Wes

I wouldn't list any names. Firstly, it could hurt us in getting those players if the names leak. Secondly, it could have more repercussions for HH, whomever he is, which would be even more of a shame after he has been a particular bright spot on this forum regarding thoughtful insight and information about the club. He/She obviously chose to confide in you these names privately rather than post them on the main forum for a reason. Considering the amount of supportful information he has supplied us in general these past few weeks in particular when the mood amongst fans has been somewhat testy, it would be a shame to disrespect his/her wishes now. That's what I'd do at least.

What I would envision happening is they probably had identified a number of targets for the "forward thinking" midfield role and they'll reshuffle their list so that the guy at the top is more capable of also sitting deeper in midfield, with an eye to the summer where a true number 10 could be played in front of the January guy without any hassle, but the current guy could still fill that role for us now. Probably a box-to-box sort. As for buying another striker. I doubt it. An additional loan signing along the likes of Guidetti, who can play up front or pushed out wide if needed, may be called for though. In the meantime, I think Helenius will get his chance and we'll see more variations in formation with Weimann and Gabby more central when Benteke isn't playing.

Get well soon Libor!

Defour. de Bruyne would command a large transfer fee. Around £20m I would guess. Chelsea want to sell, probably to bring in another striker for a title push, rather than send him out on loan. Seems pretty clear they want to cash in. Defour has dropped out of favour in the past two months at Porto. He will want first team football in the run up to the World Cup. We probably have a better shot at enticing him on a loan than a transfer because as soon as other clubs get a sniff that he's available on a transfer, they would probably be able to offer greater wages than we could. As to who I would prefer? Probably Defour. de Bruyne is the more talented player but Defour would offer the greater level of improvement for one of our main weaknesses at the moment.

I adore Piazon. I think with Chelsea buying so many attacking midfielders we may even have a slim chance of pinching him from them in the summer. I think he'd have a similiar impact for us as Coutinho for Liverpool. Whilst we're on the subject of the Dutch league, there really is a host of young attacking midfield talent in that league at the moment. Fun to watch.

Not even sure why there is such a rush for him. He has been awful for the last few years now. Cheap premiership experience that is readily available in January is always sought after due to its rarity.

Great way to start the year.

Just hoping beyond hope Vlaar and Benteke make it through the game without hindering their injury recovery further.

I think he'd be our number one Summer transfer target. He wont move in January but Summer we should absolutely go for him, barring we don't make any additions in his position this window.

Going to piggyback your comment here a little. Loans from the teams in Europe, or currently fighting for a European place next season, will almost solely depend on whether they sign anyone themselves first. Those clubs can't afford to decrease their squad size with potential injuries and fatigue coming up this Spring. For instance, I imagine Aspas will be leaving Liverpool this window but they are very unlikely to let him go until they have another body for the same position in in case they get more injuries (in this instance the rumour is they're signing Tello from Barcelona.) So whilst Essien would be a good addition (although I'm not sure any potential loan wages would best be spent on a defensive minded midfielder currently) unless Chelsea have a ready made replacement currently in the squad or coming through their youth setup (which is unlikely as they've already shipped most of their good youngsters out on loan for a full season) they're unlikely to let him leave. Same goes for the likes Holtby and Sigurdsson which I have seen mentioned in here over the past week or so. Of all those that have been mentioned I think Anderson from Manchester United would be the most likely loan signing from a "top club." Whilst already hardly picked (seems to be out of shape constantly to me) United will likely buy a high profile central midfielder this January, dropping the Brazilian even further down the pecking order. Whilst I'm here, I think Kiyotake this summer is looking more of a sure thing, if we still have an interest. Nuremberg are having an awful season, having not won a league game, and are in the relegation zone in the Bundesliga. So whether they manage to stay up or go down, I don't think they can resist an interest for him a second year running. But they wont sell him this window. Too important to them staying in the league.

