revolution saint

By all accounts he was a bit of a cock but his short passing game was superb. I'd put him up with Tadic in terms of ability and vision to unlock defences.

Quite some variation in the type of players there but did some YouTube scouting last night and like the look of a few of them. Fellows is obviously very good for this league and would be first choice if money wasn't an issue but I quite liked Sima and Carlos Vicente. Sima looks raw but he's got pace, power and seems to have done pretty well in most of his loan spells. Last year of his contract too. Vicente looks like he runs all day, works hard and has a good cross - kind of blueprint for the types of qualities Still seems to want.

From what I can gather, half the time the bids are third parties purporting to represent clubs. They'll try to make a deal and cut themselves a healthy chunk in the process.

Spertsyan is in the lineup to play today so nothing imminent. Seems like the Russian League started on 19th July so there shouldn't be any fitness issues if he did sign.

Yeah, to be fair to Downes, I don't think he's fully fit. He seems to be one of those players that takes a while to get up to speed (Lambert was the same) so I'd give him a bit of slack. I don't really see many options for him that are agreeable to the club even if he did want to move. We'd be looking to get our money back, can't see a prem club touching him and very few champ clubs would risk that kind of money on him. I think he'll be fine but we definitely need more bodies in CM (assuming Smallbone and Aribo move on) so hopefully we'll have some other options.

He was excellent yesterday and very impressed with him. You can see why RM didn't rate him though - the amount of accurate forward passes would have been a definite issue.

Isn’t your son involved in South American scouting? I reckon Bree could be off, seems to be a lot of convenient injuries at the moment.

Isn’t that what you would expect of any of the outside CBs in a back three though? I’m not writing Edwards off yet because I haven’t seen enough of him but he hasn’t impressed me when he has played and I thought he was poor today. Only other takeaway from today is we can’t be starting Armstrong up front on his own. Stewart should have started today.

You want a coked up Doris Stokes?

Fuck off mate, where have I spectacularly written him off? And for the record I've seen a shedload of his interviews. Really not sure how "he doesn't seem exactly buzzing for the new season" can be classed as spectacularly writing him off but it seems like that's a phrase you've dreamt up and been dying to use regardless of what anyone has actually said. You come across as a condescending cock and I'm happy to write you off pal @Smirking_Saint

Ah cheers, to be honest I missed the first minute or two. Could just be his style, or maybe he doesn't like this side of it as someone else mentioned. I don't really care too much as long as he gets results.

Yeah, cos it's binary isn't it? I was expecting him to show a bit of enthusiasm and excitement for the season.

Not sure if it's just his way but he doesn't come across as absolutely buzzing for the new season.

He'll knuckle down in the same way Schneiderlin did. Only question for me is whether the manager would rather sell and spend the money on strengthening the team, or keep him. Either way I'm quite happy and if he stays then I think he'll be excellent for us. My guess is this is all part of the usual tiresome pantomime and he'll go eventually.

Indeed. If you're writing a "Hollywood" script for this then Wrexham lose tomorrow so that they can build themselves back up against all the odds. It's the classic multi million dollar underdog story.

Yeah, I was joking. Big test of resolve for Coventry and I'd imagine both player and club would have been hoping that if a bid comes in then it would be from a premier league club. Will be interesting to see how this one pans out.

Rudoni was left out of the last pre-season game "injured". He'll obviously kick off and have a major sulk if denied his dream move to us and we've all seen how this goes. Ultimately Coventry will be forced to sell and probably for a lot less than they originally wanted. In fact it wouldn't surprise me if they end up having to take BBD as part payment and be grateful for it.

You're probably right due to the cost both would incur however Spertsyan played mostly on the left of that three last season.

Rudoni certainly fits the bill in terms of the physical profile we want and if you look at Coventry last season it was pretty much crosses into the box all the way with Rudoni often arriving late into the box. Get the impression that's a similar style to what Still wants to implement too. Looks like a lot of his assists were from corners which will be handy with Quarshie, Downs and Stewart in the squad.

Another one we probably looked at before deciding on Downs. I guess that's a relatively inexpensive punt for a premier league club but still feels a bit over priced - only really played in League 2 in France since January.

For the sake of argument would Fellows actually cost that much (15-20M)? I'm not sure he would. Jack Clarke went for 15M rising to 20M but that was after Ipswich had got promoted, Szmodics went for 9M rising to 11M although he's older so that'll drop his transfer value. Transfers between championship clubs don't tend to be that high and if Fellows goes to another championship club then I think you'd probably be looking around 10-12M tops. There's not going to be a massive pool of clubs that could afford that anyway - Ipswich could but don't need him, Birmingham possibly? Same would apply to Rudoni and Hamer if premier league clubs don't think they're worth a gamble. All predicated on West Brom either wanting/needing to sell and the player happy to move to another championship club.

This is true. My gran (92) had a personal invite from Romeu to meet up with him at Staplewood. Apparently he intends to meet with all nonagenarians from Hampshire by the end of August.

The formation is going to be a good insight into what sort of approach Still takes. Everything we've read so far is that he's predominantly pragmatic and given that we don't have many genuine wingers then, if he wants width, he'd be better off with wingbacks. I reckon Stewart will start over Downs though.

He's still contracted to Barcelona until 2026.

Yeah, he's predominantly left footed but can cross with his right and given we're supposedly looking for wingers on both sides then I can see him being a valid option. Wouldn't rule it out at any rate.