Luke SkyWalker-Peters

He got 6 goals and 3 assists for us in the league last season after getting 0G and 0A the season before. How have you not seen an improvement? Edozie is developing well. He is only 21. Tella was 23 when he moved to Burnley and scored his first ever goal in the league. You need to adjust your expectations. No-one is saying that Edozie is the next Saka, but considering he is only 21 and that he only cost £5m, he is both developing well and performing at expectations for his cost.

What about Harrison Miles? Very concerning if the club can't hold onto Miles or Gomes-Rodriguez.

These are just the estimated wages by capology based on last years financials while we were in the Prem. This is without applying the 40% wage reduction clause that all our contracts reportedly had. They will correct them when the financial report comes out. It is also assuming that loan players are having their complete salary paid for - which is not true. Essentially, this is an estimate of what our wage bill would have been had we lost all the players we did this summer (transfer and loan) but remained in the Premier League. Leicester reportedly didn't have many reduction clauses as they had been playing in Europe, so their figures could be close, but likely still high. Leeds had massive clauses (reportedly up to 60% for some). That was why they lost so many players to loans this summer, because players would only accept the relegation wage reduction clause if they could get a loan clause inserted upon relegation as well. I'm fairly sure that the positions on the table will be accurate, but the difference in wages between us and the other recently relegated teams (like Norwich) won't be as vast as it is projected to be here.

This is a very quick over-reaction. In short, we have an excellent squad for this level that is good enough to win the title, but it will take time for them to gel after the massive overhaul. My biggest concern would be with Martin, rather than the squad. In terms of outgoings, we got excellent fees for our players and weren't forced into discounts like Leicester had for Maddison and Barnes, or horrendous clauses that Leeds had that have essentially lost them almost all the players they bought while in the Premier League for about £20m total. The money we received for players was probably the same as had we stayed in the league. This will be beneficial if we don't manage to make promotion this year. In terms of incomings, Charles aside - who I think has been very good, they were all players who have proven that they can play at this level or higher in the correct circumstances. Downes had an excellent game against QPR, so it would be ridiculous to completely right him off after his game against Sunderland. Others have had less time in the building. Manning is certainly suffering from the chaotic nature of defending in this system, but he has looked defensively suspect. He is the only one I'm concerned about, but I'm confident in Bree, Holgate and even Larios playing well in the Championship at LB/RB if Manning needs to be benched. We have assembled an excellent squad for this level. That isn't particularly a surprise when we have such an enormous budget compared to non-parachute payment teams. Football tends to be predictable in every league - the teams with the most money win. Personally, I believe that it is us and Leicester with the two best squads. In my view, Martin has been given everything he needs. For this level, he can field a great starting XI and has incredible depth. If he can't get the job done, then that's on him. It won't be easy as other teams aren't having to go through the massive squad overhaul and drastic system changes that the three relegated clubs are. I will stick to my preseason assessment that all three of Leeds, Leicester and Southampton will start hitting form mid-October.

He had a poor preseason but has been OK in the actual games before today. Honestly felt the defence had let him down and he had conceded some excellent finishes. It was obvious that RM was going to like him as he is very good at doing the things a keeper can to stop shots in the first place (good with the ball, off his line and collecting crosses) and his shot stopping had been OK before today. However, very poor so far today. Looks extremely lacking in confidence, especially in that parry on the freekick. He looks like he did at his worst last season again. Seems to be a young player that needs confidence, but he doesn't have any. I assume RM will believe the solution is to stick with him and build his confidence.

Patrick Roberts seems an incredibly underwhelming Tella replacement. Imperative we keep Sulemana as we should have enough quality out wide with him, Edozie and Fraser regardless. I'm sure he'd be fine, but its incredibly annoying that we could have got Piroe, who played there a lot for Swansea, if the Tella deal had got done quicker. A front 3 of (assuming Adams goes) Stewart, Piroe and Sulemana would have been fantastic. I know I'm in the minority, but I believe letting Mara go would be a mistake. I thought he looked good against QPR off the bench. His physicality, like Adams, is necessary in that role. I would have been comfortable with Stewart and Mara as our no.1 and no.2 assuming Adams goes. Fans forget that Mara was only 20 years old last season and it was a big step up from Ligue 1. I think he would be good in the Championship and should be a player we try and hold onto. He is built like a no.9 for this system and there aren't enough players like that around.

