Wes

Yes their GD is too good. Permutations Wigan If Wigan lose against Arsenal they are relegated. If Wigan draw at Arsenal, Aston Villa are safe. If Wigan win at Arsenal and win against Villa, Wigan are safe. Aston Villa If Wigan win at Arsenal, Villa lose to Wigan and Sunderland don't lose to Spurs, Villa are relegated. If Wigan draw or lose at Arsenal, Aston Villa are safe. If Wigan win at Arsenal and Villa don't lose to Wigan, Villa are safe. Sunderland If Wigan win both games and Sunderland lose to Spurs, Sunderland are relegated. If Wigan draw with Arsenal and win against Villa, Sunderland are safe If Wigan lose against either Arsenal or Villa, Sunderland are safe

As it stands it's between Villa, Sunderland and Wigan for the drop. Everyone else is safe.

Fair play to them, they put some of the magic back in to the cup with that win and they were the better team on the day. Hopefully they'll be out on the town celebrating tonight.

Yep. Whilst it's far from ideal it's hard to get overly annoyed with him. He's got us more points in the past than he may have cost us today.

Sure, if they have an analytics department

Did a little experiment with the Dortmund squad that won at home against Real Madrid 4-1. Due to the links between Lambert and that club, our similiar style of play to theirs, how popular they are at the moment (on this forum and in the media) and how often PL comments about them I wanted to see how they built the squad that played in that game to see if it gave any insight in to the kind of method we may employ in the future: 01/02 DM - Sebastien Kehl (21) - £3m (Freiburg) 02/03 GK - Weidenfeller (21) – Free (Kaiserslautern) 07/08 RW - Blaszyczykowski (21) - £3m (Krakow) 08/09 - Klopp's first season CB - Neven Subotic (19) - £4m (Mainz – 2. Bundesliga) DL - Marcel Schemlzer (20) – (Promoted from youth squad) CB – Felipe Santana (22) - £2m (Figueriense – Serie B ) 09/10 CB - Mats Hummels (20) - £4m (Bayern) DM - Sven Bender (20) - £1.5m (1860 Munich – 2. Bundesliga) CM - Kevin Grosskreutz (20) – Free (Rot Weiss Ahlen – 2. Bundesliga) GK - Mitchell Langerak (21) - £0.5m (Melbourne Victory) 10/11 ST - Robert Lewandowski (21) - £4m (Poznan) AM – Mario Gotze (18) – (Promoted from youth squad) CM - Moritz Leitner (17) - £0.7m (1860 Munich – 2. Bundesliga) RB – Lukasz Piszczek (25) – Free (Hertha Berlin – 2. Bundesliga) 11/12 CM - lkay Gundogan (20) – £4m (Nuremberg) 12/13 LW - Marco Reus (23) - £15m (Monchengladbach) CM – Nuri Sahin (24) – Loan (Previously promoted from youth squad) ST – Julian Schieber (23) - £5m (Stuttgart) Total cost of ~£47m for the starting 11 and subs bench. Couple of things that stand out straight away: Every player who made that Semi-Final Leg squad was bought under the age of 25. Just one player (Reus) was bought for over £6m. 3 youth team products in the team. 5 came from their version of the Championship. 4 came from "lesser leagues". Now of course these aren't all the transfers they did in each of those years. They did supplement with more experienced players during that time. There were failures too - No one gets it right 100% of the time. But there's plenty of useful information here. Should also be noted about Dortmund: Faced Bankrupcy in 04/05 Had their worst league position in 07/08 Klopp joined the next season from a team doing well in their version of the championship (2. Bundesliga) Now I'm not saying we're going to emulate the success of Dortmund anytime soon but they've laid a good roadmap for potential success: > Sign young, hungry players with the long term in mind.Have a core of the club's nationality. Don't be afraid to sign from the lower divisions or lesser continental leagues. Promote from the youth team.< Any of those last points sound familiar?

I wouldn't say the bridge has been burnt down, just that neither of the two have any need to cross it again any time soon.

