Ex Lion Tamer

Wood has pretty much saved us this season when the centre backs who were supposed to be ahead of him have all looked ropey

I'm not sure how the club could have done much different really. The alternatives were: - Find another club to pay more (presumably there wasn't one) - Stand firm with Everton and hope they come back with a much bigger offer (debatable whether they would have been willing to. And if they did it would have been dangerously close to deadline day from our perspective) - Keep him and hope he has such a good season in the Championship that his value is still high with a year left on his contract As you say, the timing has just been quite awkward for us with him being down to two years left on his contract and only having shown half a season of form. The interest simply hasn't been there this summer.

I hope he comes good but is this actually true? From what I can tell he did well in Belgium but in France he took Reims from 12th to 11th before leaving after 2 wins in 14 games, and took Lens from 7th to 8th. Suggests he's steady but nothing spectacular and prone to a bad streak. Normally I'm quite up for a bit of hipster management but I'm not sure Still has that much to back it up. Just potential because he's young still.

You're picking me up on the precise use of language but my point was that we needed to raise a large sum and sell a large number of players to balance the books. It felt more challenging to get where we needed to be financially

When you think about the fire sale two years ago, this summer at least feels more orderly. Hopefully we can build from a position of strength now and bring in some good players

I think it's going to happen. Just need to wait for some overblown personalities to get over themselves. (This is based on no evidence)

Jose Fonte is still playing top flight football, surely he could do a job for us

Plus the whole point was he wanted to finish his career in Spain, I thought

He seems like actually a good guy who wants to do right by his club.

People complain that the signings aren't good enough and then complain when we spend time trying to get the better players over the line

He does look good on the YouTubes though

Neil McCann vibes

When we signed a 21yo centre back who most recently played in the German second division for €3.5m, I was ok with it but I didn't for a second think he'd be put straight into the team as a regular starter. I'm not sure why Still has thrown him in like that

It's different. Gakpo was younger and was obviously going to improve and get a bigger club. Spertsyen should move this summer for his career or he's just going to stagnate

Not that surprising that a club would set a high asking price as a negotiating position

We can't play three at the back against opposition this inferior

Leicester - Cifuentes did ok with QPR but it wasn't hard to improve on the performances under Ainsworth. He's not at the level Leicester should be looking for. Shef Utd - got rid of one of their best managers who had them overperforming. Selles pretty unremarkable track record. West Brom - Mason is unproven. Could be great, could be terrible. Coventry - ok I forgot Lampard got them to the playoffs last season. Still think he's living off his reputation as a player a bit and benefiting from the work Mark Robins did at the club. He had resources at Derby and should have done better I think. He's probably solid at this level but certainly nothing to fear. Middlesbrough - Rob Edwards was relegated twice with Luton and sacked by Watford.

Leicester, Sheff Utd, West Brom, Coventry and Middlesbrough have all made highly risky, if not outright foolish, managerial choices. It can only play in our favour.

I think MLG has put forward the most likely explanation here, to be honest. Any time Alfie House has a rumour that he's trying to clarify, he will go to the media team as his first point of contact. There's no real need to try to stand this one up with a more illicit source

Letting go of one of your most successful managers just because they lost in the playoffs is never going to end well. They've been wide open at the back in this game, no way are they contenders. This league does like anyone's based on the opening games. Much more so than recent seasons.

But people who work in clubs (not just ours) say having a player for this off the field stuff is important, so why shouldn't we take their word for it? We don't see it so it's hard to appreciate, but it is plausible that there are things a player can do that a coach can't. Demonstrating how to train professionally, and how a player should conduct themselves off the field, for example. Being a role model basically. That's something coaching staff can't do Also building relationships / helping with problems as more of an equal rather than as a coach who will inevitably be more distant.

And yet none of them are really prolific at this level. I think they may struggle to break our defence down, especially if we go three at the back

We'll clearly bring in some decent players towards the end of the window and you'll all be saying "oh actually this season might not be too bad, I'm actually kind of excited"

I have my doubts like everyone here but it's interesting that we're painting this as the club's decision when presumably Still is on board with it, or perhaps even the main driver of the decision? Also the club decided Baz wasn't good enough last season so they're obviously not totally wedded to him

It's probably even harder now to sign Prem-ready players when in the Championship. The gap has widened