He said on his post-match podcast on the weekend that they both had interest over the summer, among others. I'm assuming it was teams hoping they'd get a bargain off us, but we haven't been doing that. He's probably just mentioning them because they are players we all expected to go and there is the possibility that one of them does get a late move, as the interest is there (and others who had interest, such as Stephens and Smallbone, have committed to the club).

This is just a delayed payment strategy. It makes no sense any other way. He extends his contract, we let him go on loan and then there is an obligation to buy at the end of the season. I'm sure Watford and their journalists are hoping its an option, but it won't be at that price. The only reason he is worth only £15m is because he only has 1 year left on his contract. Why would we give them the option to buy him at that reduced price if he extends, thereby having multiple years left on his contract and a higher value? If he's going, he isn't coming back.

Because that's how football clubs run their books. If you want a better answer as to why, I'm sure there will be an accountant here that can tell you. I assume that when you own an asset you can spread the cost over the length of the contract, but when you sell one it has to go down as immediate income that year. This is why Chelsea have spent £1bn in 3 transfer windows, sold around £275m worth of players but are fine under FFP (i.e won't make a £105m loss over any 3 year period). That £1bn is being spread over ridiculously long contracts whereas the sales are immediately available to offset that.

Yes, I missed out the step for those players. To be clear, I was just doing a rough estimation to show how easily we are in the profit. That would now have us at £50m on the books, and I was being pessimistic with my estimated numbers. One could very easily work out exactly where we are based on the old accounts, the known 40% drop in wages, the fees paid for players, the amortised costs and the losses experienced by other relegated teams that can all be calculated based on information here and here. But I can't be bothered to be that precise. Just wanted to disprove the narrative that we can't buy anyone because we don't have money. We aren't buying anyone because we are choosing not to where possible.

Lots of rumblings about the money that should be spent or whether it can be spent. On whether it should be, I wrote another post detailing why I personally believe this is a conscious strategy to save money now to spend more when promoted. I believe I first got the impression of this by a comment made by Blackmore, so I assume he has had conversations on the topic with those inside Staplewood. Link here. In short, they aren't wasting transfer money on Champioship players and instead are saving in for when we are promoted. As for whether it can be, this is a great website for football finances as it goes through all the accounts. It sounds obvious but we have loads of money available. Yes we have been relegated, but with the parachute payments that comes to about -£50m in TV revenue lost from the previous year. Some sponsorships will drop slightly, but the TV revenue will be the main drop of income plus perhaps an extra -£10m if being extremely pessimistic. On the books, we will be very profitable this year. Even though we spent £130m last season that cost is amortised over the duration of the contracts for the players we bought. So that would have only been an extra (approximately) £30m paid per year over 4 years had we kept all those players (I'm just averaging out at 4 year contracts here for simplicity). But the players we sold will go down as immediate income. We have brought in £150m from player sales this summer. Factoring in that our players have taken a 40% wage reduction due to relegation clauses (as confirmed by Semmens years ago and journalists this summer) and have lost most of our highest earners. From our approximately £60m wage bill last season we will be saving approximately £24m. In terms of total personnel cost savings (including bonuses etc I expect and perhaps other staff) most relegated clubs save far more than that (Norwich saved approx £50m). Under Gao we were almost breaking even (approx -£10m per year). Being very pessimistic, we shall say we have lost £60m in income from relegation and we are paying an extra £30m for the players we bought last summer (I'm not even going to minus the ones we already sold). That puts us at -£90m. We have saved a minimum of £24m on personnel (honestly could be double) and made £150m in sales. Using our previous seasons as a reference then : -10-60-30+24+150.... which would make us at minimum £74m in profit for this season. In real cash terms it will be a different story, but there are plenty of ways of deferring payments (loans+obligations to buy). Just as our outgoings are paid in instalments over 1-3 years, so are our incomings. The club might be very honest about not having large amounts of cash available to sign many players (as my previous post said - I suspect they don't want to waste money on Championship players), but they absolutely could work around that if they wanted to as they will be very profitable by the year's end. For reference, when Fulham went down they made £12m in sales and just took the £60m loss on their accounts to go back up (having lost £100m the year before). Anyone saying we don't have the money to spend is lying. We may not have the cash this moment, but that can be worked around. We are in an extremely healthy position. Anyone saying we are at risk under FFP is lying. You can lose over £100m over a 3 year period while in the Premier League, we likely exceeded that last season but have more than made up for it this year. In previous Gao years we were at worst losing around £10m per year. Sport Republic invested into the club, they don't need or intend to take that money out. I suspect they will make a profit on the £130m they spent on players last year having made almost half of it back on just one player already. I'm fairly certain I read that they also paid off our loan debt just after acquiring the club.

