HarvSFC

50% of the prediction right...

Even got the famous number of weeks line in. "Adam Lallana is back in the squad for Cardiff tomorrow. Ross Stewart is in full training and will be playing in the next couple of weeks. Kamaldeen Sulemana training too but one to watch over next few days." Must be an in joke now.

Yeah, I'm not too enthusiastic about this Yuri Alberto. He's even got a joke compilation, like Joe Lumley did when we signed him. It's the complete opposite of Bijlow, a good goalkeeper who has played in Europe and is loved by Feyenoord fans. And, then you go for a 23 year old striker from Brazil who Corinthians fans don't rate at all. The bloke last hit double figures in the lower quality Brazilian league in the 2020-21 season. Since then he's bagged 20 goals in 72 league appearances. We need goals, what are we seeing in this guy? He has a better scoring record than Juan being the only positive really.

I wonder why it's only Trabzonspor going for Onuachu this summer. Is it because he's 30? After the 2015-16 season he has a good scoring record each year, barring his half a season with us. Last season he hit 15 goals in 21 league appearances in Turkey, which you would think would get a bit of attention on him. But, the cheap skates from Turkey have been the only links all summer. You'd think another club would panic and sign him thinking they can play to his strengths, while we did not.

Now, that was a lot more disappointing than last week, unfortunately. Too slow and too predictable and ultimately we didn't even test the Nottingham Forest goalkeeper, at home. Think we need to start phasing players like Smallbone and Aribo out of the starting eleven and using Stephens as a rotation option with the best centre-back duo being Bednarek and Harwood-Bellis, even if the latter did have a bit of a shocker today. Adam Armstrong would also be included in this, but we don't have an alternative, despite him proving in the first two games that he is a top end Championship player who can't make the step up. McCarthy will also be replaced, although he did the basics well today. Last time, Adkins knew his captain of two years Dean Hammond wouldn't be able to make the step up, as well as Billy Sharp, who he had some affinity to having manged him earlier in his career. Chaplow and Richardson were also pretty much left out after strong Championship seasons and Kelvin Davis was given a few appearances before that error became clear. Hell, Rickie Lambert was even benched for the opening game against Manchester City and he needed to prove himself to be good enough for the Premier League despite his heroic status. Martin needs to be a lot less accommodating regarding who he plays at the level he's asking them to if he wants to be a successful manager and if Ugochukwu and Fernandes aren't better than Smallbone and Aribo then our recruitment has got it wrong again. On that topic, I don't see why flare players disgust Martin. They're the players that are the difference between winning a game and losing. Last season we had S. Armstrong, Smallbone and Downes in our midfield. Aribo was only a squad player in the Championship, usually coming on at the end of games to help us see them out and then he got an extended run in the side at the end of the season because of Armstrong's injury. He only made 16 starts last season and 8 of them came from April and afterwards, and now he's starting for us in the Premier League and he's a completely different player to Stuart Armstrong, so he isn't giving us the creativity, or running that Armstrong gave. Now, Armstrong also wasn't perfect, he didn't always keep the ball and was probably the worst culprit last season for giving up possession, so I don't know why Alcaraz is now so frowned upon. Okay, Smallbone's passing stats are a lot better than Alcaraz', but that's because Smallbone doesn't try anything other than short, sideways and backwards passes. Whereas, Alcaraz' first thoughts are to move forwards with the ball and he will attempt the killer pass. It doesn't always come off, more often that not it doesn't, but one day it will and will win us a game. Yet, he's the one being sold. And then we have the subs issue, again. Forest were getting the better of the game, but Martin does nothing, only until Forest go a goal up and then we bring on Edozie, who's hopeless and Archer. Really demoralising today and it's going to be harder to attract quality players for the remainder of the window with today's result.

https://twitter.com/AlShabab_EN/status/1827081573486789103?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^tweet One of the biggest wastes of money in recent years has made it to Saudi Arabia at 30. Congratulations, Wesley Hoedt.

Yeah, we needed to spread whatever money we had around a lot of positions this summer, while also securing Harwood-Bellis and Downes on permanent deals to have a chance of staying up. So far I think we're doing a good job. A goalkeeper and another attacker, while keeping KWP would make it a very good window. Then, next summer if we stay up and all has gone well then we would only need 2-3 additions and then you'd like to see the £30m come out.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1086762903019604 Maybe Ramsdale's the striker loan signing. Stuart Pearce tried it at Manchester City with David James.

Interesting. Ramsdale's the better goalkeeper, Bijlow's better with the ball at his feet. There's big positives and small negatives for either. Is this going to be another Ramos and Gakpo situation, where we end up with neither?

Jack Clarke's agent is Ian Harte, the old left-back who played for Reading and Leeds and was good at free-kicks. Sunderland fans really dislike him as he's quite outspoken in the media and said he wants Clarke to move this summer.

We sold Lis to Goztepe for £30m, right?

