The rumours today are very much focused on one position; goal scorer and we do need one. We don't need one because we're not scoring goals, we need one because I fancy Harewood and maybe even Carew are off in January or at the end of the season.

First out of the hat this weekend is ex Tottenham and current Pompey striker Jermain Defoe and while I'd love it to be true and there is every possibility that it could happen, I just can't see it happening, even though I fancy he'd help us get top four.

West Ham are in trouble, financially that is, so they're going to be in no position to hold out for more cash when we pop down to East London in January and offer £7mn. for their best player.

We'll start with the one that popped up yesterday; Charles N'Zogbia, because I quite like it. He's 22 years old and currently at Newcastle where he is apparently struggling to get into the team.

One of the papers yesterday ran with the story that Peter Crouch is a target for Martin O'Neill and if Harry Redknapp was still at Portsmouth I'd say this was false, but I really wouldn't be surprised if this was true.

I was a big fan of Crouch when he was at Villa but got a lot of stick for it as I used it as one of the reasons to demonstrate that David O'Leary didn't know what he was doing and at the time most were still thinking O'Leary was walking on water.