SWLondon Saint

I think it's because of his close association with Russball unfortunately, which hasn't done him any favours development wise either. Every man and his dog on here could see he needs to up his level physically and he needed to be told that - like Ralph did to JWP - to compete, but instead he got Russ blowing smoke up his ass.

Bloody hell, £7m + 3m? Their fans must be absolutely fuming, what's going on there? I assumed they'd want at least £10-15m but doesn't seem so much of a risk at under 10...

I'm not sure this is actually possible - it's just the way things work with a transfer 'window', unless a transfer is totally straightforward, it's always going to go on until just before a hard deadline. The only way to get Dibling or Fernandes sold in, say, July would have been to accept the initial bids, which would have cost us a season-changing amount of money, £15-20m less than we got.

I think on this front going to the French, German, and other leagues is by far the better bet. Can anyone think of an established or 'marquee' championship player who wasn't just a big club loanee who then went on to tear up the PL recently? I honestly can't...

Think the main concern about Fellows and Azaz is that we're getting 2 players whose ceiling is probably the top of the championship, arguably a bit like Downes and THB - 20 PL teams have already looked and said nope, we have better already or they're not good value. Azaz to me has a better chance as his game seems to have more variety, if you look at Fellows' highlights his assists are basically all the same assist again and again, step over, go to the byline and cross right footed. I don't think he gets away with that in the PL. Yes, you can say we have to buy for this level, but as we saw with those 2, the money you spend on 'marquee' champ-level players then holds you back if you get promoted and you have to replace them.

What I find really odd in all the Fernandes business is that Man U haven't been in for him. Amorim knows him, he came up in the Sporting system so he'll actually know how to play in that 3-4-3 he insists on, and they can afford him. Wouldn't be surprised if the publicity about the fee is basically his agent issuing a come-and-get-him to Utd or other clubs.

I mean watching that just makes me feel sorry for the players who've been sent out like lambs to the slaughter. Not surprised Fraser / Taylor fell out with him last season, maybe they offered some home truths about how crap his training was. Hopefully Still can get the Russball exorcised from our players.

Mm, not really. Wharton was 19 when he moved and cost £18m plus add-ons, so much more the 'brilliant youngster with potential' type. Azaz is much more the finished product, which has its pros and cons.

Just listened to the Adam Blackmore and Jo Tessem podcast: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0lz5bt4 They both think we desperately need a striker, hard to disagree - though they seem to have a blind spot on the idea of playing 2 strikers which I reckon is worth a try.

I think I know the highlights you mean - yes, Schlupp probably is quicker than Roerslev but the main problem was the chances came from us giving the ball away at the back, so Roerslev was a bit the wrong side. In the second half when the giveaways stopped, Schlupp got absolutely nowhere, so I think he's solid defensively.

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.