James

Absolutely but a shame we won't be able to play what might be our strongest side in a run of very winnable games. We'd also be banking on players adapting to our system and style very quickly at this stage.

Why is this such a ridiculous thing to say? As a spectator, yes I'd rather see more wins and more goals than we got last season. If this year the league is more competitive and we end up finishing a place or two lower but ultimately record more points than last year then so be it. It's not as if we actually use league position to our advantage anyway. We've had a sixth placed finish and that was followed by a big regression in both managerial appointment and quality of playing staff. We finished eighth last year and we've been a bit slow off the mark this year to put it mildly. It won't make much difference to the kind of player we sign whether we finish 8th or 12th. If we finish 8th we are still prone to being outbid by teams with more cash that finished below us (West Ham, Leicester etc). We will still be attractive to "stepping stone" players and they won't, IMO, care if we finished 8th or 10th the season before.

For what it's worth I tend to agree with you which is why I don't buy the explanation for our lack of activity being "it's been hard for him to assess what he might need as players have been coming back in dribs and drabs". Nonetheless, it must have been a bit of a shock at such a dire performance v Austberg. Les and Ross need to get MP the players he needs otherwise he will be hamstrung.

Wouldn't be surprised if MP was a bit p*ssed off at the moment. Failing to secure targets and no one else brought in otherwise bar Bednarek, an ongoing transfer saga surrounding his best player and captain, a humbling 4-0 defeat in a friendly and perhaps a realisation that he doesn't have a great squad to work with.

Was optimistic of top 10 but was totally shocked by what I saw last night. 13th-16th with a fair wind. How anyone can expect more when our squad is arguably worse than last year (assuming no VVD and with Gallagher being worse than JRod) I've no idea. Completely baffled by our transfer business this summer to be honest especially with clubs of similar size making some impressive signings (Bournemouth, West Ham, Everton, Leicester). Signing Bednarek seems completely pointless to me, way off the pace even in friendly games, at the moment I would rather play Gardos if we absolutely had to (by which I mean, if Stephens or Yosh were injured on Saturday...what a horrible thought).

This is accurate. The reality is that even the best manager can't turn a squad that is filled with average players into a decent side. MP has tried to open us up and make us more attacking but the problem is that a) our attacking players aren't good enough to create and take chances and b) playing a more expansive style our weak CB and DM (poor Romeu) areas are horribly exposed. This has got to be the worst/most complacent pre season I can remember. I thought last year was bad but at least we brought a few players. This summer our business has been dreadful and even if we address the problem areas now we've left it very late. My concern is that the club hierarchy genuinely believe we've got a quality squad when clearly it is desperately lacking in some areas.

God this is worrying. It's clear our squad isn't good enough. For those saying it's only pre season we are 10 days away and are at home to an average side in a worse league and we aren't only losing but are getting a good hiding. Could always see a struggle this season. Unless Les gets the cheque book out (which he won't IMO) our primary aim is survival this year. Blimey, I'm agreeing with Daley....

It's a pretty close call tbh. Stephens is nowhere near as good as some on here make out. A promising young player but not a starter for a team with our supposed aspirations. Want VVD out now, he's shown himself to be a Grade A pr*ck. The only shame of it is that we will now potentially have to scrabble to spend the money. If this had been sorted earlier or we'd been a bit more proactive in the market it would have been so much the better. Nothing Reed could have done as I like his hold firm approach but annoying timing nonetheless. Not to be a doomsayer but this does have parallels with when we sold Fitz Hall, Killer never recovered and we went down having hastily signed a cr*p Jackobssen. If we rely on Yoshi and Stephens and one of them gets injured or loses form then we truly are screwed without a first team quality replacement (don't see Bednarek as good enough yet from what I saw v Brentford). Time for Les to get the cheque book out and sign (at least) a quality replacement CB, a CDM and maybe an attacking mid. A lot to do in the time that remains and a big shame that we won't be able to play our "best" team during a kind run of fixtures at the start of the season.

Just had a quick look at RAWK. God their fans are full of themselves, the fact they behave the way they do yet haven't won the Premier League title in over 25 years is, quite frankly, embarrassing.

Does anyone know how our pre-season schedule stacks up against the rest of the PL? It seems to me that we aren't playing as many games as others and that our games are very spaced out. Maybe its just an impression I've got from watching Sky Sports News!

I wouldn't be interested in the players named above (especially not a ageing Defoe on a long deal like he has at Bournemouth). However, we need to improve the squad in certain areas and failure to do so is complacency on our part.

It was worrying that Stephens looked lightyears ahead of Bednarek. I like Jack but he's not a top 8 CB just yet and it showed how far away our only new recruit is from Prem quality. We will get murdered if we play Bednarek at the moment.

Apparently Stoke are paying a huge loan fee. Not really our type of transfer.

Will be interesting to hear the crowd's reaction to him tomorrow at Brentford. Part of me wants a reaction to tell him what we think of him. He's got no respect for our club so shouldn't count on our support. Shame I thought he was different but just a spoiled, brat of a man like the rest of them.

Sell to the dippers if we have to and then unload all the evidence we had and get those cheating c*nts a transfer ban.

Would love the Siggo rumour to be true - perfect player for us - but seems unlikely, not least because Clement said yesterday he might stay, would be odd timing if he was at our training ground.

All good players for us and we were lucky they hit the ground running from signing on deadline day. However, it still would likely have been better had we signed those players earlier in the window. If you take VVD, the season he joined we finished three points from a CL place. Had he played for us in the games we missed then who knows whether we could have amassed the three points needed to bridge the gap? If we had it would likely have gained us more than the amount saved by way of transfer fee. Always better to have your business done and your best team out from the first day of the season IMO.

Exactly - see Boufal as a prime example. In late and injured means little to no impact last season. Whilst I agree we need to look for good value its always better to do your business early and get players settled in.

Absolutely agree. I don't understand why it has to be a case of two extremes (i.e. signing nobody/only very raw players like Bednarek or doing a Pompey/Leeds). If we are standing firm and keeping our squad together then I'm all for that and it is a distinct change in approach for us. However, we had obvious deficiencies last year and I'm not sure that, even with the uptick in performance that I'd expect MP to bring, we are going to remedy those without bringing in a couple of new faces. All we need IMO is an upgrade on Davis (someone like Armstrong) and a DM to partner Romeu. There's no reason that a PL team like us can't source those two players without breaking the bank.

It's enough in number but IMO we need someone of better quality to partner Virgil if he stays (Wimmer or Sakho). My worry about this window is that we are working on the basis that we won't sell anyone and therefore don't need to buy anyone. If we were forced into selling one or both of Virgil or Bertrand in the last week of the window because of a mega bid etc then we'd have left ourselves in a bit of a mess.

I think we will sign the utility Alaves guy we are linked with and possibly Armstrong from Celtic and that will be it. If we do that and ship out maybe Clasie I'd be happy enough. Obviously if we sold VVD or Bertrand I'd expect replacements for them.

If I were picking the team to play Swansea tomorrow I'd say: Forster Cedric Virgil Yoshida Bertrand Romeu Hojberg Tadic JWP Redmond Gabbiadini Subs: Boufal, Davis, Austin, Stephens, Long, Targett, McCarthy

Quite. But, so far as I can tell, that is the source of the so-called "rumour". Looks happy enough in the pre-season video.

Someone on here mentioned that they'd heard he hadn't settled in Southampton.