kammy

Not a terrible result. We had a lot of the ball today but should have tested Foster more than we did. Maybe we needed someone like Ireland to play the killer ball around the box.

Holman MotM but we didn't see as much of him in the second half.

Benteke needs to be back on the bench. I like what he can add to the team but his hold up play and finishing were poor today.

Nice to see him getting among the goals. I don't know if he has a future with us or not but it'll benefit the club one way or another if he has a good season.

i don't know why but weimann reminds me of a young alan shearer , heres hopping

I don't know why either. :shock:

He's showing a bit of promise though and it would be great if he keeps developing in the right way.

How he would link with Bent though... That I am not sure about

Well for a start off it'll free Bent from trying to win those balls in the air that he seldom does. He did a better job of it against Newcastle, but against Everton I'm pretty sure he only won one ball in the air - managing to flick it on to...well, nobody. Hopefully Benteke will be employed to win some of those balls, allowing Bent to lurk on the shoulder of the last defender/edge of the box/etc.

Also hope to see at least a handful of goals from corners and free kicks this season with Benteke in the team.

Agree. No reason he can't partner Bent, plus his physical presence should help us get goals at set pieces. Even if he isn't the one putting the ball in the net.

Sounds like he has a great deal of potential but I can't see him playing or scoring much this season, not the way that Lambert has set up the team to play.

I think he'll get plenty of game time. I think there will be plenty of games when Lambert will want someone big and strong up front. Also a great option from the bench if we need to unsettle a defence.

As for scoring, we'll have to wait and see but his record so far is very good.

Id use both him and Delfouneso in a cash + player deal for Phillips or Ince from blackpool

Simply not good enough to be a PL player

I don't think he'll ever be a great premier league player, but he can definitely be a useful one.

Maybe not someone who I want to see starting every game, but he is capable of getting a few assists. It's all about league points and we might have come back from Newcastle with none if Barry wasn't on the pitch.

Not sure how people can say he's not PL standard.

We have got good competition upfront now...Bent, Gabby, Weimann and Benteke all fighting for a starting spot

Don't forget Bowery.

Lambert said he was one for the future, but wouldn't be scared to play him. This suggests to me he's backup rather than competing for starts.

Even if we have I don't think he'll come here. He wants European football I'm sure I read somewhere. Would love it to happen though!

Does this mean the Benteke deal is off I wonder?

Would love this to happen. He'd be able to play that number 10 role we've been missing since Keane left. Won't hold my breath though.

they pissed around with the vlaar deal and now it seems they are doing the same with benteke

Err, I seem to remember we signed Vlaar. So can't see how that would be a problem?

Mat Kendrick?@MatKendrick

Paul Lambert rules out moves for Kenwyne Jones and Jermain Defoe. "Those won't happen." #avfc

Glad about Jones and not surprised about Defoe. He won't leave Spurs. Would have liked him here though. He's still a bloody good striker.

Kammy I think people have been unfairly influenced all summer by all the nonsense off twitter and "ITK" noise.

Reality is something quite different.

I enjoy getting swept away by the speculation as much as the next guy, but nothing about the Carroll rumours even begin to add up. Maybe I'll be proved wrong but the deal seems to make no sense and conflicts with everything else that has happened in the window so far.

I really don't see Carroll coming. We don't have that kind of money. If we did have, we'd be spending it on other players. Not sure why people seem to think it's even a possibility.

If true and he's replaced with someone better it's obviously a good move.

Think we should be worrying about other positions though, instead of spending our time chasing a CB.

That sounds like a great bit of business to me as Warnock is a left back who CAN defend and the £2.5 mil could get us a good center half and right back at Championship levels.

Interesting viewpoint

think Warnock's more what we need than Olsson, better defensively, and we're obviously short at left back.

Worrying if true - surely isn't though

I would really like to see Warnock back (although he was another who was regularly slagged off on this site).

His key quality is solidity. Unfortunately, we will have to lose Olsson to get him. I would have loved to see them playing TOGETHER on the left flank

Poor sod

He was good player when we bought him. Started out pretty well with us too. It's fair to say he's lost his way with us but if he returns to form he'd be a real asset for a championship club.

Tim Abraham on twitter is claiming Lambert was at the Wolves Barnsley game last night. Who was he looking at? Jarvis? Or maybe Harewood?

been asleep for the last 20 hours?

Not been on here for a while, sorry if people have done it already! The tweet was new.

Tim Abraham on twitter is claiming Lambert was at the Wolves Barnsley game last night. Who was he looking at? Jarvis? Or maybe Harewood?

It certainly didnt need tearing apart, the squad he inherited was mostly good and the bad rarely played, he turned good into bad. Dunne and Collins were a great partnership the year before, Houllier turned them shite and no matter what those two did off the field under Houllier (which was innexcuseable) that would never have happened under MON. Under MON our defence was generally good, under Houllier with the very same players, it was an utter shambles. Only one man to blame there.

I also see this myth that Houllier was going to lead us eventually into playing great football and the players he bought and was going to buy some more great players still persists, where on earth does it come from, it's a fantasy, Houllier has consistently alienated players, bought huge swathes of utter shite and generally played negative long ball shite throughout his PL career as well as not developing any youth players apart from Gerrard whom he was handed on a plate.

PL is the one that has to tear things up though McLeish should have done too but I'm not entirely sure it was in his brief.

Probably a fair point about the defence. The same players seemed to go downhill fast.

But I'm convinced things would have got better if he'd stuck around. He'd lined up Cabaye for a start.

McLeish was bad on results and football played BUT people tend to forget he had our 2 main attacking threats from midfield sold on him. am not defending him.

plus was only hated because where he came from

Most people gave him a chance but it didn't take long to find other reasons to hate him did it?

Houllier, without a shadow of a doubt.

Managed to undo all of the good work done by MON leaving McLeish the legacy of a squad in turmoil. DOL became bad but started off well.

Houllier hardly inherited the perfect team from MON did he? Some very good players, some very bad. I think most managers would have struggled trying to replicate what O'Neill had achieved.

He had to tear it apart to rebuild it. We only saw the first half of this.

At least he had a plan!

Really excited by what's to come. I'm trying not to be overly optimistic, but think the top half of the table is a possibility if we don't lose key players for any length of time.

Let's not forget we can still bring more players in before the window closes and supplement the squad further in Jan if needs be.

I will be happy with anything as long as the football improves and we are clear of danger at the bottom.

Bring it on!

Easily McLeish. We don't even need this thread do we?

O'Leary - things turned very sour for him, but we did OK under him for a while.

Houllier was trying to change things and if he had had more time I think we would have seen improvements.

McLeish was terrible the whole time.

No contest.

Happy if we bring in another CB but it's not a priority like LB, ST or Winger.

We shouldn't let Ireland go right now. He could be an excellent player for us this season. At the end of it, If he hasn't performed, ship him out. Not even bothered what kind of fee, but we really should give him a chance.

We move on, hopefully with Hutton and Warnock also gone by the start of the season.

Interesting to see wether we will have also strengthened the squad in numbers by the start of the season, or will the new signings cancel out the people we have let go?

Even if we have the same number as we started with last season, the better the quality of the players, the greater the experience of the youngsters and the fact that we have now a decent manager means we have a far stronger squad.