SWLondon Saint

Absolutely not. Way overpriced at £20m +

Our recent success rate with getting the old favourites in hasn't been great, but that one I could possibly see working. But they might want to give Sesay more minutes which could also work, he looks very promising.

Just watching the post match with Still and Archer, they both mentioned 'back to basics' quite a few times and Archer said he's trying to get his confidence back not only from the goal but just doing the basics and being instinctive. Think that says a lot about what must have been going on last season, and also why Still said they need to remember how good they are.

Downes is a funny one, at times I think he looks good enough for the Prem, at others he commits stupid fouls, and then sometimes he plays the most infuriating passes backwards or sideways into danger or completely stopping our forward momentum. I absolutely think Martin was bad for his development as a player, encouraging him to play safe negative passes instead of improving his awareness of what's around him enough to take it on the half turn sometimes, which he pretty much never does.

If Welington is going to be out for a while, hopefully he stays, think he's better defensively than Manning to be honest.

I think the problem is that usually when you play with 3 CBs, one of them can step up - either into central midfield like a classic sweeper, or a CB/FB pushing up in the wide positions. There was one semi-break by Norwich late on which if Wood's starting position had been 5 yards further forward, he'd have pretty much closed all the space down in the centre behind Charles and Downes. I reckon the problem is none of our CBs has much confidence right now so they don't dare be more aggressive and instead we get this V shape with the central player very deep when we're on the ball. Ideally the central CB should be ahead of the wide CBs and you use the keeper as the extra man.

As I've been saying, BBD is exhibit A in Russell Martin's Circus of Broken Players. I have no idea if he was OK technically once or not, but he clearly has absolutely no confidence right now and can't seem to do anything right really.

Got to be Stewart and Archer up front I think. Stewart can actually win the ball and shield it, Archer looks a different player with a big man up ahead of him. Downs still a work in progress but if Stewart can stay fit and be the main target man, that would help Downs a lot as he'd have someone to base his game on. He should throw himself around and be more aggressive though, he looks a unit.

The ghost of Russell Martin haunting Norwich's defence, that was absolute comedy...

Other notes: - RWB looks totally different when someone who knows how is playing it, Roerslav is pushing up onto their full back a lot, just need Manning to do the same. - Quarshie is the best of a bad 3, think he has to stay in. Yes he's a bit naive sometimes but he wins headers and it's funny watching their players try to wrestle with him and failing miserably.

Feel like Stewart up top with Archer playing off him works pretty well, hopefully it sticks. Great goal by Archer, hopefully he kicks on from here. Watching a team in yellow give it away at the back still gives me palpitations though, Norwich have been absolutely as comical as us.

Both sides look absolutely comical in defence. Just kick for the corner and wait for them to f up seems to be the strategy.

How many times do we need to say this, he turned down Burnley who are in the division above us because they weren't offering enough money and he's more ambitious than that. He only ends up with us as the 2am lights up emergency minger option.

While he has been pretty horrendous for us, I also think it's fair to put him in 'Russell Martin's collection of broken players' along with BBD and Archer. He did start brightly before being yelled at to pass inside and back at all times and you could see he didn't have enough ego to back himself, so he completely lost his way and ended up making terrible decisions . I still remember one early game where he played a nice little ball round the corner to Smallbone, breaking the press, but Smallbone, who had no-one behind him, didn't turn and instead played a wall pass, Suga got trapped by 2 and lost the ball and you could see the confidence just draining out of him. He was a full Japan international and you don't get there if you don't have some ability, but right now he looks a million miles from that. Hopefully the loan has an option to buy, and in case he smashes it, one of those buy-back-to-sell-on type things too which we got stung by on Archer.

If he doesn't get the Prem interest he wants then it's possible, but I doubt it'd happen till the absolute last moment in the window, or even after if he's a free agent. Depending on how good his agent is he could also move overseas if he's the adventurous type.

Yep, that's the smart money bet, West Ham in particular, which will piss their fans off no end. He almost certainly wants better than Burnley and feels he's too good for the champ so there's zero chance he's signing for us. Honestly don't know why people think this is some kind of easy, no brainer signing.

Can't see Fraser at LB, he can play as a wing back but as a full back it's a definite no unless we're chasing the game. He can't really defend crosses from the opposite flank properly.

Official now: https://www.southamptonfc.com/en/news/article/sugawara-joins-werder-bremen-on-loan

I've said this is the obvious outcome for ages as he can't simultaneously be the worst full back half the forum claims to have ever seen and also be easily sellable and replaceable with a better player. Loan makes the most sense as if he plays and does well he'll regain some value. If he doesn't we're stuck with him till his contract ends. Dunno why people seem to be hoping he barely plays as that's actually bad for us...

That's fair enough, though I also think it's far too early to be writing off Quarshie and Downs. The championship isn't an easy league for young players from overseas to come into + half our players are still indoctrinated by Russball. If we're going for champ experience I think Azaz has a chance of making the step up at least. Don't forget Brum spent £15m on Stansfield last year from Fulham, + Kyogo rumoured to be £8m rising to £10m...

The real problem with the list is it'd cost an absolute shit ton and likely have no chance whatsoever in the PL if you got promoted. Kyogo I'll give you for sure, bargain signing for Brum. Is Brownhill still unsigned? Isn't he a CM though and we're quite stocked in that dept. But the other 3 would all be £15m+ signings and there are good reasons why no prem club has had a go. Why didn't Sunderland go for any of those when they were splashing the cash this summer? Hamer is probably the best bet of them as I think he had some impact in the PL, BUT from another perspective, that would also mean we'd recreated Sheffield United's PL attack in him, BBD and Archer... Not sure that's what everyone really wants? Championship players are generally just too expensive and poor value for money for other Champ teams unless you can take advantage of someone needing to sell for financial reasons or a player has run down their contract.

After 9 games last year, Leeds were 8th or so on 16 points having lost to Burnley and drawn quite a few including to Pompey at home, so it would seem a little early to be wetting the bed....

*If* (and it's a pretty big if) we keep Fernandes I think he has to play as part of the midfield 2 in front of the defence. He's just not really an out and out attacking midfielder, he's much more of a 8, it should be 2 from him, Charles and Downes, with someone ahead of them. Think that makes things much clearer.

Just watched the highlights, and to be fair to Still, he said we gave them both goals and we absolutely have. That ball into Downes is a complete hospital pass, and he should never be trying to turn there anyway. The other one we should have had numbers back or at least fouled the man breaking with the ball for a yellow. But we were also really unlucky with those 2 shots of the post and also Downes completely missing that header. Overall looks like we had the better chances and could easily have won, stats back that up too, but them's the breaks.

I honestly think Martin did more damage than people give him credit for. Juric clearly couldn't believe how unfit and under prepared the players were, and Martin might actually have ruined several players careers, in particular BBD and Archer, but also Sugawara and to a lesser extent Smallbone and Downes. The first 3 you can see tried to 'fit in' with his demands to always play short and safe against their instincts, and you can see they're still second-guessing themselves now which is why they don't look 'right' on the pitch. Smallbone and Downes because they play wall passes ALL the time, even when there's no-one behind them and they should turn, or when the wall pass puts the receiver in more trouble than they are. It's like they all need to be broken out of a cult, and that's what Still means when he talks about psychological trauma I reckon, along with the clear 'acceptability' of catastrophic defensive ricks that Martin allows. Everyone makes mistakes, but you cover each others' backs, that's how proper accountability works.