A concerning amount of opinions being shouted down in this thread, and on the forum as a whole recently really, simply because their opinion differs to what the more vocal users think or what the most popular thought is at this moment in time. Personally, my main thought is this: I'm loathe to spend more money paying off a manager and backroom staff's contracts yet again. Say, just for the sake of this argument, we have £5m to spend in January. Would you rather spend all that money changing coaches, or try to get at least one fresh face in the starting line up that isn't a loan? That's the question I've been asking myself and I slightly lean towards keeping Lambert. That's not to say I'm happy with the way he is currently managing at all. Ignoring Vlaar and Benteke's most recent injuries, this is the same group of players he had last year for the most part. I don't think it's so much that the players have regressed, as I personally think that's balanced out in other areas of the pitch currently, for example Weimann's bad form this year is inversely proportional to Delph's improvement this season, in my eyes. What has been most disappointing is the way we've been set up to play teams. A few years ago Lambert was getting praise for his tactical acumen, particularly in being able to make good changes during the match. We've barely seen that recently, the triple substitution gambit at West Brom perhaps being the last, and I think his overall tactical ability has regressed this season compared to last. To me it currently looks like he is bumbling from game to game trying to get a setup to magically stick and it's not coming off for us. So whilst we're being setup rather counter intuitively (in my amateur opinion) and waiting on some injured players to return we're going to struggle. And despite that we're still at 20 points halfway in to the season. I honestly can't tell if this is a good thing in the vein of Manchester United's freaky way of managing to get points whilst playing poorly, or the beginning (or middle, if you like) of the end of our stay in this league. There are plenty of other points that could be gone in to detail. The "value" of our summer signings. The January market. Alternative managers available to name but a few. For now, I'll slightly side with sticking with Lambert. He played at least some part in getting this young team to perform again after our nightmare Christmas last year and again, would rather spend money on strengthening the players in the squad than giving people late Christmas present severance packages. Those are just my observations as a casual observer. I'm sure they differ to others. But as I stated at the top of this post, that should always be treated as a good thing, particularly on an open forum such as this. If we only ever read or heard what we wanted to hear we would end up listening to just ourselves, and how sad would that be.

56% pass accuracy This cannot continue.

The number of times our players make runs when they should be making themselves available for a pass, and waiting for a pass when they should be making runs, is just annoying.

This is one type of match having Westwood wouldn't actually hurt. Someone who can occasionally unlock a good pass and we're being gifted a lot of possession.

Personally, I'm tired of changing managers so regularly. I see what other clubs have been doing and want no part of it. A temporary boost in position may help those currently in the relegation zone but, in my opinion, it rarely helps them in the long run. Have I been disappointed by how we've been playing occasionally, especially at home? Sure. Who wouldn't be. But I'm not ready to pull the plug on this version of the rebuild just yet. Would be nice to use some money on a player or upgrading facilities than on a settlement fee for an axed manager for a change.

I may be wrong but I believe those sky lineup short videos are done prior to the season (unless they're signed in August) and his billing back them would be as a wide midfielder. I think most wide midfielders are told to stand side on in these clips.

Much the better team, but our lack of a link between midfield and attack showed greatly today. A point and another clean sheet away from home against a team who has started the season well is not to be sniffed at though.

Weimann and Kozak need to step up their game. Westwood has to be careful. Bacuna and Delph are having good games and Gabby, when he actually gets the ball, is causing problems.

An astounding result. Well done to the team! I'd just like to say Bacuna was getting absolutely ripped by many in the live match thread but he turned out to be man of the match. We are way too eager to label our players as bad or terrible.

Best game since the opening against Arsenal I thought, although that's not saying much after the horrors of last week. He made a heck of a lot of challenges. That said, it's further concreted in my mind that this is all he should be used for. Breaking up play. He is still unreliable with the ball under pressure and his vision is limited. Whilst Westwood offers greater vision and calmness on the ball, El Ahmadi is currently doing better in the defensive stakes. You can't drop Delph at the moment so I can see why El Ahmadi got the nod today.

Changed the formation. Moved people to irregular positions. Took out two regulars. Still got the win. Good for him. Nice to know we are capable of playing something different.

I wont be too hard on him. Whilst I agree his shooting was too often and too erratic, he seemed to want to be involved in the play more centrally and when he did get a few opportunities to be more in the middle I generally liked his movement. His first full debut. Still plenty of time for him to come good once they work with him on the training ground. I think he saw Kozak score and wanted to impress too hard too.

A nervy win but a good win. Guzan is such a rock for us. Was pleased by Clark's performance. The most satisfying things for me though are we won by holding a lead, playing a different formation and after losing our best player to injury.

Tonev for Westwood is probably more of an attacking change than if he replaced Weimann or if Sylla was the choice.

Lowton and Westwood out. Bacuna and Tonev in.