Sorry to lump these all together. This will be long, but I'm just going to type out my thoughts on these points and not bother going through the effort of trimming it down: The club will have expected approximately half the transfers to not work, because that is the hit-rate for Premier League transfers (explained well by the ex-Liverpool Director of Research here). Regardless, I think in that portfolio of 13 players we bought last year that we will end up making a large profit. I think people forget just how cheap most of those signings were. The profit we have made from Lavia (after factoring in the sell-on clause) is approximately £34m. DCC and Orsic have already been unloaded for a loss of approximately £5m. With Sulemana, ABK and Alcaraz also getting interest for large profits and most others expected to be large contributors this season, I think those 13 (as a collective) will bring the club good money and service on the pitch. On the second part, there will not be that much losses this season. We will be looking very healthy for the financial year and FFP. Relegation (with the parachute payment) is essentially a £50m loss to TV revenue, plus a bit of sponsorship. We had the 40% wage reduction and have lost some high earners, so we have probably halved our £60m wage budget. Remember, we basically ran at breakeven under Gao, so we have plenty of room to make losses. Leicester have far higher costs than us and haven't needed to make the same amount of sales. Leeds have spent far more than us over the last three years and are accepting losing half of their squad for nothing. I don't believe we need to make back the money spent last summer, we have plenty of room to make losses (which is why they were happy to spend it). FFP has changed this. We were able to build a great squad in League One because we were paying huge wages to attract the players. The gap between the Premier League and Championship is exponentially larger now. We will want players that are at that level. They can gain cohesion in the first few months of the campaign (but generally speaking, good players don't need a huge amount of time). I'd rather not spend almost £20m on Coady and Winks, for example, when we can get similar players on loan. Kind of proving my point as they had a squad full of Championship players, invested massively and still almost went down. You want players of a higher quality if possible. I agree, I'd rather we kept our players. The more good Premier League quality players you keep, the better your chances of going straight back up. It seems that the club don't want to stand in the way of players getting good moves though. Out of the players I would have wanted to keep, only Salisu isn't going to a club playing in the Champions League or Europa League - but Monaco aren't exactly a small team. It's a risky strategy due to the finances. We have a young team, and a huge amount of cash in the bank. If necessary we could make up those finances and fund another push next year (when the Championship will be much easier to win). It is absolutely better to win now, and the team is clearly one that should compete to win the league, but we haven't put all our eggs in one basket. If Leicester don't go up this year, it could be a very long time until they do. I did not say that, I said for the next 3 years - that is including this season. The club clearly are fully committed to getting promoted now and certainly have far more players that they could sell (and have tried to hold onto others that have left). My point was that if we don't get promoted this year, in the strongest Championship there has possibly ever been, then we are in a very good position to go again next year (when it will be one of the weakest we have ever seen). Leeds, and Leicester especially, are not currently in a position to sustain multiple attempts if necessary. What I meant by Leicester being all-in is that they have gambled on this one year. They have enormous wages (no wage reduction) and costs from their facilities. If they don't go up this year, they could go into administration. They have also spent a lot of money on buying players that have proven not to be good enough for the Premier League (Winks, Coady). They are in serious trouble if they don't go up this year. Don't let Leicester's wins fool you, they have been incredibly lucky to win any of their games (should have been 4-0 down to Coventry by halftime). I'm not convinced they are going to walk the league.