Bijlow would be the best alternative to Ramsdale that we've been linked with, possibly even better because for all of Ramsdale's strengths, playing out from the back is one of his weaknesses and our tactics need someone competent at it. Bijlow is a competent goalkeeper and can play out from the back, so would fit us like a glove. Johnstone, was overrated at West Brom because he was busy I didn't want us to sign him then because if we had good scouts we could have done better. Now, in our position he'd be an okay signing, he's solid but unspectacular, but we'd probably be lumped with him for a number of years after McCarthy. Steele's main strength is that he's good at playing out from the back. His main weakness is that he's barely a better goalkeeper than McCarthy. Been protected a lot by a solid defence at Brighton in Dunk, Veltman and when they had Caicedo, etc. Similar to when Forster's clean sheet stats were boosted when we had the likes of Van Dijk, Alderweireld, Schneiderlin and Wanyama protecting him. So, just need a better source than a random Dutch account with fewer than 50k followers now.

Sugawara obviously a very good player, so hopefully there has been some amendments to the recruitment team from two years ago and this can be another gem. Downes, Ugochukwu, Aribo, Smallbone and Fernandes all vying for the three spots. Good competition when in previous years we've had to keep the same midfield game by game due to having rubbish like Diallo as backup. Now, onto a goalkeeper and a Tadic like creator.

JWP would be the ex-player who would make the most sense bringing back this summer. He dominated the Sheffield Wednesday match in his only appearance last season, albeit at a lower level and Sheffield Wednesday started last season terribly. However, there are also quite a few drawbacks. Number one being we are now stacked in his position, specifically with ball recyclers who do his job. JWP's an upgrade on Smallbone, but we're going to continue developing Smallbone here, so no room at the inn. Number two being that while JWP would be an upgrade, he's not THAT much of an upgrade. His free kick's are world class, but other parts of his game are lacking. He wouldn't have got into our best Premier League midfield (Davis, Wanyama, Schneiderlin) and if you want to move into the top half of the Premier League, JWP in the middle doesn't cut it, which is why he's no longer needed at West Ham. We were slightly handicapped with JWP, as we were never going to replace him, he needed to leave on his own accord for that to happen, and he did. And then number three, JWP made his decision to up and leave last season because we were in a bad place and he didn't want to give the club or management a chance to see if they could turn it around, chasing an England cap that he had no chance of getting even with his impressive form at the start of last season. We're now in a good place again, and it suits him again...

This is correct. Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp were two of the biggest advocates for the five substitutes rule, yet they rarely use/d the five. Guardiola yesterday only made one sub, bringing on Foden for Savinho at half time due to an injury and City have the biggest and best squad in the league. Using five subs can sometimes be disruptive to a team, you see it in friendlies and now with the new rule competitive matches too.

Belgian Alex Crook, isn't he? Had little clue about the Lavia move last summer and occasionally links us to a random player playing in Belgium that comes to nothing and gets no mention from the reliable people on Twitter.

I'd have said Ugochukwu would be competing with Aribo and this is Smallbone's competition. All barring Smallbone hopefully able to cover Downes in a time of a need also. Our last transfer from Sporting Lisbon was Cedric and he was a bit crap despite having an incredible agent. Hopefully this turns out better. Our only other dealings with Sporting were for a defender named Marco Almeida, but he was before my time. His Wikipedia page reads: "After impressing in pre-season friendlies he made his first-team debut as a 71st-minute substitute for Claus Lundekvam in a Premier League match against Arsenal at the Dell, on 19 September 1999: within eight minutes, he was alongside fellow substitute Thierry Henry just outside the Southampton area, when the latter received a pass from Tony Adams. He stumbled while trying to clear the ball, allowing Henry to wrap his foot around the ball and send a rocket of a shot into the far corner of the Southampton net, in what was the Frenchman's first goal in English football. Although Almeida made a few appearances for the Saints' reserves, including scoring in a 2–2 draw with Chelsea on 22 September 1999, he was never again called into the main squad and, in December, the loan was cancelled."

I like this, hopefully the club is thinking of building the squad in a similar way, as beyond the starting 11 we are quite light, not in numbers, but in quality. But, there is always one position that gets neglected at the end of every window. For the last few it has been striker and goalkeeper, before that it was full-backs and wingers. I've never heard of this Fernandes before this evening, but he does smell like a SR, Rasmus Ankersen punt signing who we hope we can turn a profit on. And, these signings haven't been too successful in the recent past. Russell Martin's also shown during his time here that he likes and trusts a certain profile of player and has no issues leaving a player out if they don't fit that profile/play the system well even if they have signed for big money like Charles, Onuachu and Sulemana. Does a 20 year old from Portugal fit the profile? We'll see. Either way, lets hope that the club have learned from two years ago and aren't expecting Fernandes to be an instant success in the Premier League. He should be a rotation option at this moment in time in his career and we still need to add the experience. The dream for the end of the window is O'Riley and Ramsdale. Anything else is a bonus and hopefully Fernandes is one of those bonuses. I guess Adam Blackmore did say that we wanted both Carvalho and O'Riley before the former moved to Brentford, so hopefully this is our Carvalho alternative. O'Riley's clearly been a top target for us this summer, Martin knows him already and Brighton and Atalanta have been two of the best recruiters in world football in recent times, so if they were after him...

