James

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.

You're right on this I think. I'm confident that given a run in the team under the right manager we will have a serious gem on our hands. That said, at £5m it would almost be silly not to pursue Chabolah as well.

If it was a choice between retaining VVD and selling for £65m and reinvesting that in a quality replacement CB, DM, AM and Striker then I think I'd probably take the money to improve the quality of the team overall. I worry that a choice to retain VVD and Bertrand etc will mean limited outlay otherwise (just a gut feeling) and that we will be a bit short on quality compared to teams around us that are strengthening.

"As the whispers suggest" - your post is the first I (and I expect anyone) has heard of it. Are you ITK?

The only worry is, as others have said, there is a hangover from the previous regime which taints the new ideas that MP will implement. However, if the new manager is happy to keep Black as part of his coaching staff then so am I.

Some of the goals he scored were really excellent. I know it's only the Championship but looks to have something about him. Would much rather he got game time than a shot JRod and glad the club see it the same way.

I suppose the comparison was (perhaps unfairly) based on recent performance and I read a few reports of player discontent at Schalke last year. Pellegrino seems relatively well regarded by comparison for what he achieved last year. As you say though, time will tell.

In that post it is pretty clear I was keen on Pellegrino (and still am). I was concerned that the article suggested we might lose out on a good manager to a rival club as a result of our rigid structure and that we'd end up with a manager who wasn't as good. I'm relieved that yesterday's report proved to be a false alarm. Happy?