NO LONGER A RUMOUR - Doyle to Wolves for £6.5m

[Hoop Blah]

According to Dellor on Radio Berks this morning, he's heard that Murty may be following Hahnemann to Wolves as well.

I'd be a little surprised that they can't find a better back up right back than Murty, or at least one that has a chance of being fit.

Murty will be going down, not up.

That's what I'd have thought. I'd certainly be surprised if anything happened for him at the top end of the Championship let alone the Premier.

I still think he'll end up at Charlton once the transfer merry go round kicks in.

Wolves would be a decent enough move for Doyle, and I'm not surprised someone is willing to pay this sort of figure for him either.

[Harry Carry]

bid confirmed as accepted on talk sport this morning

Correctamundo and it's in the Daily Mail today too. Bye Mr Doyle.

[Hoop Blah]

bid confirmed as accepted on talk sport this morning

Correctamundo and it's in the Daily Mail today too. Bye Mr Doyle.

Hardly breaking news though is it? We've been discussing him being up there for the last 24 hours so it being in the Mail or on a two bob radio station is hardly the scoop of the century!

[Dirk Gently]

bid confirmed as accepted on talk sport this morning

Correctamundo and it's in the Daily Mail today too. Bye Mr Doyle.

Hardly breaking news though is it? We've been discussing him being up there for the last 24 hours so it being in the Mail or on a two bob radio station is hardly the scoop of the century!

Hardly news at all, in fact - if any club makes a bid which is enough to trigger the release clause, then we can't do anything other than to accept it. So the only real bit of news is that the bid has been made.

[Harry Carry]

Don't cry m8's!

[Smoking Kills Dancing Doe]

Just hope Rodgers can pull a 20 goal a season striker out the bag.

It's Hunt/Long with Mooney and Church as cover, not really promotion material is it?

[Dirk Gently]

Just hope Rodgers can pull a 20 goal a season striker out the bag.

It's Hunt/Long with Mooney and Church as cover, not really promotion material is it?

Four years ago people were saying the same when we'd picked up two unknown Irish kids from Cork City for £80k.

[Hoop Blah]

Just hope Rodgers can pull a 20 goal a season striker out the bag.

It's Hunt/Long with Mooney and Church as cover, not really promotion material is it?

Four years ago people were saying the same when we'd picked up two unknown Irish kids from Cork City for £80k.

Similar, except that we've seen all of those forwards listed at the club for at least 12 months and they've not looked good enough to carry the burden. They could well flourish in the extra responsibility of being first choice, but I can't see it myself so I think we have to add something.

I don't expect us to be playing 4-4-2 with the same traditional reliance in the front two for goals anyway, but we will need something different up tops if Rodgers is looking to move towards a different approach.

Don't cry m8's!

Don't think anyone is. We all knew he'd be off at one time or another having been an excellent player for us. Just pointing out that the breaking news wasn't anything of the sort.

[Barry the bird boggler]

Glad it's happening quickly, the sooner he's gone the sooner we can start filling the void and getting on with it.

Now when are Everton going to move for SHunt?

[Smoking Kills Dancing Doe]

Just hope Rodgers can pull a 20 goal a season striker out the bag.

It's Hunt/Long with Mooney and Church as cover, not really promotion material is it?

Four years ago people were saying the same when we'd picked up two unknown Irish kids from Cork City for £80k.

Having Kitson and Lita took a lot of burden off Doyle allowing him to settle in the way he did.

Plus as other have said they are not unknown. We know they are not that good.

[loyalroyal4life]

think n.hunt and lita would of been ok

out of the 4 i would go n.hunt and church

[andrew1957]

I think Hobnobbers are harsh on our remaining strikers. Long did very well at the end of the seaosn and started to look a good player. He is only young and still developing. Noel Hunt also did very well until his injury and Mooney did well at Norwich - so it is too early to write him off.

