Dman

if Lavia, JWP, Tino, <insert decent player here> do not leave this season and we fail to gain promotion, their value will plummet.

Agreed. Accept the fee, so to speak, but work on the finer details.. i.e sell on %. I can easily see him becoming a £100m player in 4-5 years time.

great news!

Nothing is guaranteed or promised by City.

Bazunu Tino/KWP Bednarek Stephens Manning Charles Smallbone S Armstong Tella Che A Armstrong Based on who I think will move on in the next week and what I've seen from pre-season so far, I'd go with this. I'd expect at Tino, KWP, Che and S Armstrong to move on after the Wednesday game.

He doesn't want to be here, he's not playing in the championship.. We don't hold as many cards as you think. An offer of £45m for a 20 year old with 1 season under his belt is not them calling the shots. As the great Martin Semmens once said (probably the only sensible thing he's said); if we refused to sell young talent to top teams, the next Tino, Lavia etc wont pick us when we're in for them. Buy, develop, sell is our model.

agreed, feels a big risk given his injury history. Not sure I want to be relying on AA or Mara for a prolonged period next season

To be fair, that's a great offer for him. Feels reasonable for all parties. If Chelsea are interested, stump up in the next day or 2, or you miss out. If it free's up a spot for us to bring someone in, then I think lets just get this one concluded. Lavia would be fantastic at Liverpool imo, a great fit.

Can't see him being too interested in Roma, with Jose as manager, based on how he treated his best buddy Ali.

We lost Willy, who we allegedly offered a contract, so there must be room in the squad for a new keeper? McCarthy down to 3rd choice (bloody expensive 3rd choice, but he simply cannot play), Baz / new keeper battling for no1. Arguably the most important signing we could make all summer.

Salisbury, that famous Hampshire city.

You've clearly not been to Pompey for a while, baring Southsea, the rest is an absolute hell hole.

In fairness, they are short of 4/5 of their best players, given they're in the first team.

I don't think Amo-Ameyaw will be with us long, he looks an absolute star in the making.

It was a strange game for me. We started really bright and looked great going forwards, probably should have been 1 up, but after 10 mins or so, they realised that if they just full pressed us from the keeper, we'd play into trouble and we started to panic. Bournemouth dominated the first half after that, we couldn't get out our own half, but that was more down to us. We played 1 DM, then 2 more attacking CMs and, being honest, it was way too attacking and they go through us way too easily. Second half was much, much better. I thought we controlled the game and you could see Martins coaching shining through. I was really unimpressed by Bournemouth. Ridiculously aggressive in a tackle for a friendly, constant petty niggly fouls and just played like they were fighting for survival. I couldn't really work out what style they play, seems like a counter attack. They pressed us well (from goal kicks), but we made it easy for them with all round sloppy play. McCarthy cannot play a minute for us next season, I didn't hit home until yesterday how poor he is with the ball at his feet. We need another CB, someone comfortable receiving the ball under pressure and imo ideally someone left footed (so many times we had to play into danger as we had no one who could turn out onto the left). Djenepo was Djenepo, very poor. Edozie was bullied. Adams very poor as well. Really impressed by Smallbone when he came on, done the simple stuff and reminded me of JWP, just as he had his transition to a more aggressive deep lying player under Ralph. Would definitely be keeping S Armstrong as well, gave us composure on the ball and drive through the middle. In short, any teams that are sensible in how they press us next season will probably beat us, but things to be optimistic about. We desperately need 2/3 players in urgently, GK, CB, ST.

Agree to disagree, I suppose. Its not about mental capacity, its about a difference of opinion. Personal opinion, but our hand is not as strong as people like to make out. Lavia isn't playing in the championship. He'll go and I suspect it'll be for less than the £50 we're demanding at the minute. Tino / JWP might give us a year, but if they do (and we don't go up), their value next summer will be way less than anything we could get this summer. Lets see how this all plays out. If we end up selling last week of the window, theres a good chance we'll be looking 3rd, 4th, 5th down our list of targets. People are happy to wait at the minute, but they'll start twitching as the window drags out.

FWIW, I think they should keep OT/Leeds. Been to the rose bowl a few times for England games / tests and its lifeless, much like most southern grounds to be fair. The Barmy Army don't seem to travel down here.

I see you keep saying this, but that counts for nothing if we don't go up. We are currently 2/3 weeks away from the first game of the season and still have no idea who will be playing for us next season and have a completely unmanageable squad size. We can't bring anyone in, until we let a few go. Martin himself acknowledged that... We'll miss out on our targets if we don't start to move players on very quickly. You need to strike a balance of not being bent over and shifting players who aren't going to be part of your squad. The players Leicester have sold, imo strikes that balance.

I have to say, I thought this when I saw the news broke. Bassey and Salisu are very similar players. Although he underwhelmed for us last season and I'll be glad to see the back of him, Salisu is a better player and represents better value for money than Bassey, imo.

Some positives to take from today, but also some signs of real concern. Reading are a poor side, but we looked nice and tidy going forward, I was really impressed by Edozie when he came on. But I can see us conceeding a lot of goals next season. Bazunu is a terrible keeper - not much has changed on that front.

We've been on the decline for many years now. The rot of having a losing mentality has been getting deeper for 2-3 seasons. It would have taken something pretty special to turn things around for any manager imo, let alone midseason.

yes, because there is absolutely no in between is there. Either we gain promotion or go down.. good point mate, you've done me 👍

They've signed a keeper today as well. Not sure what your point is around x replacing y though. They've signed a top CB, proven at this level on loan with the option to buy.. sounds like a decent deal to me.

so you keep saying, yet they keep signing players...

Genuinely, i think we could line up with our strongest 11 from last season and we wouldn't gain promotion. Individually they might be decent players, but as a squad, they are mentally weak and lack any class. They need to move on and we need them to move on. RE your example above, Lavia makes a real difference to us but I think JWP is actually a massive problem. Saturday showed the difference in class between the 2.