Chez

he cant play in the most advanced role imo. he doesn't offer anything much there. he played well sat next to Downes, playing in a three man midfield, collecting and distributing the ball and pushing on now and then. he passes the ball well. touch is ok. that's it. he's perfect for Martin's approach. in fact we struggled sometimes without him, beyond that though, meh.

Wilcox wasn't even at Saints when Edozie, Larios and Bazunu signed for us. Shields will have made a recommendation, not that everyone involved in scouting would have been well aware of all three players.

can't get my head around Taylor signing. we didn't need an other cb and he was never suited to our passing game. can someone explain how Wood, a guy that was poor at Swansea for two seasons, was ever going to make the step up in class? likewise, how does Fraser, a guy that couldn't get in our championship side, be seen as god enough for the PL? the others i can understand to a degree, even if i didnt like some of them, but those three above baffle me.

i wonder if foreign players like those two, perhaps pretty well known outside of the uk, will get top flight gigs abroad rather than have to drop down a division?

of course no PL regular is joining us in the championship, but if we can get another Brooks on loan that would be ideal. There are lots of talented youngsters that can't get a game in the PL. We should know all of them pretty well. Getting them is not easy.

if they do go up they will try to buy him.

for those worried about us signing more championship level players that offer nothing on promotion, loaning in PL players again makes the most sense. Rak-Sakyi has been decent at Sheff United. It will be interesting if he can get a place at Palace, another PL gig or is sent out to the championship again.

dare I say it, Colby Bishop scored 20+ goals two seasons in a row for the skates in league 1 and then 10 this season after coming back from a heart surgery.

BBD has 4 goals in 16 appearances, 2 in 13 for Armstrong. I keep reading on here how we have lots of players that are great at this level, strikers with great championship goalscoring records, but goals seem hard to come by for all of our forwards.

Is 6 goals in 36 games for one of the top scorers in the league all that? I like your description there of him being a bit more aware. That might be true, but I didn't see a huge improvement. His game still needed a lot refining. It's hard to judge too as opponents were much worse, and we had a total domination of possession - so that made his life easier in terms of not needing to run towards his won goal all day. For me he's just too lightweight for player that doesn't have blistering pace. He's got skills, and he can beat a man, which is brilliant, but if he hasn't beaten a man all ends up he get brushed off the ball. It's a shame he has had injury problems while out on loan. I fear he will come back pretty much the same guy.

What's it about then?

What improvements did you see? To be honest, I saw the exact same player as the season before, but facing far less quality of opponent. There were again lots of tricks, reasonable but not extreme speed, combined with being lightweight.

Lambert 27, Guly 10, Sharpe 9, Connolly 6 Lallana scored 11 and Hooiveld 7

bbc south have come to their senses?

it's going to take a manager that is able to inspire a huge turnaround. I never warmed to Martin, but respected fully how he turned the sinking ship around. \whoever is next will need to be able to sell a 'project' (yes I know how that sounds) and get players pulling in the same direction. It can be done. wont be easy though.

sigh. I haven't got any energy left to moan. Villa are a good side and throwing men forward would have been folly, but defending deep and doing little with the ball isnt fun to watch. At least Leicester scored, so we wont be the ones that get them out of that funk.

villa are decent. it feels like just a matter of time before they score. We are as toothless as we were the last time rusk was at the helm...scrub that, we are just as toothless as ever.

looking back to summer 2023, we were able to offload Salisu, Djenepo, Diallo and Orsic, but relied on loans to shift Bella-Kotchap, Caleta-Car, Onuachu, Perraud, Lyanco. It's noticeable that they all are non-English, which might have helped? Not many in that list that really did much at Prem level. The current crop have more than replicated that feat. It's hard to say who will leave this summer. Whoever the new manager is, they may have to work with largely what is here, with obvious exceptions.

These days, the manager is usually just one of several people that form a recruitment team, so it's hard to know if any manager has done well/badly with the transfer budget available. If he comes here, how much say will he have on players coming in? It's obvious the recent managers have got their way on some players, but not all. I am guessing there is probably still a `recruitment group' that present options to the manager perhaps based on his requirements or perhaps just based on the fact the scouts rate them. I',m guessing the manager has final say, but even then you still have to get the player and you might have to accept option b or c. If you get option d and he doesn't pan out, is the manager to blame?

all three teams have very different styles. You'd of thought one would have worked. I guess despite crushing most championship teams, all three teams showed obvious frailties last season. Ipswich struggled to keep the ball and dominate opponents, Leicester relied heavily on the fast counter and we relied totally on dominating possession.

Him not bringing his number 2 etc. is a concern as he/they might be the actual talent/brains.

Very few mentions of Dyche on here. Which surprises me a little. He's another manager that has got a team promoted and he got Burnley into Europe, which was quite a feat. Every time I watched us play Burnley we seemed to murder them, but they always dug in and often won, somehow. They had a great work ethic, which enabled them to wrestle some control back and they punished us. I never liked what I saw in terms of his team's style, but always felt he got the best out of a very limited set of players. Maybe we are not looking for that, as we will have `better' players than most, but normally there are a few on here that hanker for an `old school' boss.

football insider, yeah i know, suggests Ramsdale has a £25m buy out clause.

I often wonder if these famed big time coaches could do it with a load of shit at their disposal. The situation a manager comes into makes a huge difference.

I'm struggling to get the Hull destruction at SMS out of my mind and thus hanker for Rosenior, but I guess that isn't going to happen and someone made a good point about him on another thread that he had a bloody good squad and failed to make the play offs. Not sure I understand the desire to get Rohl, but the Wednesday fan I know said "keep your mitts off" and likes him a lot. I'd take Gary O'Neal. There i've said it. I can't stand the thought of employing a narky little skate, but I thought he was a little unlucky at both Bournemouth and Wolves. to be honest I don't really know who would be a good fit, but what I do know is we will need a very strong personality that is able to change the mindset of the players on a short space of time.