Chez

It's a no from me. Pretty slow, limited with the ball. He can head it. That's about it. Mind you, many of our CBs struggle to do that.

I thought we'd be using our loan on Issa Kabore. Certainly looked the part.

but Ward might be an upgrade on Kasper. Rogers said he would be signing a 3rd keeper. McCarthy was thus never an option.

Available for less than £8m apparently.

Didn't they beat Wolves at the weekend? Absolutely no divine right to win this game.

from the highlight, the goal looked massive with him in it. Did he come for any crosses? How did he do?

He really was poor last season. We are in Jordy Clasie territory here, where you wonder if we have just signed a guy that will never do it in the Prem. Like Clasie, he just doesn't dominate a game, while Diallo seems to fail to understand the role given to him. Maybe things will fall into place, but can we risk another season as bad as last or do we just cut our losses and try again?

Excellent. He was poor last season, so I am glad we will look to someone else to fill his minutes on the pitch. Hopefully whoever that is will be a damn sight more effective.

Not sure there were many Saints fans happy to see Long get a new deal. There were some that thought he might get one, I was one of those, but I was certainly not `content'.

I want to know about the loan, was the last of it (£28m) used to fund transfers this summer, when will repayments start, is the wage bill being trimmed to allow for that £10m-£20m a year payment (or whatever it will be). We've made huge losses over the last three years, was that all down to Covid? If not, how will those losses be reversed, or will the club just increase debt to cover them? I also wanted to know about where we stand in terms of outgoing and incomings. Is there any pressure to sell this summer, or is next summer when things will be rebalanced?

His movement in that game at craven cottage reminded me of a stopped clock.

Did anyone ask a question about the club finances?

better to go for a striker that is weighing his options rather than a striker that only has one option, us. If no one else is interested, the question has to be `why'?

didn't they just let Benteke go for nothing, despite him having 12 months left on his contract?

slightly surprised we have not been linked to Gyokeres. We had a good look at him and he caused us issues. Maybe we have had our fill of Championship strikers that just lack an X factor?

as with most. of our CBs, they have a few games where they are not exposed and found out, then they are and we see how good they really are...not that good. They are often not helped by our formation, tactics and personnel in front, but individually they come up short too. We've seemingly decided in recent times that being a good header of the ball is not necessary.

Maybe championship clubs don't want to spend £50k a week or maybe a few quid more on him? He seems happy here. So he isn't going to move for less money and prestige.

Chelsea could easily have done it again last season, but let us off. I wouldn't put it past someone like city beating us by 9 this season. Their best and our worst...easily a nine goal difference. We are lightweight at times.

It's a football business. They'd sell every seat to away fans if they could sell the stadium out every week. My question would be, when is the word 'club'going to be removed from the company name as it's utter bullshit to suggest it's still a 'club'.

How can they afford his £250k a week wages? You'd think Chelsea would be keen to loan players out to other Prem sides to help them take points off their rivals.

He dropped him at the back end of last year and gave AA his long awaited second chance. You'd hope Che wasn't happy about that. The very light use in pre-season suggests he was not going to be first choice this season either. My guess is that Che told the manager he wanted to move back up north, his agent has since touted him around and we are just waiting for the right offer. Could be pretty amicable. Who knows.

Diop went from West Ham to Fulham for £15m and he only had a year left of his contract. I'm not a huge Che fan, but I'd expect £20m plus some add ons.

You could well be right, but was he rested by his last club when he played against Lewandoswki etc? You'd hope he had the character to cope with a bad display against the world's best. If not, maybe we should not be signing him. I've not seen BK yet, but I had hoped he would go straight into the side to improve us, not simply be a replacement in waiting. Like you say, maybe he comes in against Leeds (would have bene better to get a Prem game under his belt IMO) and we go from strength to strength.

Vinegre would have been an absolute perfect foil for Perraud.

To be fair, I thought they got Bridge for a steal. Still gutted he left us.