Chez

Sadly I believe the club ran out of trophies last year. The bulk order was a really good idea, but who would have guessed so many would be needed in such a short space of time.

Spending £20m on a player none of the 20 PL teams thinks is good enough for their level. Not for me.

if both bids were decent, yes.

My guess is Palace put out the £10m figure at the start of the window and no one is interested. If we have any interest it should be on loan with an option to buy. Who else is thinking of spending £10m on him? I don't think any team is.

You'd have to wait until the window closed to be completely fair, as that departure would allow us to loan/buy a couple on the final day possibly

I'd say Rak-Sakyi was a little stronger physically, but offers less variety in terms of tricks. Rak-Sakyi is very left footed, which means nine times out of ten he comes inside. That had better be what Still wants, otherwise he is the wrong man for the job. I think there are some major red flags, notably the fact he only started five games after Xmas last season and was dropped completely for the final two games and the play offs. Palace have a very good record of spotting talented attackers from the championship and if they are selling him, then they don't think he is going to become PL quality. Edit: one redeeming feature is he had a decent game at shit park last season, so might enjoy himself again in a couple of weeks.

yep, it's the perfect visual metaphor for him attempting to control the ball before shooting at goal.

if BBD was in the office he'd be the stapler in jelly. Bloody useless.

My explanation is the two players that became magnetic due to a freak electrical storm which then either had them treading on each others toes, or pushed to the extremities of the pitch. There was probably a way of harnessing that power somehow with a coil of wire, but none of our managers found it. #boyitstoughtofocusonworktoday

What is football without analytics these days?

want and get are obviously two different things. Ultimately, the x years on x wages etc. is probably what matters most, but if the player has a sizeable tax bill or gambling debt, that signing on fee might be more desirable.

It most certainly will. Boro's budget (like most championship sides) is very tight. They can't afford to pay `almost' PL wages, which you would assume we are offering.

why don't they just come direct to us for our rejects. BBD and Taylor seem ideal for them.

yeah, right wing has been a source of endless goals so far this season.

Saints signed Aaron Ramsdale August 30th 2024.

That was where he was linked to right at the start of the window. Bloody shame it's only a loan.

Agreed. Everton have made a great choice and got a very good price.

Real shame to see a talent like him go. If we had stayed up things might have been different. Going to be hard seeing him blossom into a tremendous player.

No problem trying to loan in a first choice, but what's the point of paying McCarthy up if you then have to bring in a mid 30s league 1 keeper to replace him as our number 3? You are paying twice for a third choice keeper.

You go down, sell your best players and then hopefully strengthen from there, but not sure we will be stronger than last year.

do you usually strengthen when relegated?

Great. I wasn't expecting our 3rd keeper to be much, although there were a few decent young guys mentioned on here. So better than Lumley...well, it could be worse.

I imagine he is a similar level to Lumley. Reasonably solid but prone to the odd major error. We probably wont see him play.

how many do we get?

I'm amazed anyone thought we would. We are about to give him a shiny new contract. The club has confidence in him.