Rumour Mill- A Fry Up On The Cards, Matt ?

Should point out that he has never made his debut for West Ham yet so only played in the lower leagues

Good to see that Howe is adressing a sensitive field of the team, the defence. Anyone know what is happening with Leon Cork? Is he staying, leaving, retireing?

He looks like a good up and coming young player, who at Championship level could be a strong defender. With Bikey, Edgar, Duff and hopefully Fry, we could have a strong central defence for the new season.

Everyone assumes, nor, that Cort will serve out the remaining year (or 2?) of his contract and disappear, as no-one thinks he's good enough for us, or for anyone else to buy him. He played poorly in the friendly at non-league Altrincham. But he did play on loan with PNE last year. So maybe we'll get a club to loan him and pay part of his salary? Or maybe he'll get his confidence back and prove us all wrong? Meanwhile, Bham hve lost yet another player, Roger Johnson having gone to Wolves. And - the ground moved when I read about this - Plymouth Argyle striker Joe Mason has joined Cardiff City on a three-year contract for an undisclosed fee. Republic of Ireland under-21 international Mason is Malky Mackay's sixth signing since succeeding Dave Jones as Bluebirds boss. Robert Earnshaw, Andrew Taylor, Craig Conway, Don Cowie and Aron Gunnarsson have already joined under Mackay. Mason, who completed a medical over the weekend, scored seven goals in 35 Pilgrims appearances. The 20-year-old has now travelled to join the Bluebirds squad on their pre-season tour in Spain. Mackay has set about rebuilding a club that has seen 12 of last season's players depart. They include Craig Bellamy, whose possible Cardiff return Mackay is coy about - Jay Bothroyd and Michael Chopra. That was copied off BBCwww. I would guess that 'coy' means Man City hope to sell him (Celtic have been snmiffing around) and not pay his silly salary to play for someone else. And we think we've got problems... sigh. Cardiff and Birmigham fans meanwhile have bigger and bigger reasons to have the blues.

Wiki says we have already signed him for an undisclosed fee? cover for Carlisle perhaps? although I would rather have Carlisle's experience than some lad who hasn't even made a start for West Ham.

Well after the performance I saw against Bristol City and Leicester City away last season and indeed many other games, I think you are being a tadge optimistic considering at the moment we are four players down and have lost a lot of experience. 70% or so it would appear tend to agree based on poll! Howe may be able to work miracles, I hope so but I don't see that we have enough quality or quantity at the moment to mount a confident challenge and in anycase by now we should be aiming for automatic promotion not trying to avoid failing to reach the play-offs again

I tend to agree tmp, we should not be faffing around, we should be getting quality players in and going for an automatic place before there really is no money left then we will be buggered!!! excuse the French.

Well it looks like Flood is increasing his shareholding by buying some of BK's shares. BK will still be chairman but at some point I am sure Flood will take over the reins. In many ways I hope it is sooner rather than later, I just feel we need to try something different and I think Flood with take more calculated risks and increase our chances of success. We should embrace that and not be too fearful! I know Flood is not everybody's cup of tea but let's give him a chance to sweeten the brew before passing final judgement!

Nice to see some confidence for a change boys and girls!!!!!!

Cornwallclaret, you are very pessimistic. It certainly will not be a miracle if we go up this year, far from it. Top six will be our priority, but I think we should be aiming for higher than that. I have justified my reason for this with my last comment on the latest article. Im sure we will sign a couple of players before the end of the transfer window, whether they will be proven quality, it is unlikely but perhaps. We will certainly be looking to build upon last season with Eddie in charge and three players back from injury, like I have stated before. Just be a bit more confident, we have held onto a quality squad so far, and we are probably one of the favourites for top six. Theres no question about that.

I understand where you are coming from cornwall. And I also hope we get a couple of quality signings before time runs out. We do to some extent need them, and things seem to be running a bit faster now thankfully with lots of recognised targets.