Chez

Stewart keep doing little things that helps. Win headers, win a tackle, force defenders to kick the ball out, pick up a foul. Another goal from him would be brilliant.

why the fuck doesnt stephens go out to him? got away with it.

was just going to post similar. he is meant to be our talented flair player, so this is not good enough.

bought a ticket and win the raffle. lovely.

there were several posters on here said he was a busted flush. doesnt seem like he is.

yep. hopefully we can get a good hour out of him and be a couple of goals up. i'm desperate for a little positivity before the derby.

Burnley knew he wasn't good enough for the PL, so didn't sign him, and as soon as i saw him for us i thought that he wasn't quick, dominant in the air or good positionally. I didn't think he read the game well or anticipate things well. he's great on the ball for a cb, but not a great defender. i don't think he has gone backwards much or if at all.

...not to mention the club were more than happy to farm him out on loan That must have seriously damaged the relationship between club and player. very surprised he didnt depart in the summer, but guess we didnt get the right offer.

he doesn't really lead the line like a number 9. He knows where the net is, but he isn't quick or good in the air or terribly physical.

I missed the game on Saturday. How did Peretz fair? I saw a good low save in the highlights and a headed goal that he perhaps could have done better with but wasn't well set as he seem to initially think about coming for the cross. Any further thoughts from anyone?

Yeah, I think your theory makes more sense. It had nothing to do with Baz and his contract situation and everything to do with improving the first team now. The manager/director of football obviously felt it was a position that could be strengthened, so they did exactly that. I think this shows the club hasn't settled for mid table mediocrity, and they still think we can make a run for the play offs.

He certainly wasn't excellent for Donny's first goal. Woeful is a better description of that piece of keeping.

That's a good question, but unless you watch the opposing keepers every week you don't know how many errors they make and if they are actually any good. When they play at SMS, how many posts are there on here about the opposing keeper and the errors they make? Usually zero, as we don't care about the mistakes opposing teams make. James Beadle for example had an absolute mare against us. So I wonder if he is better than Baz. There is probably not a lot between them at the moment, but on that particular day he looked really poor.

Stoke are not spending £8m on him (or indeed anyone) in the summer, unless they get promoted. And if they do go up, their options will be much greater. Here's the largest fee they have spent on a player over the last 6 years: 20/21 Jacob Brown £2m 21/22 Sam Surridge £2.5m 22/23 Dwight Gayle free 23/24 Wouter Burger £5m 24/25 Bosun Lawal £2m 25/26 Tomas Rigo £3.5m

He has put £63m in (a £45m capital injection in 2022 and a £15m in 2023), which is more than anyone else ever has. Obviously it's his company, so when he sells, he will look to recoup the cost of buying the club and the capitol he has put in to cover the running costs/losses. Talk me through the football club's finances and how Dragon is profitting through player trading.

Maybe. My guess is we offered average championship money in the summer. His agent said no and has been searching for a new gig since then. We were probably talking to Peretz about a summer move, but brought things forward as soon as Stoke called us asking about Baz. Not entirely sure why Baz accepted the move. Maybe he didn't feel wanted here, which is strange seeing as he was first choice. It would be good to understand how this move happened. I was away at the time, did Alfie House offer any insight?

Not sure you can "take Downes and THB out of the equation" when you are talking specifically about how much was spent. The money went from our account to West Ham and City's that summer. You missed out Archer and Fernandes too and they weren't peanuts. We spent over £100m. Unfortunately Archer, Diaz, THB, Downes...pretty much all of them were just not good enough.

He knows he can probably get a PL gig, so it makes no sense for him to sign a new contract with us. Very little we can there apart from get promoted and give him a massive contract. Can't give him that while we are floundering in the second tier.

Maybe we have offered him reserve keeper money as we regard him as Ramsdale's back up? There must be a difference in opinion as to the players value. Offering a guy a contract and then sending him to Stoke seems strange. Do we rate him or not? You don't loan a guy out just because he hasn't agreed a new deal. You loan him out because you don't want him.

I'm interested to know what came first, Stoke's approach for Baz (I wonder if they actually enquired about McCarthy first) or our attempts to bring in Peretz? Stoke knew they needed a new keeper on the 29th December. We signed Peretz on the 8th January. I would have thought we were in talks a lot longer than a week, so were we going to bring Peretz in in January no matter what (and just push Baz down to second choice) or were talking to Peretz's agent about a move in the summer and then when the Stoke situation happened we pushed it through now?

Was Peretz signed to avoid relegation then?

Yes. But some don't, especially strikers, who often get away with doing little running as ultimately their job is to score goals not run marathons. Good to have one or two that do...like Armstrong. I agree with you that although he has scored a few, he has missed many too. At this level, he's about as good as you get. I'm not sure he is the problem, but he's not the answer to all our needs either.

Unless we get promoted and stay up we will struggle to live within our means. For that reason I am pretty sure they give a shit about the success on the pitch.

As always, your trust in SFC's recruitment will sway opinion on this. A year left on his contract. I suspect he wouldn't be averse to a move. Current contract apart, we are not the most attractive of clubs right now and he may have had enough. Being farmed out on loan can't have helped relations between player and club. He may not sign a new contract if he has another option. The big negative is that you are swapping a pretty proven championship player for another 'Downes'. The next Downes might work out, but a bird in the hand.... I think most fans would prefer Stewart, Downes and Archer to go before Armstrong and then to add another striker to work with him. As always, the players you want to keep are the easiest to sell though. We should have sold Archer to Leeds last January when we had the chance. Maybe this is a similar case.

Wolves or us?