Saint_lambden

It will probably change through the season but going by the way Lens set up for the final match of the season: ————————New GK———————- ——Quashie——THB—-New CB/Stephens— ————————Charles————————-— —Sugawara—Downes—Fernandes-Manning- ————AA/Archer/Stewart—Downs———

Downs seems to fit the profile of the type of player we’re looking for and that will fit Still’s system and style so you have to trust Spors and his scouting team. Of the major nations, German football is probably the closest to English football (compared to Spain and France) in terms of style so hopefully he’ll be able to settle in and get up to speed quickly with the Championship.

Sunderland about to sign Petrovic (GK) from Chelsea. I wonder if that will lead us to stepping up our interest in Anthony Patterson who's been linked with us the past couple of transfer windows. Would represent pure profit from a PSR point of view for them and he's likely now to be back-up there which - at 25 - I doubt he would want.

Couldn't persuade him to come here whilst in the Premier League, not sure why anyone thinks we'd be able to in a league lower.

Would rather Tyler Morton

Marco Grüll...

Absolutely no chance with any of those in bold. Even the others we'd be looking at £15m-£20m to buy from direct rivals for promotion unless they're in their last year of their contract.

Don't think it's unreasonable for us to ask them to pay 5m euros for someone who scored 17 goals in 25 appearances for them 2 years ago.

They sold 170m euros worth last summer and only spent about a third of that so will have plenty to play with.

We enquired for Downs but Koln want a fair bit more than we initially pitched at. He's out of contract next summer so if he's not willing to sign a new one (at the moment he's refusing the extension on the table) then they will sell rather than let him go on a free next year, but it will take more than 5 million euros.

Another season in the Championship for Charles, as a key figure in the middle of the park alongside Downes, would be the best for his development. Hopefully then he can win promotion for us and we can be confident he'll be as ready as he's ever going to be to make the step up to the Premier League. Being based in the north and not far from Manchester may well be a pull though, as well as the assumption that Leeds would probably be able to pay more in wages. Anything less than £30m wouldn't be worth our while, especially on his current trajectory.

Apart from two of them being Irish.

Not seen it mentioned on here yet - but we were linked yesterday with Rudoni at Coventry. Excellent player and another who's very good in the air. Looked a constant threat towards the end of the season at arriving late in the box to get on the end of crosses and bagged a few goals as a result. Probably would only happen if Fernandes does leave to fill the attacking midfielder void but you can see the profile of player we're looking at has flipped from being much less technical and good in possession to a focus on tall, athletic types. Long may that continue as we've been missing that in abundance for a long time.

Have renewed. I mean, it can hardly be any less enjoyable than the season just gone so the only way is up in my view. No VAR to contend with; we might actually win some games and we've actually got someone accountable (and seemingly fairly competent) in charge of the football side of things who is not messing around in terms of getting key appointments in place early.

If we're talking about CBs, Tanganga would be perfect. He's a monster in the air so would be a big threat at set-pieces which Still's teams are so strong on, great in the tackle and very athletic. Shouldn't cost too much either as his release clause is only a few million.