revolution saint

I don't think we can afford to piss around with McCarthy. Any slightest interest by any club and he should be driven there immediately and left wrapped in swaddling on their doorstep.

JWP has just emailed me personally. That's pretty good considering everything else he's got going on. I've never even met him either!

Just an opinion mate. Personally think that A Armstrong has his confidence up and deserves to keep starting. Edozie has looked good but not delivered anything yet, needs to work on his end product. Two defensive mids seems overkill to me, we’re not playing Man City.

Having listened to the Plymouth fan on TSP last night, I'm going to be confident and go for a 1-3 win. Seems like Plymouth don't have a lot of height and don't often score from set pieces, and they also like to play football rather than be direct. I think that's the kind of team we'll play better against. Team mostly picks itself. We should be playing one of Downes or Charles in the defensive mid position and then it's a question of whether Smallbone is fit or not. Hopefully he's back. Agree with others that Che deserves to start and A Armstrong doesn't deserve to be dropped so Edozie to miss out there.

Count me in the no camp. Brass bands aren’t my cup of tea and I could happily live without them. All personal opinion of course but I’ve never felt that whenever we’ve tried to use brass bands that the crowd has ever really got behind them and created much of an atmosphere.

I don’t think Swansea did much because they didn’t really play with wide players. Much of the time it was using wingbacks so traditional wingers didn’t feature so much. What has been pleasing is that we’ve been playing with both Tella and Edozie so it’s obvious that, at least at the moment, that it’s something we’re trying to utilise. Personally I’m not sure players that have outright pace are as important as players who can work in tight spaces and beat a man with a bit of skill. It’s fine if we set up as a team that counter attacks but that’s not going to be us most of the time.

Cheers for that, interesting read. Watched a few YouTube videos on him so don’t know anything more about him but looks to be very right footed and relies on his pace more than anything to beat a player. That article seemed to suggest his dribbling skills actually aren’t that great and the videos I’ve seen don’t really showcase any exceptional dribbling ability in the way , say Sulemana, has. I’d probably give him a swerve if I’m honest. I’m not against quick wingers and we definitely need to retain pace up top but we’ll need someone with a few more tricks up his sleeve if we intend to dominate possession. Depending on who goes and who stays then Grady Diangana has looked the most exciting of the wide players we’ve been linked with (I’m assuming the links with McAtee are bollocks).

Bit disappointing if we ended up selling Smallbone and 10M wouldn't be worth it even if he ended up walking for nothing next season. He's tailormade for Russell Martin and will be even more valuable for us if we play him in a more advanced role. Unless he's kicking up a stink then I'd tell him he's staying - hopefully a run in the team and a shout of promotion will convince him to sign a new contract.

Everyone sees it differently but around the 55 or 60 minute mark I thought he faded a bit. There was one occasion when a Norwich player went on a run, Charley went with him but it was very laboured. Around the same time he started under hitting a few passes and I thought he’d get subbed. I guess injuries put paid to that. Anyway he seemed to get a second wind because he was great for the last 15 to 20 mins.

Where the hell is he? It's only 24 hours from Tulsa FFS!

Spoke to a Palace fan at work yesterday and he didn't think they were actively looking at central midfield. Ultimately Martin puts a lot of store in the character of the player and their ability to buy into "the project" so I'd imagine, given his history with the player, that he should already be aware of whether Downes wants to come here or not. I'd be surprised if the deal has got as far as it apparently has if Downes doesn't fancy it. Palace fan also reckoned the talk there was that Che's agent is working overtime trying to hawk him around clubs and get a move back to the prem. In the case of Palace, they're not interested but explains all the recent links around Adams.

I shouldn’t really have to say this but no one, not even Chelsea, buys a 50M player and immediately loans him out

Aside from YouTube videos and comments from Swansea fans I don't know much about Piroe (so pretty much the same as most here). Seems like he doesn't have a great deal of pace but loads of good strikers don't have an abundance of pace. Might not even be an issue if we're dominating possession and teams are sitting back and hopefully we've still got players like Tella, Sulemana and Sam AA to give us a bit of pace if we need it. Edozie isn't slow either. What pretty much all Swansea fans agree on is that he's clinical and that's good enough for me. He's scored 20 goals in each of his last two seasons under Martin and that's about as much guaranteed goals as you can get especially in the championship. There might be better options out there and fair play if we find them but at the moment I'd take Piroe every day.

Sorry, I meant having all of them as options rather than on the pitch at the same time. I don't see us playing all of them either but was thinking more along the lines of squad size. It's a possibility but doesn't really fit with having to reduce the size of squad.

I'm not convinced we'll end up with a midfield of Charles, Downes, Grimes, Smallbone and Alcaraz. I know they all have different attributes and can play different positions but doesn't really tie in with the idea of trying to reduce the size of the squad especially when we've got others like S Armstrong that can also play in central midfield.

Yes, cheers for sharing. I'm hoping the new set piece fella can sort us out, initially just to defend them properly. The amount we've conceded is stupid considering that generally the likelihood is quite low for most clubs. If we can retain a bit of pace up front then counter attacking from set pieces is the icing on the cake.

Looking forward to this and I think we'll have a much better idea of the strength of the league and how good we are after the game. Main concern again is set pieces - they've got players like Holt, Duffy and Sargeant that will pose a big threat and I can easily see them scoring. I'm going for a pessimistic 0-2 in the hope I'm wrong.

I didn't realise quite how bad a state Sheffield United are in - if they hadn't got promoted they would have been screwed. Even now it doesn't look like they can do anything other than plan for a season at the bottom and try and get as much money as they can doing it. Decent opportunity for Hamer and no doubt Sheffield United will probably make some money on him but I think they could be worse than we were last season and possibly threaten Derbys points tally.

I've been following Caicedo and his career with interest. He's a baller. He's got a hammer for a right foot, a cultured left foot that acts as both a wand and can open a tin of beans, a football for both an eye and a brain. I'd say he doesn't just glide across the pitch - more like he hovers above it. Oh and, for a big man, he's got a great first touch and he can leap like a trout. Worth £110M of anyones money and then some.

It's a compromise innit, but I'm not sure I want a manager who is no fart and all shit either.

Article I read didn't really mention what Downes wanted, just that West Ham were keen to include him as part of the deal for JWP as a permanent transfer and we weren't interested in a permanent - only a loan. TBF it could be rubbish or there could be more to it than included in the article.

I see The Times are apparently reporting that West Ham wanted to include Downes as a permanent transfer but we're only interested in a loan deal. Would have thought it would have been the other way around.

Cheers, you're a cock.

JWP isn't leaving. He'd have left by now if he was going to leave.

Yep, agree with this. Only problem is that even with them leaving we've still got a pretty big squad - need to move on a lot of those who played last night as well as the first team players you mentioned. Wilcox and RM know all this though and hopefully have several plans in place.