Chez

very true, but it worth noting that Callum McGregor has previously played further forward in their midfield, so a holding midfielder would allow him to do that again

On holiday, so not keeping up with the pre season - has BBD played yet? Was he left wing or up front? Also have we played three or two up top?

Atalanta and Saints not bidding at the level Celtic hoped, so create a Chelsea link to show the kind of market they're in. Yeah, bollocks. As if they need another attacking midfielder.

It's a no brainer for me. Carvalho is just the kind of realistic upgrade we need and Ramsdale sorts out our utter mess of a goalkeeping position.

Hull was a good option. They were building a decent outfit, as we saw ourselves. If he was willing to play in the championship last season, why wouldn't he fancy a Prem gig this? Obviously if he is part of Liverpool's plans he ain't coming, but is he?

What if the choice was O'Reily or Carvalho and Ramsdale?

Unless we play two up top BBD and AA?

He started about half the games before going out on loan. Not sure he did enough to justify more. RM seemed to lose faith in him.

Exactly. Like the good old days. All fan expectations need a reset. It will be fun. every game will be tougher than anything we faced last season. Which means any points we get will be celebrated big style.

Good point. We've signed a keeper and signed a striker. Lack Of quality in attacking positions is always an issue for us.

Ah, that's a shame and explains why we haven't sign him then.

do you mean out of the say 40+ odd senior left backs in the league, he'd be in the bottom five or 6? I genuinely don't know as not really followed his career. That would be an interesting assessment of the squad. How many make it into the top half (or even top two thirds) of each positional list.

If we have done the work to sign them, then the people involved in signing players at SFC haven't been sat on their hands all summer. So they haven't been `sluggish so far' as was described. They have been pretty damn busy. Totally agree that half of them won't help us at all though.

was going to say the same thing except I think we have signed more than seven: Downes, THB, Brereton-Diaz, Sugawara, Wood, Edwards, Taylor, Welington, Lallana, Juan, Takoaka, Matsuki...and a new deal for McCarthy. Might not be the players we need to keep us up, especially if they are playing their football in Turkey, but some work has taken place by someone this summer.

Maybe not conclusive, but when they thrashed us in the relegation season, he looked absolutely fucking terrible. Every set piece we had he flapped and gave us genuine hope. I'm therefore a massive 'no thanks'.

I don't really know how good he is on the ball, but that bite is just what we lack.

O'Riley, Rak-sakyi and Fraser all seem like they are 'live'. Ramsdale will remain a fantasy signing until the window closes. Alternatively we turn to Banza, Asprilla and Sara. Job done.

I wonder how much we'd be willing to spend on a loan for a player of his ability?

Is that not RMs and the fully qualified and experienced coaching team's job? I thought we brought nivea boy here to play?

I know we have been over this already, but why exactly did we sign him? Where and when is he going to be selected? I don't really understand the signing. We already had a passer in Smallbone. Have we bought his understudy?

And they have just signed Sarr.

Linked with Everton yesterday.

A £25m McCant. Just imagine.

Can anyone confirm if he is better than Stuart Armstrong? If we'd broken the transfer record on him rather than spend £8m or whatever it was, I wonder how he would have been regarded by Saints fans.

Carvalho on loan works for me. Maybe with some sort of buy deal if it works out would be excellent.