Dman

Impatience or experience? As per my orginal post, you'd like to think the club have started to think about it 👍

Tell him, his agent, his club we need a decision by x or we will move on to alternative options, before it is too late in the day. x could be 1 day, 1 week or 10am deadline day - that's for the club to decide how and what they have in the pipeline. Personally, if its not done by the end of this week, I'd be looking to move onto other targets. We'll have to agree to disagree on this one.

This is exactly what I'm advocating. We're chasing our tail here. In reality, the situation is one of these options; - He isn't all that keen to join us and/or is holding out for a better option (I suspect this is the case - we need to agree a timeframe to make a decison or we move on) - We're miles out don't want to pay what they want for him (fernandes West ham vibes - clearly we'd need to move on) - Everyone is aligned and its small bits of the deal (naturally this is the best case and most unlikley - It is or should be the easiest to resolve. Given our situation, we don't hold many cards, which means we might need to lose ground in negotiations). The longer this drags on, the less likley we are to get it across the line and the more likley it is we'll spunk 5-10m on 3rd/4th/5th choice on deadline day.

If (a big if) we have internally agreed that we only sell Fernandes once we find a replacement, then I'd agree. We don't have the biggest dick in the room but we are also desperate (especially if / when we lose Fernandes), we can't afford to let this run into deadline day just to miss out and be left with our dick between our legs scratching around for a deal at the last minute - which'll inveitably end up being some unknown loan or youngster from the continent. Biggest dick or not, we need and want players that want to be here. I'm not convinced that is the case here. I was pretty clear in what I want them to do. Give themselves a deadline to get this one over the line or move on to plan B,C etc before it becomes a panic buy late in the window. If the stumbling block is as simple as agreeing a fee with the selling team, and he is our absolute number 1 target, pay what it takes to get the deal done - in the grand scheme of things, we'd be talking about peanuts.

To be fair, they're right. They're nothing to shout about though. 1-1 another masterclass at SMS by Johansson

Then we move on. Its a simple as that.

You'd like to think, we will start to think about giving the club / player a deadline before we move on. We can all see how this one is going. By all accounts he's way to good for the championship anyway. Another SR masterclass in coming.

If we can find a system that plays to his strengths, I reckon he'd be the best striker in the leauge. The problem is, we need to find a system to suit him, rather than he suiting us. That being said, Still managed to get a tune out of Balogun, who has a similar profile. Personally, I think its the creativity behind him that is lacking - Archer is never going to be a player to play with his back to goal. We need someone who can get inbetween the lines and dictate the play. This russian fella could be the missing link.

People like JWP, Bednerak, Adams etc. becoming key personal in our squad kind of summarise how far we've fallen. All of these are squad players, at best, for any half decent premier leauge side.

I know we have a heavy squad as it stands, but if we were to lose Aribo, Smallbone, Fernandes and Dibbling that leaves us incredly light in the center of the park. I could easily see a world where we get both (should we move all those above on).

Maybe I'm bitter, but I have never wanted someone to fail as much as I do this wanker. Its fantastic (and blindingly obvious) to see that his style and stubborness isn't translating well up there.

a relegation battle would make much more entertaining TV than a lower mid-table finish.

In this context, I'm not sure that's something to brag about

Maybe - We've been poor in pre-season however. Lets hope it clicks and quickly.

Aye..? They all signed for us in the championship, other than BBD...