That was actually encouraging. Expected an onslaught, but we went toe to toe with Newcastle, a team with far greater resources than us, even when they had 11 men. The first half was a lot more encouraging than the second, but that's because Newcastle sat on and defended the 1-0, slowing the game down at all opportunities. Maybe our tactics do look worse when a team sits back against us and we struggle to break them down and play too slow, whereas when a team comes at us, we can play it around them, hence why we beat Leeds three times. Either way, it would have been a lot harder to attract players of any quality had we been embarrassed today as we still have a few more gaps to fill. Add Lesley, a goalkeeper and hopefully Archer comes good after he's had his first training session to today's team and we look a lot more competitive. Onto the performances - Positives, Smallbone stepped up, much to my surprise. Downes ran the midfield, like he did in the Championship, didn't think he'd be as good as he was today in the Premier League. KWP is just a class above everybody else in the team, the way he glides past the opposition and plays through balls, he needs to be kept, as while Sugawara looks like a ready made replacement, Taylor coming in on the other side is quite the downgrade. Onto Sugawara, he looked excellent today. Glided past Hall to get him booked and win a free kick in a good area and played in an excellent cross that BBD really should have scored from. Been a while since we had a full-back who can put in a good cross. Harwood-Bellis, made the step up look easy and Aribo pleasantly surprised me in the middle. Negatives, obviously the predictable McCarthy howler and then non-effort to save the shot. See the one Pope made against Adam Armstrong, not a single goalkeeper at our club makes that save and that's what we need in this league and what we've been calling for, for years now. The set-pieces, Smallbone was good in the middle, but his delivery from set-pieces is severely lacking and they are also a vital weapon to have for teams battling at the bottom. I'd also say BBD was a slight negative today. He's very busy, but he didn't have any composure when it mattered. Hopefully it's just a case of him trying a bit too much in an attempt to get one over the Newcastle fans. He did remind me a bit of Jay Rodriguez when he first came, so hopefully he goes the same way. Either way, that was a lot better than watching the opposition pass around a bunch of traffic cones like we saw every week two years ago, so that was encouraging. Newcastle are one of the league's better teams, we aren't finishing above them and we made them look quite ordinary. A few more quality additions and we can have a competitive eleven. Also, maybe this is the season Everton do drop...

Jacob Murphy still starts for them? Would be a shame if he picked up an injury today.

Think he'll take Aribo's place in the team, which is needed and yeah, could throwback to the days of having Schneiderlin/Wanyama protecting the defence with Downes and Ugochukwu instead. Unfortunately, the previous Les didn't believe in loaning players without an option to buy, but the loan market is definitely one where we can get players who are too good for us and all the noise around this bloke is that he is. If he helps keep us up, he earns us millions.

Looking like it's five million to upgrade Mara, happy days. Archer was part of the England Under-21s team that won it and captained by THB, so a link there. He scored the third goal in the 3-0 semi-final win over Israel. A front three, if we adapt our formations depending on the match of Brereton-Diaz - Archer - Armstrong is so dynamic with lots of movement and pace. I'm quite excited by it on paper. At times last season we were predictable to defend against and that's because we didn't have many runners/movement. Everyone was admiring their pass and stayed static and Adams for his strengths, really struggled with his movement, especially when in the box, wasn't really ever on his toes, or mobile enough. Of course, if it does go tits up this season, then these three have all proven that they can score for fun in the Championship. I'm looking forward to those over the top balls we've been playing a few times in pre-season and last season going to a more pacier front man now. His Sheffield United loan didn't go well, but maybe the style of Heckingbottom and Wilder didn't suit him. Carrick's tactics are much more similar to Martin's and he was a success at Middlesbrough and has shown he knows how to find the back of the net.

Definitely a risk, but I think every striker we could afford was always going to be. Shown he's had talent before and at least scored a few goals already in the Premier League, now up to us to get him to reach that potential. Definitely more mobile than Adams, isn't the holding the ball up type and has the ability to run with the ball, which many of our current lot lack. He was a good finisher at Middlesbrough. Has a good celebration also, as it links to his surname. Wonder if Villa will include a buy back in this deal. Wait days for any reliable rumours and two come in one evening from a great source!

Hmmm. Only two loan spots, goalkeeper and striker the priority, but a Downes alternative is/was also very much necessary this summer. Don't know too much about him, shame there isn't a buy option, but if he's a success here he may not want to go back and sit behind the thousands of other Chelsea midfielders and they'll probably sign five more next summer.

"Ross Stewart is nearly in contention and Adam Lallana is nearly back" Get ready to hear this every week.