I think the strategy is clear. They are trying to bank the money raised to spend on players when promoted. If we spent £100m on players now, we would just end up with a squad full of Championship players. Top players aren't going to sign for us. If we spend that £100m next summer (along with the extra Premier League promotion cash) we could build a midtable Premier League squad fairly easily. That's why the loans are useful, so that we don't have to hold onto the likes of Downes, Fraser and Holgate who have not proved themselves as established Premier League players and are on high wages. The only players they have looked interested in buying for a fee (Charles and Wood) are young, on cheap wages and have the potential to develop into Premier League players. I'm confident that we would have been interested in signing them had we not been relegated. Martin said that there will be players that are here to help us get promoted, but won't be with us for the journey beyond that. This is clearly a reference to the loan players, but having cost nothing I suspect it could include Manning too and perhaps other low cost signings. Obviously there is an element of risk that we might not get promoted this season. Leicester have gone all-in on this season with a massive wage bill and will be in serious trouble if they don't get promoted, whereas we are in a strong position to push for promotion for the next 3 seasons with our funds and young squad. It depends on what you classify as risk.

In a vacuum, Fraser is smart business. Very good for this level and can play everywhere except GK and CB to a good standard. Seems people are just worried about who is going to make way. I'm hopeful that its Aribo, who has had some offers reported, or Djenepo. Would be a shame to lose Sulemana or Tella - I think we could handle losing one, but both would make promotion a tough task.

It's not flashy but this window was all about the players that we hold onto. That's how teams go straight back up. Even Leeds confirmed this with some research they commissioned - before subsequently letting their whole team leave for nothing lol. We have done a good job of shifting some of the deadwood (Orsic, Diallo, DCC), but it would obviously be good to get rid of more. The squad is still too big and we need more outgoings than incomings. But the priority needs to be holding onto the players that have interest from better leagues (Tella, Adams, Sulemana, KWP etc). If those players go, then we should get upset about missing out on the likes of Piroe or Aarons. We will not get anywhere near as good players to replace them. How good the window was should be judged on who stays rather than who comes in. I'm sure movement will be ramping up, especially after the weekends games. I'm still positive that we will have one of the best squads in the league by the end of the window. Even if we are still carrying a few duds like Onuachu and Lyanco.

I'm assuming these last few days, especially after this weekend's games, are when the flurry of movement will happen. Teams will assess injuries, players will decide if they need to move down a level to the Championship etc. Is this the current state of things based on the last week or so? Please correct me where I'm wrong: Outgoings: McCarthy - Interest from Palace and Everton. Seems to have cooled. Bella-Kotchap - Interest from Bayern Munich and Dortmund. Both look to be loans, possibly with an option or obligation to buy. Aribo - Interest from Hellas Verona. Tella - Bid rejected from Bayer Leverkusen. They will likely make a substantial offer among reports they will make him the biggest transfer of the summer. Burnley no longer interested. Adams - Bid received from Everton. Value seems to be close to being accepted (or has been accepted), but Everton don't actually want to pay any money. Will be offered a new contract if not sold. Onuachu - Potentially going back to Genk on a swap deal for Paintsil. Incomings: Nathan Wood (CB, 21, Swansea) - Reportedly close to making an approx £10m bid. Taylor Harwood-Bellis (CB, 21, Man City) - Interested, as is Leeds and Leicester. £15m reported price. Djed Spence (RB, 23, Spurs) - Rumoured interest. Spurs will loan. Cody Drameh (RB, 21, Leeds) - Rumoured interest from RM either this summer or in January. Johan Hove (CM, 22, FC Groningen) - Rumoured to be interested and close to activating his relegation release clause. James McAtee (CM, 20, Man City) - Rumoured interest, but likely will go back to Sheffield Utd on loan if no transfer can be agreed. Luca Kerber (CM, 21, Saabrucken) - Rumoured interest. Playing at a much lower level, potentially a Sports Republic signing like Lis? Joseph Paintsil (RW, 25, Genk) - Potential swap deal for Onuachu. Lawrence Shankland (CF, 28, Hearts) - Rumoured interest. Joel Piroe (CF, 23, Swansea) - Interested. Leeds are more proactive in trying to sign him. Likely Saints will only do so if Adams leaves. Anything credible that I've missed? I'm sure we will have some late surprises when players suddenly become available. I can see us doing deals right to the end with those 4 loan spots still available.

