In the blue corner we have Diomansy Kamara. Former record signing before it turned out to be a sham, this young lad from Senegal has 25 Premier League appearances and 4 Premier League goals behind him. But be warned; to keep him here for the next two years it's going to cost £1.5m on top of the £800,000 we've already paid.
In the horrific amber gold corner we have Henri Camara. Once again from Senegal, in 43 Premier League appearances he's bagged eleven Premier League goals. He's finished bottom of the Premiership in the last two seasons, first with Wolves and then with Southampton. Inbetween this he spent time on loan at Celtic where, truth be told, he didn't do that badly. But neither did Steve Lovell against that sort of competition. He'd probably cost, like his mate Dio, about £1.5m to bring in.
If rumours are to be believed, it seems like Alain is currently involved in a straight shoot-out between the two. So who is in pole position?
Perrin has made it clear that he'd like to bring in another striker after the loss of Yakubu. Although "striker slot #1" is owned by Lua, whoever plays next to him is still shrouded in mystery. Mornar was shunned by the previous management and is a bit of a mystery. Todorov and Pericard are coming back from injury. Mbesuma is very much an unknown quantity and we can't put all our eggs in one basket with him and instantly expect heroics. Fuller and Rodic are seemingly out of the picture due to their lack of talent. That leaves us with Kamara who, although he has the ability to get round the entire opposition side, can't actually seem to hit the target. He has the potential to get fifteen or so goals, but do we have the time to wait for him to realise it? Is it worth £1.5m?
Meanwhile, we've seen first-hand that Henri Camara can hit the target (the solitary reply in the South Coast derby from an impossible angle, although admittedly thanks to another Ashdown error). There are question marks over his temperament as both at Wolves and Southampton he has been questioned over his attitude and commitment, but it's worth remembering those were both sides where he was getting dropped regularly for strikers who weren't scoring, and both sides where he wasn't getting much service or indeed many chances in front of goal. If he gets an assured first team place and assured service - and with the likes of Robert you'd like to think he would - he could fit in.
But the bottom line is that it seems that Perrin just isn't a fan of Kamara. He sees him every day on the training ground so he'll know better than us, but there's obviously an element of doubt - whether it be his finishing, his somewhat greedy nature or the fact he seems like a bit of a numpty (notice the penalty he encroached on a couple of times and the fact he got booked two weeks in a row for taking his shirt off). If there was no doubt over his ability then we would've paid up the £1.5m for his services without a fuss, but as it is we haven't seen him in pre-season and Perrin has "gone public" on the possibility of sending him home. If we get in Camara as a replacement then I won't be too downhearted as really we need people who can produce the goods now; we're still stuck in a somewhat short term environment until we can finally get ourselves established in this league, compared to keeping Kamara who is a bit stop-start. Ideally we'd keep them both but we're working to a budget - so is it the erratic centre forward who frequently sulks, or the mentalist attacking midfielder/supposed striker who can't finish to save his life?
Discuss.