Chez

Took a while before Martin found a role for him, but from December onwards he played a pretty major (central midfield) role in our promotion side. He has his limitations, but he is what Strachan would call brave - getting on the ball and keeping up despite pressure from an opponent, allowing player time to move into space. I guess there is time for him to move to Turkey, but he and Edozie training seems a good indication that no one is getting close to a deal.

I am wondering if the club's valuation was not met by those clubs? The bags packed/empty house instagram images was only a week ago, which suggested he was about to depart for somewhere.

Depends what you call concrete. In April he was linked by African press with a move to Goztepe. Back in June Turkish media reported that he'd been made an offer by Trabzonspor. In August it was reported in a Nigerian football website he was closing in on a deal with Samsunspor and then later in the month that Besiktas were interested, but Aribo wasn't.

I wouldn't be dropping Downes either. Charles looks improved and very capable, but he could be better defensively...so we don't have a lot of choices. When the club mentioned at the fans forum that they were negotiating several other contracts I think it was widely assumed it was for Baz and Charles - as there weren't many others it could be (Dibling apart). There has been talk on here of SFC possibly extending ABK's contract to protect their investment. The same might apply to Smallbone, abut less likely for Manning, Armstrong and Edozie.

I guess the thinking might be that the longer the buying clubs wait the more desperate we become.

The needless fouls thing can be taken in a positive way in that at least he isn't being a "choirboy", but as much as you want your centre mid to be spiky and physical, he has been pretty reckless and blatant at times. Hacking someone down on purpose isn't professional and prevents you 'taking a yellow for the team' at a later point. I can't imagine the manager would play him if his 'head was elsewhere', but I can't explain these acts. Maybe he always did it and I didn't notice? The problem with dropping him is Charles is often the wrong side of the ball, which is not what you want from a DM, and we don't really know what Jander is like without the ball.

What's the latest on Edozie and Aribo? Does them training suggest the moves to Belgium and Turkey have fallen through, or with the windows getting close to closing we felt the time was right to start reintegrating in case they didn't happen?

Going to take a few weeks to integrate all of the latest batch of signings, but I think the likes of Fellows and Jelert could start immediately. If we can get a couple of wins quickly, that will make it much easier to bring the others into the side and then things could start snowballing.

I have really enjoyed this window. With every player departing it moved us away from the debacle of last season. Having both early sales and buys seemed slightly different (probably isn't in reality) and perhaps reduced the pressure on Spors a little. The speed thereafter felt very normal and everything seemed to be timed perfectly at the end. Unfortunately, although Quarshie and Downs clearly have the physical attributes, they have started a little slowly, which undermines my confidence in some of the other signings, but only a little. I had little doubt Ramsdale, Dibling and Fernandes would depart, but wasn't happy loaning Ramsdale and thought Everton got Dibling for a bargain. I may be wrong about both of those things. I am pretty excited by the Jander signing. I really like players that are comfortable on the ball like him. He is the one player that could make all the difference over the next few years. I look forward to seeing Fellows, but his and Aziz' ceiling is a concern. Scienza not getting games is a slight concern, but need to see him to know what we have got. I'm really pleased we have strengthened at full back. It's such an important position and has bene badly overlooked by us. We seem to be a lot bigger/taller. Hopefully we have added athleticism too helping us do better at set pieces and cutting the space down quicker when we lose the ball. I felt Baz was always going to be the keeper, so moving swiftly on, the biggest negative was not really filling the defensive midfield role. Downes now needs to refind his form as I don't see Seesay as being ready just yet on his preseason games. I worry also about whether we have that focal point of attack with a guy that can play with his back to goal. We certainly have plenty of options now though. Over to you Mr Still.

Baz and Downes will start, and possibly Archer too (although I also think Stewart/Downs might hold the ball up better), but if we want to include Fellows and Azaz from the start, we'd need to got to four at the back. What a game to change.

The Sunday early kick off brings back bad memories for me of the 1988 game, but I suppose we exercised that ghost when we beat them 3-0 in 2003 (another Sunday game). As always I am a little nervous. If the 2012 promotion wining side can fail to beat a pretty shite Pompey side twice, then it's far from certain this lot will prevail. However, I am not too concerned about players freezing on a `big, no massive derby stage'. The likes of Downes, Manning, Fellows and Charles have all experienced this type of game before. I suspect only Fellows will get a start out of the new boys.

probably not a good time to be swapping from 5 to 4 at the back, sadly.

u21 internationals same time as the full internationals.

sliding doors. If we had kept him, I wonder if we would have been able to afford the Jelert loan etc.

very little scar tissue remains

in a three man defence, a left back/cb certainly would seem like a good fit.

you'll be lucky if this sneaks past mlg

Jackson goes for £70m. Wonder if we'd got £70m for him if had joined us?

he's on Sky? meh, not bothered as don't have it. It's having my license fee being spent on him that gets my goat

that's pretty much what he does on the radio when discussing football, repeat what has just been said by the other (slightly) more intelligent pundits. I've posted before that his job requires two things, to be articulate and to offer some insight/interesting thoughts. He offers neither.

The skates are signing a striker from Saints...St Johnson that is. Well played BBC.

For some reason, I always thought Craig Dawson would eventually play for us. Our paths seems to have crossed so many times over the years, and his progression and regression from his Rochdale days onwards seemed to be pretty close to your own. Looks like it won't happen.

Aye? We signed Downs. The only difference between some of the midfielders we have signed and Downs is that you've seen Downs and don't like the cut of his jib. Give it a few weeks and you may be saying the same thing about Jander.

are yes, those new photosynthesis gliders. Brilliant invention.

I've not clicked the link, but let me guess, his name is Carrillo?