S-Clarke

Surely if he comes back it's a loan? Not sure where we can find £25m, and £18m from. I wouldn't say £25m is a good use of our budget on JWP either, as much as he was missed here....I don't think there's a glaring hole for him in this side, we've evolved from him.

Grealish vibes.

Everything is reporting it as an agreed £18m up front fee, with add on's based on several things.

Consider me sold on that showing. Good touch, thinks and moves the ball very quickly. His involvement in that one touch 2nd goal was sublime. He could get battered around a bit by some PL CM's as he's not the biggest, but he does look like he can give as good as he takes.

I think Dibling is a perfect sub at this stage, teams don't know much about him and his running power as a sub will be beneficial and may well catch teams by surprise. Lesley gave me Wanyama vibes, potential to start him alongside Downes for me. Drop Aribo and play Fernandes for sure, who is just on a different planet.

Well, who'd have thought it. I've always gone along with the idea that the value will be in the loan market as the window creeps to the end, this looked to all that it was going to be a loan (maybe it still will be, and the media have got confused?). But if we've sorted this out as a permanent signing, then that is some commitment from the club and hats off to SR for me. We needed to take this summer as an opportunity to replace Bazunu with a new first choice for many years, assuming we stay up - we've done that.

That game was nuts, can't really base much of an opinion on it as it was so disjointed - proper enjoyable watch though, like an old school jumpers for goalposts type game. Good entertainment on a Wednesday night! I really like SAA and Dibling, I think they can both play such a big role this year (Dibling more so, he's so strong - you can't get the ball off him). He's got Grealish vibes. Edozie was the same though, he's being left behind by players so much younger than him. He has all the gear but no idea is how i'd describe him. It's really time for him to step up now, but he never seems to change or get better. But yeah, nuts. Great watch.

I pay about as much attention to him as I do to Garth Crooks. Both nutjobs.

I've always been a fan of Charly, although I think a lot of that feeling steams from the fact that he was our only shining light in a shambles of a PL season. He's not the most disciplined of players, he'll go on a walkabout and do his own thing - which can work out in some sides, but when you're in a team that employs a structure - which most teams do (no matter how many agree or disagree with that) you cannot have someone just doing their own thing sadly. I'm sure other clubs see the same limitations in him which is why he's not sought by any other English or European clubs. The move to South America will be good for him, culturally and footballing wise. I doubt we'll ever see him back in Europe, but I'll keep an eye on his progress for sure.

Come on, you can't be serious with this. He's about 10 levels above McCarthy, I've watched McCarthy enough to know that.

I don't think anyone has said that we're that close to an agreement, just that we're back at the table. That Lyall Thomas guy has been dragged around the houses on this one. He proclaimed we were close a week or so ago, and then out popped Bjlow and he had to frantically backtrack - so he's not going to be dragged back in on this one again by being too committal.

He's closer to Tadic than Orsic in terms of pedigree and his career. He hasn't reached the heights of Tadic, but those heights didn't come until later in his career.

He was key when Frankfurt one the Europa League a few seasons back. I'm fairly sure we were strongly linked to him when he was at Gronigen, but we went for Djuricic at the time. (and Elia), so he's probably be on the clubs list for a while and our reports should date back to a time when we scouted properly.

Be interesting how that's worked out. i.e if we get the registration of Hugo and loan him, or Goztepe take ownership directly between themselves and Flamengo. How does this victor hugo guy look on FM?

It's all to do with budgets/money I imagine. I can't see Valenciennes having £800k ready to put down, they're in the third tier of French football. We've got more money to our name than both, so it makes sense for us to do the heavy lifting initially and then get these clubs to train them up/progress them. We then benefit with a good player for PL/Champ football, or we sell for a profit that benefits us in PSR terms.

Probably a good signing for you guys given the level he's previously played at. We come in handy as we can lay down the $$$ and then you benefit for free, in the hope that he becomes PL level at some point.

Isn't Cornet chronically injury prone? I'd mark that as likely in that case. It couldn't be a loan though if we aim for Ramsdale to take that slot.

The whole thing is a bit odd, to not even travel to Spain for pre-season rang alarm bells for me. We were given excuses to do with the grass in Spain not being right for him and all sorts of shit. There's almost certainly more to this than is being let on, he's obviously got some sort of chorionic long-term condition that he's having to manage. He'll be advised to retire in the next year, I'm sure of it.

Not sure Lallana will be fit enough to start. It'll probably be Edozie for Lallana.

I thought we were selling JWP to Spurs anyway? Oh wait.

It is cringe and is far away from what football was once about, even as recently as 10 years ago, but I think it's a sad indication of what clubs have to do now with PSR/FFP or whatever bollocks it's called these days. Football is now primarily all about commercials and a financial manipulation game as a first priority, any success on the pitch is a secondary to that. If it works over a long-term then obviously both things go hand in hand and it fuels the football side, but initially it looks like nonsense. All revenue streams they can create will help the club and provide more income. That's one of the reasons they're doing all these changes and fan zones, lots of opportunities to sell more merch food/drink to a captive audience.

That is a ridiculous amount of money for someone who is over 30.

Had we kept Che and signed him up, the club would have had pelters from the fans. He needed to move on from us and we needed to move on from him. The same should have happened with McCarthy really. We've already brought in BBD and Archer who will score more goals between them than Che would have managed on his own. At this level he's good for 5-6 goals a season.

Hull are about to sign Carl Rushworth on loan from Brighton, which has a knock on to our interest in Steele (if it's still there) as Brighton will have to keep him to compete for the Number 1. So that's Steele, Johnstone and Bijow off the table. At this stage I can't see anyone bar Ramsdale, it's either him or none in my opinion. None would be a disaster so let's hope it's not that.