Raymond

Great stuff. Hope gabby is alright.

When did Subderland sign Heskey?

Oh Ireland. How poor.

I like this set up and this midfield. We have yet to get "trampled over" like some were concerned we would be with Bannan and Ireland in midfield. Of course it has only been 25 minutes.

Three really good passes from Westwood already. Hope he keeps it up.

You want to sell last seasons most potent attacking threat?

I like that people go to this without mentioning he had only one more G+A in 11 more games than Bent. Potent might not be the word you were looking for.

I do not think advanced metrics have made it to the world of football yet, but when they do you will realize how inefficient an offensive player Gabby is.

That being said, I like the way he is playing now. Several of our goals have come from him backing a defender down, holding him off the receive the ball from midfield, and the distributing the ball well with his back to goal.

Now if he could just hit the ball well with his front to goal, we might have something.

Yes, I agree. Lambert needs to find our best 40 players quickly and play them all in the same game.

Haha.

Depending on which team Lambert plays i fancy us to nick all three points.

Holman should be dropped. No end product and a very limited footballer. He should be a squad member and no more than that! I'd rather see Herd playing instead with a five in midfield and Benteke up front on his own. N'Zogbia and Ireland also have to play and then stick with the same feckin team bar injuries until we can sign some decent players in January.

The pro Lambert brigade are all saying that the new players need time to gel but if Lambert keeps changing the team how are they going to gel?

It is funny how you can completely agree and completely disagree with points in the same post.

I think dropping Holman would be a mistake, but I would like to see him played next to KEA instead of Delph. He has the engine needed to play DCM and still pushes forward. That is exactly what we need.

You are correct about Lambert though. He needs to find our best XL quickly and stick with it. He also needs to stop making useless subs. Someone gave what our record would be if games ended at halftime (4 wins and 2 draws?), and I think that says a lot about our squad depth and PL's ability to change in game. We have to improve both.

I don't get all this "its only been 9 games" nonsense

Have you people looked at the fixtures we have coming up?

I really can't see where our next point is going to come from let alone a win

You can't see Sunderland? Time to visit the optometrist.

Glad I woke up early for this....

Why are we bringing Weimann and Bent on is my question?

Bullshit send off.

The problem is not Delph or KEA. The problem is they are the same player and we, for some reason, keep playing them together.

Amazing. A midfielder drives forward and we find space for Benteke. It is like magic or something.

That was awful from Bennett.

GET IN!!

Does our midfield realize you can carry the ball forward?

Holman probably should have threaded that to Gabby, but already two decent chances.

so you dont think it is bad so far then? in which case you think it is good?

really???

Yes. I am not happy because everything is good. Reading is FUNdamental.

Intelligent people understand good and bad is a sliding scale. We are certainly on the bad side of the scale, but we have yet to tip it out.

My question is what new level of negative will you find if all the horrible things you are predicting actually comes true?

I am not happy right now, but I some of you are downright ridiculous. What new level of negative will you find when something actually bad happens?

Would suggest Herd will play RB?

When they tweeted it out, it was not set up that way.

Wow. We are actually playing three at the back?

I'd expect a backline of Bennett Vlaar Lowton Lichaj

Scary

This is really for the posters who keep repeating that all Lambert had to spend in the summer window was 17m.

Shortly before the window closed, it was reported by the media that we had bid for Dempsey. Now if there was an actual bid, does it not suggest that Lambert had more money to spend than 17m? Didn't Lambert also state that the chairman had made funding available to purchase more established stars, but he chose not to?

This would suggest to me that the chairman did actually make more than the quoted budget of 17m available but Lambert chose not to use it. One of his targets turned us down (Dempsey) and there could have been others but maybe they also turned us down and it just wasn't reported in the media as everyone knows how we like to conduct our business behind closed doors. No-one really got wind of several of Lambert's purchases.

Just because we spent 17m, it doesn't follow that was the actual budget available!

I would go farther and say the Dempsey news proves that Lambert had more to spend, and it is why I have no doubt we will be spending come January.

I would suggest learning to read would be a good starting point for you on VT.

I have fully addressed the poster's point in the second paragraph of my answer in a way that would stop the debate going around in circles.

Then insulting someone after deriding someone else for doing the same thing. Classic.