Dman

we'll soon see wont we. Downes is a fantastic player. excited for that one 👍

McTomiany if used correctly is a very good player. He'd be a great box to box CM for West Ham. Personally I dont think JWP is going to do too well there. Free kicks aside a ver average PL CM. I'd go as far as saying id actually prefer Downes.

Really happy with Downes - lets hope we have an opton (and he enjoys it here). Not sure he's a JWP L4L replacement and will likely play in the deeper role, so not sure what that means for Charles or Smallbone. I'd imagine that Smallbone could play a little further forward in the '8' / 'box to box' / 'traditional CM' (whatever you want to call it)ut again would start to find game time tough if / when Grimes comes in. Feel like we need to really focus on getting a forward in now. If Adams sticks around, great, but we need competition / a replacement for if / when he goes.

Kluivert is massively overrated imo. I think he'll be a poor bit of buisness. Scott is obviously untested at that level but looks a decent signing and I highy rate Aarons. I still think they'll struggle though, but will likley have enough as the leauge is going to be really weak next year. Sheff Utd seemingly going down without a fight.

Not everything is negative, just most of it. Not because I'm a skate, but because its been pretty miserable supporting this club for the past 2 years 👍 Largely, the playing squad is waste of space. I think Russell Martin was a hipster, bang average appointment and I've lost all trust in the ownership group when they appointed Nathan fucking jones, spunked £20m on some geezer who has the touch of a trampoline (and that's his only positive output), then appointed Ruben Selles to seal the deal. Lets revisit in May - I'm confident my prediction about Martin will be right, happy to hold hands up and apologise if not. I'll stick it here. We'll make the play offs at best.

If you knew what the circle knew, you'd be concerned as well 🤦‍♂️

West Ham have just rejected an offer for Paqueta worth £88 million. That coupled with getting £100m for rice, feels like they've massively had our pants down with the JWP deal. Clearly he's nowhere near either of their level, but if they're demanding top dollar for their key players, they should expect to pay it for ours. Feels like there's more to the JWP deal - perhaps Downes is the sweetener, or we had a pre-agreed fee with JWP that we'd let him go for x if we go down.

I'm not 100% convinced that Martin was actually Wilcox man - Martin was apparently our second choice behind Jone back in Novemeber. Way before the club had appointed Wilcox. The fella at Leicester was Wilcox (and our) first choice this summer.

I'm taking into consideration the comments from his time at swansea, our pre-season and the 2 games we've seen this season. Nice bloke, honourable and says all the things I want our manager to say, but we're going to dominate 90% of our games and struggle to break teams down. Draw and lose a ton. That's clear to see imo. I'm not saying we should sack him, FWIW - just don't particularly rate him and don't think he'll take us up.

Yep, totally agreed. We can afford to give Lynaco, Shite Paul, McCarthy, Bree, Mara, Djenepo away for next to nothing to 1 - free up the wage bill 2 - free up spaces in the squad.

Burnley have a better manager though. Martin is a 1 trick pony, I've seen more than enough already to know we're going to be all fart no shit this season.

LOL

Not sure that's true - Can you imagine the uproar if they came out and said 'its going to be a tough season, we're going to lose a lot of key players and not replace them with anywhere near the same quality. We'd be happy with top 6 this season and anything extra is a bonus'.. They stated what people wanted to hear.

I'm not sure what post you're referring to, but assuming it was Pilchards, he hasn't really said that. There's a big difference between actively avoiding and being realistic in your expectations and planning accordingly. I'm fairly sure there were a few quotes (can't remember who from? Maybe Rassmus or Wilcox) basically saying the aim was for promotion, but we're prepared for 2 years in the championship. To some extent it makes sense that we'd aim for promotion next season and if it happens this season, that's a bonus. If our out and out goal was promotion this season, (all be it we only are for the right price) we wouldn't be willing to sell anything that isn't nailed down. I do tend to agree that if we some how win promotion this season, we'd need significant investment again next summer to stay up.

Patino is a good player FWIW - We're a little stocked in the attacking CM area (Alcaraz and Stu), but he'll do well at swansea.

Sorry, yeah I should have been clear - Dog shit from the supposidly 'senior' players. i.e all but 2 or 3. SAA is a superstar, I think i said as much last night. Should be starting for me.

Part of me kind of thought that is why we might keep him, to be fair. Anyway, I think Downes and Grimes would be a decent replacement for Lavia and JWP - At this level anyway.

yeah, thats not a good thing....

We should have been good enough to not need to worry about Perraud being CB, other than him being on the ball. but they weren't. They were dog shite, the lot of them

They deserved it. They've deserved it for a few years now. Bunch of useless, arrogant cunts. That team he put out, on papper, should have been more than good enough to beat fucking Gillingham.

Personally I'd have probably played Charles or possibly even Bree at CB. Perraud for me was a bit of a daft choice, but I get the point you're making! I think had Awe been here more than like 3 hours, he'd have started.

I assume you're on a wind up..

Genuinely people dpn't realise how shite Simeu is.. He'll never play a game for the club.

i'm not arsed about JWP leaving, the deal isn't great imo, but I'm bloody pissed off abot missing out on Aarons! Feels like that one could have been wrapped up a long time ago.

Lets not dress it up as anything but that being a shit deal for us, when you consider what we asked for, his contract length and what he was worth to us.