I'd go along with this too. I think Benteke will be given the choice of taking 9 or sticking with 20 - much like Van Persie in the past week (he stuck with 20). I'd probably give Bennett the #3 shirt in the hopes that it gives him a boost in pre-season and he comes out a better player the other side of it. We'll still bring in another LB but just because Benett has the number 3 doesn't mean he'll start for us. Don't give him the #3 though and I think the lad might just take it as another knock against him.

Douglas from Twente? Heavily linked with Liverpool. Would be a very smart pick up for them. As for Milner whilst I think we would all like to see him back in claret and blue performing as he did in his final season for us. I think his wage demands would just be too high now and that it's probably time to let that pipedream go and look towards cheaper, younger and dare I say hungrier talent. I think Lambert has already placed him in the squad as the second attacking midfielder next season (with the first to be bought in in the summer). The way he's returned and is mooted to be close to breaking back on to the subs bench says to me Lambert has a lot of faith in him coming good. Of course there's a significant injury history with him too and although we all hope that's behind him now because he is a considerable talent, it's why I think they'll be bringing in another attacking mid in front of him over the summer.

You're right Bowery is nowhere near ready yet. In an ideal world I think he would've been loaned out this season but we didn't have a squad capable of being being able to do that. I agree. From the bits and pieces being said he sounds like a lot like a younger Gabby. Could've been £6m if Peterborough stayed in the Championship. 4m + addons if he gets an England cap, that kind of stuff sounds more likely. If any of this is in fact true.

£4m would seem about right for someone who signed a contract 6 months after a fee of £0.5m - then again a journo could have come up with that figure. I'll say this though, he certainly sounds like he has the character Lambert looks for. Playing his way up through the lower divisions, passionate and hungry for the game. I'd have to wonder how well he plays when forced further wide as he would likely be played in one of the wider striker positions in our front 3. Seems like he has the pace to deal with it. Bit unfair to say Bowery hasn't worked out. He was purchased as a project for half a million rather than a contributor right away - our hand has been forced from time to time and he's had to play and he's generally been poor I agree. I'd give any young player we spend just half a million on at least a couple of years before branding how good or bad a deal was.

Delfouneso isn't good enough. I'd also rather not rely on Bowery or Burke / Drennan. If Bent does go we need another striker. We either bring in a backup quality striker or a young player because they know Benteke is always going to be prefered to them or we bring in a guy who can play both wide and up front so if there's a game Benteke is out Gabby can play through the middle and the new signing can play wide. I'd prefer the latter but there are arguments regarding distrubtion of wages amongst the various positions.

I fear you're right. Unfortunately for us one of the key positions we need to upgrade in, attacking midfielder, is also heavily sought after by a lot of teams around the continent who are currently much more appealing than we are. The market could be dry of those kind of players before we even get a look in. Don't know much about him to be honest. I doubt he leaves if Brighton get promotion or that Poyet would want to lose him at all but if he can be bought for a nominal fee and fits the mindset of a Lambert player he sounds on your recommendation like a nice a pickup. You're right though, we definitely need to get someone who can come in for Agbonlahor and Weimann on either side of Benteke other than N'Zogbia from time to time.

Woops! Horrible oversight on my part hahah. I'll have to change my lists! Thank you for the info. There are 5 prime attacking midfielders likely to be on the move from their current club in the Eredivisie this year. Siem De Jong of Ajax whom you mention. Christian Eriksen Ajax Adam Maher of AZ Georginio Wijnaldum of PSV Marco Van Ginkel of Vitesse De Jong and Eriksen are definitely leaving Ajax. Eriksen is bound for a Champions League team. De Jong I think just wants to go somewhere where he'll be paid well and valued within the team. I don't doubt that we could get a bid accepted for about £9m but whether he'll come to us rather than somewhere like Bayer Leverkeusen or Liverpool I don't know. I suppose you don't know until you try! Whatever happens there'll be a vacuum at Ajax in the attacking midfield position which is where Maher, Wijnaldum and Van Ginkel fits in. One of them is definitely going there, Maher is the likely option, probably moving for around £9m. That would likely leave Wijnaldum and Van Ginkel around on the market to be had. Both of them would be great in our squad, I'd be happy with either. Wijnaldum can play out wide or behind the striker and Van Ginkel can sit in a midfield two or slightly further forward. Both are technically gifted. The usual youtube links for both: and Marco Van Ginkel Unfortunately it seems we're going to have to wait for the Champions League teams to figure out who they're buying before these smaller transfers become viable. There's a good article here by Rafael Honigstein which explain how most of the summer transfers are waiting for a few key attacking transfers to go through. I absolutely agree with you though. These are the type of players I think we should be targetting. Proved themselves in "less challenging" leagues and are hungry to make the step up and available for around £8m.

