The plot thickens
With Craig's injury worries now firmly back in the minds of the management, what impact will this have on our remaining transfer plans for the summer?

Clearly, we need a new striker now that LuaLua has finally taken his bag of tricks to the south coast. Of those available, we are seemingly being linked to Beattie, Kluivert, and Mido.

Beattie would be my choice of the three, he's strong, quick and powerful, young enough to develop and still has a point to prove. He's also the most likely to play his heart out in the proverbial wet Wednesday cup replay away to Darlington.

Kluivert is a wonderfully talented player, who I have admired for years. However, his current desire for a club, any club, reeks of the actions of a mercenary. Quite frankly, the last thing we need.

Mido is a player I honestly don't know enough about, but surely anyone who can't get into the Marseille team isn't going to add a great deal to our team in terms of quality or goals.

Elsewhere in the team we appear to have cooled our interest in Nicky Butt, so much so that the seemingly departing Gary Speed has flown out on our tour of the far east. Perhaps the injury to Bellamy has forced the money men to re-prioritise their spending plans.

On the right-back front it now looks like a straight choice between Trabelsi or Carr. Spurs fans I know have always raved about Carr, but I have to admit that he's never looked outstanding when I've seen him play. Trabelsi on the other hand is also linked with Arsenal. Given the choice, I doubt he'll choose the upper end of the A1 - and to be honest, you wouldn't blame him.

We've also been linked to Rooney, but as we don't have the 30 million Everton would want (or even half of that) I'll presume that's just the wanderings of some journalist's addled mind. It'd be nice, but it isn't going to happen.

Of course, if the club would like to prove me wrong...
- posted by Paul @ 1:35 pm