Realistically the only lower league English based striker that I would welcome to the club and is in our price range and that has scored loads of goals is Cox. I would like to see him back but the million dollar question (or two and a half million pound question in his case) is whether he can reproduce those goals at a higher level and Coppell always said that Long was a better player than Cox - which is why he let the latter go.

As we are likely to play 4-5-1 anyway in future - arguably what we have is enough. What we really need is better quality out wide - hence Smith I assume.

[The 17 Bus]

agree with above post, Long came good, mooney did ok at norwich, folk were raving about church, and n hunt was doing ok till the injury, look like 4 strikers that are on a similar level, so can fight for a place, unlike when Kitson and Doyle were here and they got in on reputation.

[Ian Royal]

NHunt's good enough. Long may finally come good enough.

We don't know enough about Mooney to judge him. Church looks ok, but his scoring record isn't especialy impressive from what I've seen. Besides, for all we know it's one up front and we may be looking at wingers and midfielders to be providing a large percentage of the goals.

Cisse is capable of banging in a few, We've seen Harper can score half a dozen in a season. Kebe got two despite having matchday finishing that looked like mine most of last season. Karacan has scored a couple in limited appearances. Marek has an excellent long shot. Henry has an impressive scoring record iirc.

[Hoop Blah]

Hunt did ok last season yes, but he struggled to play 90 minutes and missed a decent chunk of the season through injury.

I don't see him as a centre forward who can lead the line for us (despite being reasonably nippy and good in the air also) but he worked well with Doyle.

I don't think Doyle was suited to being a lone forward either by the way. As good as he is it just doesn't suit his game and he needs a partner to play up tops with him.

As for Long. He did ok towards the end of the season, and as I've always said he's a good instinctive finisher. A forward capable of leading the line and potentially playing upfront on his own? I still don't think he has the game for it unfortunately and he's not as young as you'd think. He's 22 now, and although his best years should be ahead of him, I think think he's not progressed as much as we might've hoped. More exposure to first team football might change things a bit (hence the calls for him to be sent out on loan at times for the last few seasons) but I just think he's lacking in something.

Church and Mooney just don't cut it for me. Church has the physical attributes, but if he was going to be the forward to fire us to success this season then his scroring record would be better and he wouldn't have been played out wide so often when out on loan.

[Arch]

After a lot of slow progress over the previous three and a half seasons, I thought Long came on in leaps and bounds in 2009. He was hugely improved both in technique and confidence. I thought he was our best player in the second half of last season.

[Sarah Star]

After a lot of slow progress over the previous three and a half seasons, I thought Long came on in leaps and bounds in 2009. He was hugely improved both in technique and confidence. I thought he was our best player in the second half of last season.

I thought the same too, but given the way everyone else seemed to drop off maybe that's not enough.

[Royal Rother]

Long and Church were very good in the 1st half against Burnley, working very well together - considering that would have been one of the very few times they had played together (and up against a very experienced defensive unit) I think that augurs well for next season.

Long has good pace, is very strong and is the best finisher in the squad (tip of the hat to Snowball) so has a lot going for him. If Rodgers can find a way to improve his first touch he could yet prove to be a top player for us.

As for Church, although he hasn't got a great scoring record in his loan spells, he scored 8 in 12 for Wales U21, and was (according to reports) the best player for Wales 1st team in the recent game so I'm sure there is some real potential for the new coaching team to work with as well.

Noel Hunt, despite carrying injuries whilst playing, almsot always looked lively, bagged a good few goals, and should do better with full fitness.

Of course it is sad to see our best player go but, personally speaking, I'm excited about next season.

[Sarah Star]

Much as I agree with you on most of your points, I'm not sure I'd agree that Long was "very strong". Compared with Doyle he's a bit of a lightweight really.

[Terminal Boardom]

After a lot of slow progress over the previous three and a half seasons, I thought Long came on in leaps and bounds in 2009. He was hugely improved both in technique and confidence. I thought he was our best player in the second half of last season.

I thought the same too, but given the way everyone else seemed to drop off maybe that's not enough.

Sadly, this is a sad comment on the state of the rest of our so-called Premiership squad.