Chez

Top work Stones beating their two giants in the air.

lots of calls for subs, but who you taking off?

Is Shaw going for the world record of backwards passes?

Foden and Bellingham pulling the strings. Very good half. More confident than ever that we'll win the whole thing.

Seeing as West Ham don't want Downes (well, they didn't last season anyway) no reason why we can't think the same - that we are doing WH a favour buying him. In reality, no one is doing anyone a favour. If they want KWP they can pay what he's worth, whatever that is with a year left, and we can do the same with Downes. I wouldn't rule out another Prem side buying KWP though. Not Spurs.

they (along with Chelsea) attract the best youngsters and keep them by actually paying them a small fortune. They play for the England age groups, everyone else knows all about them and inevitably there is a degree of trust that their pedigree, potential and talent will turn into top quality senior players. Some fail, but some become Jadon Sancho £90m superstars.

You are providing inside info about PSV's signings too now. Excellent.

Interesting that the wings were a strength last season with Fraser, Sulemana, Edozie, Brooks and AA giving us a lot of options. It looks like we will have four of those five players here again.

gotcha. What we need now is a nice Bree transfer link to pop up and shortly after Saints to announce that KWP has signed a new three year deal.

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/newcastle-exit-shave-thousands-wage-29512230 Article paints it as Fraser waiting for Newcastle to pay him a chunk of cash to fuck off. It also says he's on £70k a week at Newcastle. He's 30, so you'd think 2 year deal, maybe with an option for a third?

Paying less is good whether he turns out to be good or shit.

We seem to have paid European prices rather than Prem league prices. Excellent. Hope he is brilliant.

Surprised he was `happy' having his wages cut, assuming that happened. Maybe it didn't. You'd imagine if we were pricing him out of a move he'd of been a bit annoyed. Maybe we weren't, but because he was shite in our relegation season, perhaps there simply weren't too many interested parties?

So basically no one offered the money we wanted for him last summer? I wonder just how much we were asking.

I know the point you are making. You think West Ham have the upper hand more than normal. I don't agree. It's the same as most other transfers. The buying club wants the player. My point is that if the West Ham manager doesn't want the player, and there is every chance of that, they will be burning £50k a week on him. So they will actually be very happy that we want him - as there will be almost no other sides able to buy him and pay him. For me, it's a perfect match, just as long as he is not in the managers plans.

just one more thing...when any team makes a multimillion pound bid for a player, that's usually the giveaway that you want the player quite a lot. How much do you think we will offer? What do you think our limit is?

Maybe they are just keeping their options open, which ensures we don't ask too big a fee. Villa might be an option for KWP.

They will know we want him, but they don't know exactly how much. No different to any other transfer really. If they demand too high a fee, we'll have to move on, which could leave them with a player they don't really want. I assume we have some other options.

If they don't want him, then they need us. Who knows if they want him though.

No. Anyone can be a football critic.

Lost ya. Good option for who, West Ham? If so, sure. I dont see Ipswich signing him. He stays at West Ham or he comes to us.

Where do all you body language specialists study and is the course a BA or BSc?

Equally, they don't have anyone else to sell him to other than us (plus he may want that move and no other), so it evens out. There are other fish in the sea. Sara at Norwich is a very good option.

Last year apart, his goalscoring record is pretty average, but he's listed as an attacking midfielder, which would explain that. Still, hard to evaluate if you only have one season's worth of tape. With AA, Stewart and maybe Che, we have plenty of `championship' level quality. Finding that little extra is the key, otherwise we are going to be too `average' and not be able to hurt teams.

Why didn't he score more goals at Hull last season? Did he miss chances or did they not create much? or did he do the dinkey work for the wingers to take the glory?