Chez

Warnock said "he could either be at a top club or non league", perhaps suggesting his attitude wasn't right. Seeing as Warnock sent him out on loan, only for him to tear up the division, doesn't really endorse his management skills much if you ask me. But I guess his attitude could still be poor, even if he played well. Who knows. Can't get a game at Spurs, but they do have quite a few options.

I'm still waiting for Anthony Pulis to prove me wrong.

Loan with option to buy seems like a good approach, but that relies on Villarreal being happy to do that and why would they? The deal is totally in our favour. £18m is a lot of wedge for someone yet to set the world on fire, but he does look like he might bring some genuine pace and power to the party. Not sure how many goals he will score though especially this season.

If he turns out to be shit, don't blame me.

I seem to recall the Play off away game at Derby was sold like this, so your away regulars were in the far left seats. Not sure it matters too much where you sit at Newcastle to be honest. Everyone is bloody miles away. Personally, I'm more concerned about the travel distance/time than the seat location.

If we don't sell the initial, say 1200 or 1800 quickly, we wont get the full allocation. I suspect the second batch would require the club t pay for them all up front, and they never risk that - as they will lose money. There has to be significant early demand. I guess that relies on the ST+5aways, +4 and +3 folks to buy a lot of ticket on day 1 and 2 of sales.

Yep, only played one half. Set up their first goal with a Broja type run down the wing at 0:47.

Salisu being linked to Monaco and Marseille perhaps explains why their were rumoured to have been looking at another CB. I suspect we would be reluctant to let him go half way through the season due to the time it might take to bring his replacement up to speed, but I guess if the money was too good to turn down. I'd be surprised if either offered us silly money though, so he'll be here until the summer.

Not extending last summer said everything about his intentions and lack of desire to stay here long term. If Newcastle had come back in for him again, rather than signing Botman, I think we'd of sold to maximise our return. Shame. His form may have dipped a little, but finding god CBs (with pace, power and ball skills) is not easy.

in terms of his fitness, I'm not sure he's missed all that may games due to injury over the last 18 months. Transfemarkt has him missing 5 games last season and one this, although none are actually confirmed as due to injury (just listed as "not in squad") but perhaps were.

Because of the struggles for many Championship/oversees players to hit the ground running, for me, Ings makes the most sense. However, spending £15-20m and playing £100k+ a week is a huge commitment, so a loan would be ideal. Sounds like Villa don't want that, so it's all or nothing, possibly.

Cool. I wasn't questioning why you listed his height by the way, just wondered why you didn't think we would sign Estupinan.

Why do you say that?

I guess you could argue that the two signings are attacking signings, but you are right, a striker is still a pressing need. It looks like we have put a bid in for Moffi weeks ago and asked about loans for Jackson and Ings (without success), so the club hasn't been sat on its hands.

You don't think Jones' will ever play two up front?

Semenyo is 5'8". Surprised by that, looking at the Youtube video, but feels out of kilter from Jone's usual strikers, which tend to be pretty big powerful guys.

Thanks for the info. Do any Championship players signed (and not those coming up in their promoted side) make an immediate impact in the Prem? I'm thinking of the likes of Benrahma, Olise, Sessegnon, Bowen, Jacob Murphy, James Justin, Fabio Carvalho, Lewis-Potter and of course Che and Armstrong?

Semenyo only scored 8 goals in 31 games last season and 5 in 22 so far this. Not exactly prolific for a 23/24 year old. His strike partners Andreas Wiemann scored 22 in 46 last season and Chris Martin 12 in 44. Semenyo provided quite a few assist for both, but was the lowest scorer of their front three. I guess it's not always about quantity of goals, but whether he has the attributes to score them at the higher level. I've not seen him live, so don't know. However, if you only saw him against Fulham last season, then you would say he is pretty shit hot. Check out his two goals at 1:45 of this video. I hope our scouts didn't just see him in that game. He set up a goal against Luton last season

Everton's wage bill for 20/21 was £183m, so considerably more than us. Hard to say what budget Forest are working to, but I'd of thought we would have similar `paying power', maybe less of a larger percentage of income (than ours) is spent on transfer fees.

Interesting that Moyes said of the Wolves link to Antonio: "We’ve had no offer and no enquiry so I don’t know where that’s sort of grown legs from. Nevertheless Mick’s really important for us. I think he’s got a two-year contract so he’s here for a while.” While their link to Dawson go the following response: “We’ve had an offer from Wolves, we’ve not accepted it. That’s about as much as I can tell you.”

I wonder what his wage is, £200,000 a week, more perhaps?

Bazaar. If they wanted an exciting young winger, why didn't they just sign Kvaratskhelia in the summer? He was available for buttons in comparison.

Lloris is so shit there. I've been saying this for years: he makes far too many mistakes to ever be seen as a `top keeper'. No idea why Spurs did not upgrade years ago.

Well used NFL tactic, where effectively they pay players for a few years after the playing contract has ended, void years, which helps them get round the salary cap.

It's complete folly to judge a player on his first outing, especially a relatively young player (20), but equally I've been only too happy to say "You could see from the very first game/touch that X is...", so I'm going to give my first impressions, although I will stay well away from making any conclusions, other than he's going to be a star, isn't he? 😉 Truth be told, he had a pretty poor debut and Jones pretty much said as such. He mis-controlled the ball two or three times, misplaced a couple of simple passes, one that then put us in big trouble (Diallo had to take a yellow to stop the resulting Everton break). He both slipped, and got his feet stuck and when on a great break he dawdled, stuttered and delayed allowing the defender to get back and snub out the opportunity. This might have been down to nerves, rust or he just hadn't got up to the speed of the game. Whatever it was, it prevented him from having a `dream' debut. To be fair to him, the conditions were tricky and he may just have got the wrong studs on. The one extra thing that didn't impress me was that he didn't track his runner, who got behind us unopposed and the resulting cross could have created a goal. It didn't, so that lack of effort was lost in the ether, but I saw it. I hope that is not a sign of what is to come, as even attacking midfielders can't shirk their responsibilities. The positives. During his first involvement he looked extremely confident, dynamic and laid a lovely ball square to JWP who shot from long range and he was right there following in should Pickford have spilled it. That's a good trait and I suspect we will see him scoring the odd goal from that circumstance in the future. He is clearly someone that wants to get on the ball, plays with his head up and will try to make things happen. That's the kind of player we need to bolster our attacking midfield options. As you can tell, I was a little disappointed with his debut, but I'm very much looking forward to seeing what he can do next time.