelsea in second place.

Spurs will be relegated, only managing one win and two draws out of the season.

 

[Jonaldo]

I'm pleased with the performance of Tottenham actually, overall we played better football than Liverpool who were very negative in the 2nd half. Sometimes we did hit a long ball a bit too early but hopefully once the team starts to gel and learn each others abilities they'll cut that kind of nervous play out of their game.

Naybet was pretty impressive at centre-half but I can understand him being subbed as he's not played much football and needs to regain his fitness. Mendes and Davis worked well in midfield and Defoe as the world knows is sheer class. Ifil looked ok and a good prospect and Atouba also looked ok when he came on. Johnnie Jacksons overall game seems to have improved after last season.

All that said though, I still put us just outside the top ten this season, but Spurs fans will definitely be encouraged with the start we made, even if it is only one point.

 

[Stimpy]

If Gallagher hadn't been such a pussy and given us the blatant penalty we had in the first half we could have been 2 up by half-time, friggin referees and he's one of the better ones

 

[Jonaldo]

Wasn't a pen tbh, a brief touch of the shirt and Gerrard flings his arms out and drops to his knees. Which I was quite happy with really as he clearly has the strength and power to stay on his feet, shrug off the 17 year old full back and have a clear shot on goal with his good foot. Bit silly of him really, and that Kewell bloke who fell over every time Redknapp looked at him.

 

[mank!]

What's Jackson like? I've seen some bad players at Swindon but he's one of the worst I've ever seen, only thing he was good at was freekicks and that was only with his left foot. I'll also never forgive him for putting absolutely no effort in against Oxford in the cup.

 

[Jonaldo]

He's ok and definitely improved over last season. I still think wide midfield either side are positions we're looking to strengthen most, we need a good left side and backup or someone to compete with Simon Davies for the right side. I'm willing to wait and see how Thimothee Atouba turns out though as a lot of people have said he's looked very promising pre-season.

I still have no idea who you could loan from us however, Jamie Slabber is a good striker although possibly Michael Malcolm might be your best bet, he's a very talented young striker indeed, just have to hope he progresses.

 

[mank!]

We're shit so anybody would do right now provided they're good enough to go straight into the first team. A right back would be nice, Jerel's brother perhaps?

 

[Jonaldo]

Phil Ifil done well today and apparently has made some good performances during pre-season. Once Stephen Kelly and Mbulelo Mabizela (something like that, nicknamed O.J.) are fit then he may be 3rd choice at right back so could well be available. I feel quite bad that we strike a deal and don't follow through.
Apparently there's some crap that in the contract it only states we 'will endeavour to' loan a player, not guarantee it and that we gave a list of our second string to choose from. if that's true (which it probably isn't) then we do kinda suck balls.

 

[mank!]

The phrase is "best endeavours". I read this has some legal connontation that you have to do everything in your possible power to provide us with a loan player even if that means bankruptcy but that might be rubbish. Kingy doesn't seem hopeful of the situation ever being resolved and nobody at Spurs is interested in us so most of the fans have given up and are hoping Spurs have a shit season instead. You provided us with a list last week but King wasn't interested in any of them except Barnard who has a broken collarbone and isn't much use to us in the short term and we need players now, we've got a squad of 19 players and we were down to 12 fit players the other day.

 

[Mobius]

Match Of The Day rules. Did anyone see Okocha and Pedersons goals? All 4 were pretty class. Fowler got a decent goal too.

 

[Turamber]

MOTD is okay, but not great. Thought it was amusing that they lamented the number of draws on the opening day of the season and then show about 30 seconds of the Villa game, which was one of only two victories yesterday.

 

[Mobius]

Arsenal 4 -1 Everton

Good start.