Yeah, obviously. But I've seen people here claiming that he's bad at all the other facets, when he isn't. He is in fact very good at everything else, was a horrific shot-stopper last season, but so far this season has been average (i.e. not let in a saveable shot). Preseason had me worried, but in terms of shot-stopping he looks like an average Championship keeper to me. It has only been two games though, so that opinion might change quickly. In my opinion his only poor bit of goalkeeping was on the disallowed goal (parrying it to a player). He looks nervous to me, and the currently unjustified negativity from this season won't help. I'm hoping he will just save the ones he should save and gain consistency this season. If he is just around average, then that should be good enough considering how few shots we should be conceding. We won't get a replacement, he is too good with the ball at his feet compared to other keepers. Martin has conceded a lot of goals from passing it round the back, but it is hard to see that being a common occurrence with Bazunu looking so comfortable with the ball. He will also help us score some goals by drawing opposition players out. Goalkeepers rarely like competition. It causes doubt, drains confidence and effects their performance. I doubt the club will bring in a real challenger as the no.2 GK.

Well, the eye-test and the data suggests they were pretty close to unstoppable: Post-shot XG is seen as the best way to judge a GK's shot stopping. Essentially, if a shot is smashed into the top corner from 1 yard out, it would be calculated as high probability to score (close to 1), if it is hit at the centre of the goal from 40 yards out it will be calculated as low probability to score (close to 0). So goalkeepers who are conceding less goals than the PSXG are performing well. https://fbref.com/en/comps/10/keepersadv/Championship-Stats#all_stats_keeper_adv A post-shot XG of 4.6 to the 5 goals he has let in, which suggest that, yes, there has just been some exceptional finishing against us on the goals that went in (as I'm sure we can agree that his 2 saves were fairly routine). I think this supports most people's eye tests. It's only been 2 games, its not a shock that we have been 'unlucky'. Goal Wednesday - volley from 10 yards out into the bottom corner. (PSXG won't factor that he initially had to cover the header on the other side of goal, so was forced even worse out of position). https://youtu.be/DC2Z8q7YRJE?t=69 1st goal Norwich - Header in the top corner at the far post from a yard out. Impossible cross to collect. (PSXG won't factor that he had to cover the front post for another attacker). https://youtu.be/S4esIDoqadw?t=47 2nd goal Norwich - Screamer from the edge of the area into the top corner from a completely unimpeded player. (Probably his easiest to save, PSXG won't factor that he was unsighted by Bednarek though). https://youtu.be/S4esIDoqadw?t=308 3rd goal Norwich - Perfect looping header, just inside the post from an unmarked defender 7 yards out. 4th goal Norwich - Volley from the penalty spot into the bottom corner. (PSXG doesn't take into account that Bazunu was preparing for a possible pass-back before Manning shit the bed) https://youtu.be/S4esIDoqadw?t=549 I don't think there are many keepers in the world that would have stopped these goals. I very much doubt there will be one that we could have in the Championship. In terms of saving shots, he is so far statistically performing like an average Championship keeper. His save % is currently not a reflection of the quality of the shots he has conceded. Bazunu was horrific last season by the eye-test, and was the worst performing keeper in Europe's top 5 leagues in post-shot XG. He couldn't save shots straight at him. https://fbref.com/en/comps/9/2022-2023/keepersadv/2022-2023-Premier-League-Stats This is not what has been happening so far this season and he is being unfairly criticised here in my opinion. It's only been 2 games, if this trend of apparently conceding a large number of great shots continues after a larger dataset has been acquired, then there is a cause for concern. Currently, to me, from the eye test and the data he seems to be doing OK. Personally, I think that shot-stopping is his only weakness and that his distribution, cross-collecting and speed off his line to sweep or close down on a 1v1 is very good.

