I believe you have spotted Svens cunning plan.

As we can afford the wages...

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Yes I suggested this might be the plan on the previous article, should Maynard be a non starter.

So what sort of names do you think would be available?

Tevez is available

Is Tevez better than Vassel?

Tevez wouldn't come. It's not near enough to home, there is nothing to do and it rains all the time :/

Is Tevez better than Vassel?

What a stupid question.... they're clearly different types of players and can't be compared. Vassel is probably a better finisher and has a little more pace. Tevez has age on his side I suppose!

In all seriousness, I don't think our strikers are our biggest concern. I'm a little worried at the minute that the way we play, we'll struggle to break teams down who park the bus. We don't create enough chances. I think Vassel, Nugent & Gally are all decent players, I just think that all 3 are ineffective as a wide man in a front 3.

I still feel the real missing player is not a forward, but a winger who can make chances. The best striker in the world won't score if he only gets one chance in a game!

Having said that, I do think our defence will be mean so maybe 1 goal will get us a win in every game!

I'm sure Sven has irons in a few proverbial fires....

I rang the phone in this evening and said that waggy IMO could do a job for us!! He defends from the front and wears the shirt with pride and never gives less then 100%

merseyside - sorry mate but since when didn't we create enough chances?

We were the 5th highest scorers in the league last season with 76 goals, scoring five more than QPR and seven more than Swansea.

We have since added Nugent who scored a quarter of Pompey's goals, Danns, Mills and St Ledger who will score goals. Danns is creative so will create chances too.

I think everyone has to remember that we have played some excellent teams in pre-season, Real Mallorca, Bursaspor and Valencia and far better opposition than anything we'll face in the Championship so I wouldn't be too concerned that we haven't created many chances against them!!

Merseyside - There were times last season when we did struggle to break down teams who came and parked the bus (Cov and Palace spring to mind).

However, I think a key reason for those shortcomings was that Yakubu, our focal point in attack on those two occasions was very static in his movement when our midfield was in possession. This made it very hard to create chances because the opposition could press higher up the pitch and close the space for our midfield to play without any fear of Yak running in behind them. Our attacks then became slow and stagnating as we passed back and sideways looking for openings.

This is one of the main reasons why I would be cautious about the Yakubu signing but the strikers we have now (Nugent, Waghorn etc.) are all full of movement and will always be looking to run in behind and stretch the defence which will in turn create more space for the more creative players like Gally, Wellens, King etc. to create chances.

So, providing we have strikers willing to stretch defenses and create space for the team, we should create enough chances to win most games. Whether we have the players to finish those chances is another matter though...

What happened to the Andy Johnson rumours?