Chez

He really seems to know where the net is, but Im not entirely sure he has top level touch etc. The Downs noise seems louder.

Will be interesting to see how he goes. Our scouting team will have no excuses if he shines more than Downs, assuming he signs.

He can't be in two places at once. But he could train with us in the morning and visit their training ground in the afternoon. We'd have to allow it though. The social media team might not be fully aware of the Downes 'situation', should there be one now, but someone at the club would be aware he was in talks with Ipswich/going to be visiting their training ground, so would stop this tweet. Unless of course the social media team don't need authorisation for every single tweet (seems unlikely that there's not some review policy).

...except the Lonsdale karate slipper.

I thought he wanted to move up norf to be closer to family? Glasgow is a bloody long way from Warrington (assuming that is where his family is from).

If he is excellent, why do they want a new number 1? If he's not `excellent', just good, then won't he be their ideal number 2? Players that have helped their sides get promoted tend to be very reluctant to depart before getting the chance to show they can play at that level. I will bow to those that know more about him and the position, but if Sunderland don't think he is good enough for the Prem, is that not a red flag? We have lots of championship type players (players that have shown they cant make the step up). Perhaps we should be signing players that we think are going to be good enough for the PL, but others just haven't seen it yet.

I don't know anything about him, but if he is any good, why would Sunderland let him go? Even if they sign a new keeper, in the PL, you still want/need a decent number 2. Is he not that great?

We'll get paid at some point. The league won't let them do anything unless football creditors like us get fully paid.

Looks better in that photo. The sponsor logo looks a bit smaller too. Less tacky. It's not a bad shirt. Get promotion in it, and I am sure I will grow to like it.

The sponsor logo looks so tacky. The kit has very little black in it, which is fine by me, but the three items with black on it (badge, puma logo, sponsor logo) seem to have different thickness of black lines around them. Piss poor design work. Having curves on the shoulders makes no sense at all when you are using straight lines on the main part of the shirt. Again, really poor design choice. I can't stand the puma logos on the shoulders. Worse than stacked logos on the front of shirts, but that's a Puma thing. I have to say the sponsor logo on the ladies shirt is ridiculous. If you are having that size of white surround, why not have the white bullet shape cut out of the stripes, not have some tacky sticker over the top. Looks fucking cheap...yet you pay a fortune. Overall, not the worst (the underarmour kits were in a different league of shiteness), but as is so often the small details let it down in my eyes. That said, I never buy shirts, so they are not aimed at me.

you should be good. It may sell out, but I'd of thought only after general sale. It's during the school summer holidays, so you will probably have plenty of fans that can't go.

I'll miss him. I liked watching him. Hopefully we'll spend the money well.

If we somehow managed to sign an out of contract PL player that most felt would find another gig at that level (or perhaps go abroad), that might be considered marquee. But you are swapping large transfer fee for huge wages.

Bit strange to be told we will sign a CB, AM and CF, without the need to wait for sales only to sign a `back up striker' with a big money striker coming later. I know the transfer window is fluid, so anything can happen, but isn't Downs 'the guy'?

Did he play 5 at the back all season? Saw enough of that shit last season

I didn't think Armstrong would recover his confidence and goalscoring after his first season in the PL, but he did. I am hopeful him or Archer or whoever get the supply and extra time and space they need to score goals. I think the supply is key though. We created fuck all in the PL. Personally I think adding some new creative players is essential. I am not confident Edozie and Dibling will tear up this league. Hope they do, but really not certain.

Certainly not at the top end of championship fees of all time. If it's €10m, it would have been the 7th biggest fee last summer with 5 transfer of about €11m and one at €18m. Most championship clubs biggest signing is approx. under €5m. There's not a lot of money floating around.

You seem really keen to drum the £15m figure home on here, even though it was reported as £10.5m, which I literally just posted, but whatever makes you happy hypo.

Will we play two up front then? I keep seeing posts on here about Still playing `proper' wingers (hence Armstrong not fitting). Can't be both. Or perhaps it can if he changes it week to week.

He cost £10.5m rising to £15m with add ons. Not sure what add ons we will have had to pay considering he has hardly played a game for us. Promotion perhaps?

Some big money moves work out, some don't: Tresor is more of a midfielder/winger and he missed all of last season at Burnley through injury Assombalonga scored 1 in 3 for Boro, but had scored 1 in 2 for the club they signed him from (Forest). Costa scored 6 goals in 60 odd appearances for Wolves, but he wasn't a striker to be fair. McCormack worked out pretty well for Fulham scoring 38 in 89 championship games. Wilson is more of midfielder. Piroe scored 13 in his first, 19 in his second. Not too bad, but they don't seem sold on him. Afobe had a Costa-like scoring record at Bournemouth. A complete disaster. Kodija started well (scoring 19 in 36) but faded over the four seasons at Villa (29 goals in 96 games in the end). He didn't always play as a central striker. Mbenza was more of a winger. Gray scored lots of goals for Burnley in the one season in the Championship 23 in 41 games. Gayle scored lot of goals for Newcastle in their promotion season - 23 in 32 games. Rhodes was successful at Blackburn (83 goals in 159 games). A similar sized move to Boro was less successful and the one to Wednesday was a complete failure. The term "proven championship goalscorer" comes to mind...until the goals dry up. Cannon scored 1 goal in 15 or so games at Sheff United last season.

There is a 'fourth down and inches' joke there somewhere, but I can't find it.

I saw the "15 goals" and immediately wondered how many goals are typically scored by the teams in first and second place in the championship and then try to extrapolate how many the striker(s) needs to get, should we be playing one up front and two wingers....

I also watched the first game and he was in Gillesphey and Jones' pocket. He did have a very good season though. I wonder how hard our scouts have been in focusing on league 1 though.

I didn't think he was "very average". I thought he looked very classy and was creative. Putting some world class players aside, pretty much all wingers/flair players have games where they don't have an impact. He's only missed a couple of games in the last two years through injury. IMO we desperately need to add some more attacking threat, creativity and flair. If not Brooks, then someone else. Looking forward to learn who the attacking midfielder is we are targetting.