James

Given the occasion that was a crap performance. Pompey much the more dangerous. That said, ref was very poor. Allowed them to waste time and spoil it. Got a few early concerns re Will Still, can’t see us challenging for Top 2. Seems to set up all wrong and then throw on subs until something sticks.

Really disappointing to go ahead that late and not hold on but realistically we were always due a slow start this season. It’s taken longer than we wanted to shift players who didn’t want to be here. Am expecting to see a lot more rhythm after the end of the transfer window and the international break.

The bloke they signed from the A-League already has two in the league as well, two more than our forwards. He looks to be the product of a decent scouting set up. Who knew clubs could have those?!

In your opinion. In reality you have zero idea whether any of those targets are attainable.

So you ask folks to name some players they want, they do it and you dismiss them all as either players you don’t fancy or players you don’t think we could sign. Pretty impossible exercise in that case.

Exactly. Successful teams don’t just sign players we’ve all heard of from other teams in the same league. Brighton, Bournemouth and Brentford are all excellent examples of that.

If we sell Fernandes and only bring in Azaz and a winger or two on loan it will have been an absolutely horrific transfer window.

Not holding my breath at this point, no.

Agreed re Sanda, he looked decent in the minutes he got last season and is one of the few that likely isn’t traumatised by the shit show that was last season.

Only good for us if SR invest it will in a number 10 and/or a winger or two. Time will tell…

Fair enough. I have little confidence Bazunu is good enough for a team chasing the autos and, if Baz gets injured, no confidence that McCarthy is. That’s the difference in opinion. We can’t change what we are paying the goalkeepers we currently have but the reason we pay people like Spors is to find players that are better than what we’ve got. It can clearly be done, I doubt Johansson at Stoke is on anything like £50k/week so it’s clearly possible for other teams to improve the position without spending the earth.

Why is it dramatic to point out this guy sounds crap? I’d make McCarthy the third choice keeper. Last time in the Championship we had Lumley on the bench most weeks. As I said, we are paying McCarthy’s wages whether we like it or not. I get that demoting Alex just emphasises how bad the previous mistake was but to avoid that at the expense of potentially making the team better by getting someone actually capable of challenging Bazunu is just bad management. The way Norwich and Sheff Utd fans describe Long it sounds as though all we’ve signed is a body…

Who has already been dropped after two league games, brilliant stuff.

So the justification is that we should sign a player rival fans in our division are claiming as the worst goalkeeper they’ve ever seen because there’s no alternative? If Spors can’t find a keeper better than McCarthy for us to sign then he shouldn’t have been hired as our DoF, simple as. We are paying McC’s wages whether he plays or not, it’ll cost a lot more in the long run if we don’t go up because we are unwilling to admit previous mistakes in signing Baz and extending McCarthy.

Will Still also alluded in an interview to the fact Bazunu would be given competition. Surely he can’t have been referring to George Long..?!

Long signing is just the trigger. A lot of the anger you are seeing on here is the culmination of everything you’ve said and more.

I don’t think the issue is necessarily George Long it’s that, as fans; we’ve endured numerous transfer windows under SR where we’ve been left short or seriously bad decisions have been made. Couple that with the worse playing season in the club’s history and an indifferent start to this season and the fans are (understandably) boiling over. Letting it pan out is fine but we have owners with a track record of almost never getting incoming transfers correct.

it’s 100% coming save that I predict we will panic buy Azaz at the 11th hour and claim he’s the one we wanted all along. I actually think Alfie is pretty much aligned with what a lot of fans think in terms of transfers. You can tell he isn’t impressed on TSP, he just can’t say it out loud.

Whatever the position I think we can all agree a signing that the fans of the existing club think is laughably shit is never a great sign. Hugely underwhelmed by Spors so far. Looks like wasted the whole summer chasing Sperty. I predict we will overpay for Azaz and sign that winger from Still’s old club that’s currently at St Pauli. Will be a massively disappointing window if I’m right. Was hoping for much better but so far it’s been objectively crap again.

The window so far has been garbage, no argument about that. Left it all too late as usual.

Spors has been a huge disappointment. Talks a good game but zero so far in terms of improvement.

On the basis that Downs and Quarshie were our “must have” signings I am not going to hold my breath for anything decent this next week. We needed much more active transfer window than we’ve had. If we’ve wasted the whole window trying to get the Armenian dude in a carbon copy of Gakpo then it’s proof that Sports Republic aren’t learning. The current team is not going to make the playoffs at this rate, depressing all round.

Slightly off topic but it’s maddening to see the difference in quality of player Leeds and Sunderland are attracting versus our window this time last year. We truly did not stand a chance before a ball was even kicked did we?

Perfect summary of Martin ball by the BBC although “throwing caution to the wind” is generous in an attacking sense as the build up is usually walking pace.

Happy enough with that. Squad obviously won’t look like this by September so to avoid a defeat away against a promotion rival is a good result. Like what I’ve seen of Still so far.