Chez

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.

you're saying that its a fact that a player like Tarkowski is not being signed because Ralph doesn't want any experienced pros like him that might question his tactics?

...the price we are paying (and even that's only according to press reports, not official sources), not the price we may pay should some sort of stat or achievement be reached, none of which you have a clue about. I heard that Munich pay LFC a million if Mane wins the balon d'or a couple of times. Do you think that million should be included in the total Munich paid for Mane? If you want to continue to quote a total figure, maybe use `£46m plus add ons'.

got to say, you make a good point. He sure has been bad since the Newcastle bid/rumour. Hope he can rediscover the form that suggested we'd found a player.

Newcastle bid £40m for Salisu in January, according to press reports, so training and playing with Bednarek didn't seem to do him any harm. The next 6 months though...

Omar Richards signed for Munich from Reading, but a season later he's at Forest now. Things do change in football. Maybe Bayern are not interested now...although why he'd signed for us over Leicester I am not sure.

I'd be surprised if they signed him to be back up keeper, but who knows.

We have not spent £58.5m.

the praise Lyanco has got has far exceeded the performances imo. He doesn't do the basics well. Maybe he gets better...

Allowing players to wind down contracts is financial suicide. You don't want that extra £10m to spend on the replacement?

Didn't happen. He was dropped after the Chelsea debacle, which was on the back of four or five games when we were offered little threat. He came back two games later, played two then was dropped to the bench for last three, with Ralph seemingly having lost faith in all our strikers, rightly or wrongly.

Doesn't feel like a great fit. But i do wonder who is going to stop us conceding AND make us more creative.

They seem to add stats all the time, but yet to see things like: full back got his distances right, so attacker didn't attempt to take him on. Or. First touch was spot on, enabling player to take advantage of the space he had rather than have to take lessor option...etc.

Good post. It's not moneyball, which wasn't about acquiring young players with potential.

I don't know how much he's on, but would you give him a four year £100k a week deal today, or sell, to maximise the return to give us more to spend on a replacement? This is the type of d vision the club may be facing.

I was going to say the same thing. From Leicester, friends in Sheffield, and the links have been to Leeds (all be it regurgitated stuff from a year ago) and now Forezr. perhaps he would like to move back. I've no idea if that's the case, but usually someone says it's the reason.

He was our number 1 at the time the contract was given. Of course he is among our highest earners. Nothing we can do about that now. The here and now is Che. Two years left and seemingly departing. I suspect it's one of those situations where we either offer a new contract or sell now to maximise the return. So, if we were the decision makers, would we give him a new four year contract and pay him £100k a week? Its easy with hindsight to say contracts shouldn't have been granted, but what about this one?