Chez

Doesn't surprise me that we are back in for Wood. I think it was only the asking price and our limited available funds that prevented it happening last summer. Hope he is better than Manning. Wonder if we will continue to play three CBs? If not, we now have five. Is that not one too many?

Although we were contractually obliged to buy him, the transfer of ownership was always going to happen on July 1st so that it would be in the next financial year. So the move was `completed' today, as opposed to us just announcing it in the first day of the `new season' as you put it.

I've no idea if he's any good, but hope he is better than Perraud.

The Premier league deciding the Brennan Johnstone deal fell into this financial year will have helped.

"Despite his stature, Lee is deceptively mobile and is quite happy to drop deep or into wider space to play his part in the build-up..." He looks a unit rather than gangly Peter Crouch type.

do Leeds fans think £35m is what he is worth? I thought he was a player we should look at, but wasn't sure he was `sure thing' (success in the prem) type signing. Summerville would be great, but the cost of players is astronomical.

I don't watch Leeds every week, so don't know for sure, but every time I watch Meslier, I see a young , and quite `lightweight' keeper that is not too dissimilar too Baz. He doesn't dominate, instil much confidence or make worldie saves. There may be worse keepers, but there are certainly a lot better.

Good news. Decent break for him. Come out firing for us.

Aribo didn't exactly pull up any trees in the Prem (let's see how he goes second time around), but as long as we don't sign another McCant, I don't see a problem with acquiring the best player in the Scottish league - I'm assuming that rather than knowing it.

FFP doesn't stop you spending money, you just need to balance the books. Bet it doesn't happen in this current financial year.

Not saying we don't need to invest in more talent, but we just spent roughly the same on THB.

I don't either.

similar. The club doesn't seem to have a clue about the quality of the goalkeepers it has or where to find an actual good one.

yeah pointless showing where we roughly are right now, far more fun speculating on how we might look if we find £100m down the back the sofa. 😉 Bento Sugawara THB Bednarek Taylor Riley Downs Sara AA Banza Carvalho

they need a CB and left back. I wonder what ABK might think of them.

If it's based in rumours, then Sugawara, Che and Ghodoss look strong candidates to be part of the squad. DeCordova-Reid maybe too. Macca Sugawara THB Bednarek Taylor Downes Ghodoss Smallbone AA Adams Fraser Lumley Bree Stephens ABK Manning Charles Aribo Lallana Edozie Stewart Sulemana Wright Abu, Larios, Meghoma Bragg, Alvarez, Djalo Dibling, SAA, Mara/Ballard, DeCordova-Reid

young players that get games get a lot of attention. Look past the young age and what kind of quality is there? He's not stood out at all in the games I have seen. I guess we are looking for players that can hold their own at Prem level. I am not convinced he has.

None of them dominated in the Championship. And IMO to make the step up, you literally need to be stand out championship players. Unless they somehow make a massive leap over the summer (not sure why that would be the case), then they all need a season in the championship. Can't loan everyone out though.

Spot on. Financial suicide to allow players to walk on frees, unless you only ever intend on signing players on frees. That said, the argument made by some last summer was that losing, let's says £12m we might have got for Che (assuming someone was willing to actually pay it - not sure we ever worked out of that was the case or not) was worth the gambling on the benefit he would provide to us getting promotion and the riches that brings. That gamble did pay off, I suppose, even if Adams wasn't the most crucial member of the starting side. Could the argument now be that keeping KWP in this first season back, and losing the £15m, or whatever, is worth the gamble if it helps keep us up? I'd say not, especially if the fee is more like £20-25m. At some point you have stop `gambling' and just get back to good prudent football succession planning. It's actually great news that we have a buyer offering serious money and it is a club KWP wants to join. Both may not have been true and then he;d simply see his contract out and we'd able to do nothing. Next summer we are scratching around for free signings. I don't want to lose him, but that's the hand we have in our hand.

Sure, it's a slight gamble, but West Ham fans didn't suggest he was out of his depth and most thought he should have got more game time. The alternative is to get someone with lots of Prem experience. However, if they have lots of Prem experience and they are good, they ain't coming here this summer. So, all you'd get is a player with lots of Prem experience that has failed to shine in that league. How is that better than a guy that `might' shine?

I have no idea why they gave Lumley a new deal, but they did. So he would come in. The u21 keeper Wright is either a decent prospect or he isn't (I don't really know), so he could be our third choice. It would be two keeper injuries before he saw game time. Third choice is never really getting a game unless there is a crisis. I think there are emergency keeper signings permitted and the January window of course.

I can't see us signing Macca and a first choice keeper. Ghoddos will be out of contract as of Monday. So any announcement of him signing for someone may just happen once we are in July. Although he perhaps started playing further forward (certainly in his first season at AZ), Sagawara has subsequently played RM or RW about ten times in total over the last four seasons (he's played 140 odd games in that time). So not sure you could say he's basically a winger. Is he defensively suspect? Is that what AZ fans have said?

I agree, centre midfield is the most important. I'm really looking forward to see if Downes can be as effective in the Prem (i.e. to see if he has improved, as he did OK for West Ham, but didn't exactly shione like he did for us).

done in this financial year, but no necessarily done this window. Obviously, if either of Adams or McCarthy don't sign, we'll bring someone else in.

With the accounting deadline on Sunday, I assume the swap deal will happen quickly and then any other transfers we make will fall in the next financial year (I am guessing we don't have any wriggle room ourselves to go after players from teams under financial pressure. I assume also that current contracts end on Sunday, so is it possible that McCarthy and Adams deals/departures are announced on Monday?