Haha yes. I just enjoy watching some of the other leagues and looking for players that could work for us. Maher, Altidore and Locadia all scored in a 2-1 AZ win.

The Mirror article says Lambert is scouting Belgium and Holland for players. I wonder if he's gone across there this evening? The Belgian Cup and Dutch Cup are both on tonight. Brugge v Genk (Benteke's previous club) (7:45pm) and AZ Alkmaar v PSV (5pm). If that report is true then he could be at one of these. These teams have players which I think would be interesting fits for us: Brugge: Maxime Lestienne, 20 yo Left Winger, 12 goals and 8 assists this season. Vadis Odjidja-Ofoe, 24 yo Central Midfielder, almost moved to Everton last year. Genk: Kalidou Koulibaly, 21 yo Centre Back Jelle Vossen, 24 yo Forward, 16 goals and 5 assists in 25 league games (Benteke's old strike partner) AZ: Adam Maher, 19 yo Attacking Midfielder, 7 goals and 5 assists in 30 league games (Club have said he's going to be sold this summer - linked with almost all the top 6 sides in the PL. Unlikely for us) Nick Viergever, 23 yo Centre Back. Alkmaar Captain. One international cap. Jozy Altidore, 23 yo Forward, 23 goals in 32 league games PSV: Georginio Wijnaldum, 22 yo Attacking Midfielder, 14 goals and 5 assists in 32 league games Jurgen Locadia, 19yo Forward, 6 goals and 4 assists in 14 games.

I completely agree.

Sid Lowe just tweeted that Malaga are going to be forced to sell a lot of players this summer. Palermo are likely to be relegated and players will want to leave. There are going to be a lot of bargains on the continent this summer. FM players in particular, remember Ignacio Camacho? Widely liked coming out of Athletico Madrid as a young defensive midfielder. He's at Malaga. Still only 23 and I reckon he could be bought for around £6m now.

Marshall, Dunne, Lichaj.

I don't think we'll sell N'Zogbia. Sure he's on relative high wages and he's got 3 years left on his contract, but he isn't going to be heavily sort after and would require selling at a substantial loss. Plus he's a versatile player which is good to have in a squad, offers us something different to what we currently have and as has been mentioned by Sylla in a recent interview has really helped the likes of him and Benteke settle in. There's plenty of good value targets available in Ligue 1 and the Jupiler Pro League for us to chase this summer. For me the positives outweigh the negatives in keeping him in the side. You're spot on with regards to Ireland, Bent and Dunne though. They need to be moved on sharpish. Dunne will be released as his contract is up. I think there's still a market available for Bent, maybe reunited with Jol at Fulham. Ireland could go to one of the promoted sides.

£25m plus Player Sales in the Summer window. I think a small portion of the budget will be saved for restocking in winter.

12th on 42pts

To be honest I'd be much more comfortable with a few promising signings than one signing to blow the world away but I agree that all clubs need at least one signing to get excited about going in to the season (ie. Benteke). I like what Southampton did signing Ramirez. About a third of their transfer budget on a highly rated up and coming prospect. Assuming we have about £30m I'd like to see us maybe get a similiar type of player for our attacking mid spot for about £10m.

Here's the Telegraph story.

Regarding things being in our hands (not considering the fact Wigan play Arsenal): - Win against Chelsea and we're safe. - Don't lose against Wigan and we're safe.