I honestly think Norwich are going to be one of the best sides we play this season. Having seen them against Hull (and how they themselves dismantled Wednesday today) I'm fairly certain they are going to be in the playoffs at least. To get a draw when the squad is new to the system and we've had a number of players departing (with little incomings) was a good result in my opinion. Stu and Alcaraz in midfield together leaves far too much space defensively. We looked much more cohesive without the ball when Charles replaced Stu. We know Stu and his injury issues means he can't play 90 minutes. I'd suggest against the better teams we should be starting with Downes at DM (assuming that's happening) with Alcaraz and Smallbone as the 8s. Based on the game state; we can bring on Stu if we need a goal or Charles if we need to defend. I'm still more worried about Martin than the squad. I'm certain by the end of the window we will have one of the best squads in the league (possibly the best). His system will need time for the players to feel comfortable. Hopefully he has the ability to make adjustments to make us good enough defensively to get promotion.

Feels different to last season when he was letting in shots that he should have saved. I doubt many keepers would have saved the ones he has let in so far this season. Especially in the Championship.

Please do read what I post as I only have 3 posts per day. 1 win from first 5 games, 15th in the table. 5 wins from first 13 games, they were in the playoff picture. Then (early October) they won 21 out of their next 27 games to secure promotion with 6 games remaining. They only hit their high levels of form in early October. I expect us to be similar. The only variable is how good of a coach Martin is, as we have a much better squad. Although, admittedly, the other contenders for promotion are far better this season.

Not true, because the exact same thing happened with Burnley last season and they walked the league. 15th after 5 games. In the promotion hunt after that, but only really found form by early October. I think we will be better quicker than Burnley, because we have better players, but due to having such a tough September I could see us having a similar trajectory.

Some serious bedwetting in here after one player, that the club expected to leave since the window opened, has left. Only the second player to go that fans wanted to keep, and some are acting like its a fire sale. There is no indication that SR are selling all our players and hoping for midtable. Everyone at the club has said the target this year is promotion. We have held firm in our evaluation of good players to get the maximum fees. We have rejected bids for multiple players who have had interest from the Premier League: Stephens (Bournemouth), Smallbone (Sheff Utd), Alcaraz (Brighton) and Tella (Burnley). Lavia, Bella-Kotchap, Walker-Peters and Adams are the only players that now seem very likely to go and not all of them are a certainty. SR have been clear for their model of selling players like Lavia for five times their cost to work, we have to be in the Premier League. The squad is far too big, and once more of the players who aren't up to standard (many played on Tuesday) are moved then we will see incomings. Some of you are delusional about the state of the Championship. The gulf between the Championship and the Premier League has grown exponentially since we were last here. We have an extremely talented team for this level, that was poorly managed last season. It will take a couple of months for the players to get the system and the results to follow. Our squad, currently, is far better than Burnley's that won the league last season. This year will be tougher, but the Championship has never seen squads of the quality that us and Leicester have before. It would be insane for SR to not try and go up, when the chances of bouncing straight back are always far better in the first year. There is three weeks of the window left. I don't feel like we have missed out on anyone, except possibly Aarons (who we don't want or need if the club feel they can keep KWP). Lets try and wait until we have sold some more dross and Wilcox has had a chance to bring players in before judging him.

Ridiculous. Firstly, you obviously have no idea what we currently have in the academy if you think we have a DM capable of playing anything near Championship football. The only lad we have with that possibility of that in his future just turned 15. Secondly, you're judging him based on a preseason having to play out of position and tonight, his first game at DM, surrounded by a poor supporting cast and then yet again having to fill-in at CB.

I feel sorry for the fans that went, but I'm not surprised we got battered given the team. Stu, Alcaraz, Che and Amo-Ameyaw the only ones that we have seen look like 1st team quality recently. A bunch of players that aren't good, don't fit the system, have just come back from injury or are kids making one of their first senior appearances. Its not a surprise that they are performing far worse than the 1st XI were against a much better side at the weekend. Obviously Martin had to rotate the side as the league is the only important competition this season. This was never important and just an opportunity for depth players to get experience in the system. Its a shame as staying in the competition would have been valuable for the youngsters. Hopefully we put out a better team for the FA Cup.