Chez

you should be good. It may sell out, but I'd of thought only after general sale. It's during the school summer holidays, so you will probably have plenty of fans that can't go.

I'll miss him. I liked watching him. Hopefully we'll spend the money well.

If we somehow managed to sign an out of contract PL player that most felt would find another gig at that level (or perhaps go abroad), that might be considered marquee. But you are swapping large transfer fee for huge wages.

Bit strange to be told we will sign a CB, AM and CF, without the need to wait for sales only to sign a `back up striker' with a big money striker coming later. I know the transfer window is fluid, so anything can happen, but isn't Downs 'the guy'?

Did he play 5 at the back all season? Saw enough of that shit last season

I didn't think Armstrong would recover his confidence and goalscoring after his first season in the PL, but he did. I am hopeful him or Archer or whoever get the supply and extra time and space they need to score goals. I think the supply is key though. We created fuck all in the PL. Personally I think adding some new creative players is essential. I am not confident Edozie and Dibling will tear up this league. Hope they do, but really not certain.

Certainly not at the top end of championship fees of all time. If it's €10m, it would have been the 7th biggest fee last summer with 5 transfer of about €11m and one at €18m. Most championship clubs biggest signing is approx. under €5m. There's not a lot of money floating around.

You seem really keen to drum the £15m figure home on here, even though it was reported as £10.5m, which I literally just posted, but whatever makes you happy hypo.

Will we play two up front then? I keep seeing posts on here about Still playing `proper' wingers (hence Armstrong not fitting). Can't be both. Or perhaps it can if he changes it week to week.

He cost £10.5m rising to £15m with add ons. Not sure what add ons we will have had to pay considering he has hardly played a game for us. Promotion perhaps?

Some big money moves work out, some don't: Tresor is more of a midfielder/winger and he missed all of last season at Burnley through injury Assombalonga scored 1 in 3 for Boro, but had scored 1 in 2 for the club they signed him from (Forest). Costa scored 6 goals in 60 odd appearances for Wolves, but he wasn't a striker to be fair. McCormack worked out pretty well for Fulham scoring 38 in 89 championship games. Wilson is more of midfielder. Piroe scored 13 in his first, 19 in his second. Not too bad, but they don't seem sold on him. Afobe had a Costa-like scoring record at Bournemouth. A complete disaster. Kodija started well (scoring 19 in 36) but faded over the four seasons at Villa (29 goals in 96 games in the end). He didn't always play as a central striker. Mbenza was more of a winger. Gray scored lots of goals for Burnley in the one season in the Championship 23 in 41 games. Gayle scored lot of goals for Newcastle in their promotion season - 23 in 32 games. Rhodes was successful at Blackburn (83 goals in 159 games). A similar sized move to Boro was less successful and the one to Wednesday was a complete failure. The term "proven championship goalscorer" comes to mind...until the goals dry up. Cannon scored 1 goal in 15 or so games at Sheff United last season.

There is a 'fourth down and inches' joke there somewhere, but I can't find it.

I saw the "15 goals" and immediately wondered how many goals are typically scored by the teams in first and second place in the championship and then try to extrapolate how many the striker(s) needs to get, should we be playing one up front and two wingers....

I also watched the first game and he was in Gillesphey and Jones' pocket. He did have a very good season though. I wonder how hard our scouts have been in focusing on league 1 though.

I didn't think he was "very average". I thought he looked very classy and was creative. Putting some world class players aside, pretty much all wingers/flair players have games where they don't have an impact. He's only missed a couple of games in the last two years through injury. IMO we desperately need to add some more attacking threat, creativity and flair. If not Brooks, then someone else. Looking forward to learn who the attacking midfielder is we are targetting.