Ex Lion Tamer

ABK going to the weakest league of his career so far. Bit of a weird one for him, but once we'd sorted his replacement he had to go

If Adams stays then we'll have an embarrassment of riches up front. Edit: unless they cancel the Stewart transfer

It's not ideal but Arma is going to end up playing up front a fair bit, which does at least bring Alcaraz and Stu's goalscoring ability into play

The potential is obvious but his end product has been so woeful that there has to be a doubt as to whether he has the footballing brain to fulfil it. A season in the Championship would have done wonders for him but apparently his attitude isn't right either. I'd be happy just to get our money back

It's a tough deal to make though because we'll have to take a huge loss on him given what Genk will be able to pay

£30m would be an amazing fee for Sulemana

How are Sunderland going to justify selling Stewart and Roberts to us on deadline day? Do they have replacements lined up? Dan Neil apparently attracting interest from Liverpool too

We're letting players leave on loan because they're not committed to the club, not because we desperately need the money. Again, the fact they're going on loan is because we don't need to drop our asking prices

Why is it hard to understand that we didn't have to sell any particular player if we didn't get an appropriate price, but that sales overall were desirable given the dramatic loss of income. If KWP/Sulemana/Alcaraz etc end up staying then that just proves the point

I'm not sure exactly what he said, but only Leicester, Leeds and Coventry have spent more than us this summer

As a footballing decision I'd keep him but if he's not settled in this country then you've got to let him go

Adam Armstrong surely. Not ideal which is why we'll sign someone

Because he's an 18 year old kid?

Going on the evidence we have available, we just didn't try as hard as Leeds. We probably didn't want to push while we were still unsure if Che was leaving.

Yes, the paradox is we've decided we need to sell big to get the club on a sounder footing but we can also afford to make favourable offers to new players at this level

ITKs are telling us we're in financial trouble, but now we're offering favourable terms for Paintsil 🤔

I like JWP, don't get me wrong, but that golf celebration is lame and embarrassing IMO

Hate goal music. Would be interesting to have a poll on this

Although his contract expires next summer, Swansea have just said there's an option for a further 12 months. That changes everything to be honest - I'm not sure we can get this deal done now. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/66580284#:~:text=The England Under-21 defender,for a further 12 months.

It's also great that we're signing players who 1) fit Martin's passing style, and 2) are more vocal than what we've had before. There is a strategy here which, whether or not it works, has been thought through pretty carefully

Are they underwhelming though? Holgate and Fraser have a ton of Premier League games under their belts. They ought to do well at this level and will be the envy of most teams. Charles looks quality. Downes has already excelled in this league in the past. Manning has looked a bit shaky, granted, and we need a top striker if Che leaves

To be fair, I remember reading a year ago that that we were planning to invest heavily at first to get the pipeline going and then become self-sustaining. I had hoped the spending might continue this summer but apparently not. The spending of the last year has got people thinking Solak is going to invest billions but that was never the case. Basically it's always been Gao but with big upfront spending, a more detailed strategy and a multi club model. What you can say is that we are still investing heavily in a couple of young players with big potential resale value - Charles and hopefully Wood. Getting the older players to complement them means looking at the loan market it appears. The interesting question is which bracket a striker (Che's replacement) will fall into

Proof is in the pudding obviously but we have an opportunity to replace Che with someone who can actually make the step up to the Premier League if we get promoted