revolution saint

He looks quite good. Bit concerned about motivation though - sounds like the guy wants more than just a move to the championship.

I reckon it'd be really funny to kid Eddie Howe into thinking he's signing Ramsdale only to swap him out for Ryan Fraser at the last minute.

We were linked back in May with Daniel Peretz. He's joined Hamburg on loan now but wouldn't surprise me if we found someone similar on loan.

Definitely don't see us signing another CB even if THB also goes. Presume you're expecting THB to go for 28.5 - 33.5M now? Good work if we get that.

Chat GPT can fuck off.

I definitely see the argument in having some cover because, as we've seen this week, no one has stepped up into either the AM or right wing role in their absence. It would be cover though because I can't see us having the luxury of bringing someone in that would be a better first choice. Interesting that we're complaining about creativity this pre-season when neither have played much in the roles we're talking about. This argument is predicated on the assumption both stay which is probably unlikely. So, in that case, yeah, we need to get some players in that are better than the understudies we currently have. That's a fair argument. Better than Fernandes and Dibling just doesn't seem either likely or feasible.

Robinson left, Dibling right - both seem to be their natural positions.

Personally I don't agree, I think both would be excellent if they stayed but, again, it does sound like you think it's feasible to get better than them in. I don't think that's realistic.

Mostly the left although he switched to the right yesterday when he passed to Downs to score.

I think you're going to be disappointed if you're looking for us to get better players than Fernandes and Dibling in.

If Dibling and Fernandes stay then they can both make things happen in the final third. I'm always loathe to judge anyone on pre-season too much but Robinson has really impressed me too and I can see a situation where he becomes a genuine starter fairly quickly.

I reckon one of the right backs could be on that list too. Sugawara doesn't seem to have played many minutes and Bree is coming into the last year of his contract so club might be looking to see if they can get some sort of fee for him. Right back is one of the few areas where we seem to have had some links too. Think Aribo will be off. Same situation as Bree with regard to contract and doesn't feel like he's played many minutes. I'd have liked to see him in that Fernandes role with Fraser out wide instead of BBD during pre-season and just feels a better fit than Fraser. There was talk of moving to Turkey for Aribo and if that's the case then wouldn't surprise me if they wait until close to the end of the window and chuck in a very lowball bid.

Tend to agree with you, I think he probably would leave if it was up to him. His problem though is that he isn’t going to get many offers. I doubt any prem teams will want him and championship either can’t or won’t pay what we want for him. I think he’ll have to knuckle down and get on with it and I think he will do that. He went off injured in one of the games the other week so sounds like the injury is a genuine one and not an excuse for not taking him to Spain.

Yep, whether the players like a manager or not isn't really an issue as long as they respect him. My problem with Ralph in this instance is he should have been playing Bertrand instead of dropping him for a perceived criticism. That's the way you alienate players and lose the dressing room. Agree that he should have been backed with a striker the summer we lost Broja.

Do you know if Ramsdales does?

Thing is you never really know the full story anyway so it's difficult to judge and deals get structured so differently that it's rarely a case of "we want 10M" or whatever. Ultimately if, at the end of the window, he's still here then we've either not done a good enough job at getting rid of him, or clubs actually weren't that interested or tempting enough for a player going into the last year of a contract.

Seems like Hamburg only want a loan so that's probably where the issue lies. Club are clearly desperate to get rid of him and what with his heart issue last summer and going into a potential last season of his contract then I would imagine we'd be realistic on any fee we could hope to bring in. Wouldn't be surprised if his wage demands were more likely to scupper any deal rather than the fee we're asking for.

I'd take that report with a pinch of salt.

Matchweek five. We'll win every game except for a defeat to Ipswich.

I dunno, young player of the year isn't necessarily that great an achievement although QPR fans did seem to rate him. I haven't seen too much either but did make a point to watch the QPR Burnley game where they got spanked 5-0 and he got subbed off. He really wasn't impressive and seems far too passive to me. Still likes a high line and to compress the play and that doesn't appear to be his game. He looks to be one of those CBs that gets a lot of praise for being relatively composed on the ball whilst everyone ignores that he's not that good at actually defending. You can make similar arguments for Baz being very good with the ball at his feet but not so great when it comes to shot stopping. Who knows though? Hopefully he's great and I'll happily apologise.

Edwards got young player of the year for QPR with Jimmy Dunne picking up player of the year. Sorry, that's a bit pedantic of me. Have to be honest, I don't see Edwards fitting in particularly well into a Still side - he's not very quick, he's not very tall and he's not that aggressive either. Seems to have made his name as a ball playing CB which is fine but I'm not sure he's all that when it comes to defending.

Rak-Sakyi is directly comparable to Edozie too and I think there's about a years difference in age. When we got promoted in 23/24 Edozie got six goals and three assists in 1364 minutes whereas Rak-Sakyi got 7 goals and 2 assists in 1732 minutes last season. Not much in it but if anything Edozie would look to be the better player. I thought Rak-Sakyi looked very very good on loan at Charlton and was a right box of tricks but didn't seem to have that explosiveness last season and also seems quite reliant on his left foot.

Quoting Benito Mussolini in defence of Russell Martin, now there's a first.

Todays calculated risk on signing the players we need (before getting rid of the driftwood), are as likely as not to be tomorrows driftwood. That's exactly how you end up with a bloated squad. Don't get me wrong, in an ideal world I'd be shifting on far more players than we have so I understand your point but I don't think saying fuck it, lets just sign some more players and hope we manage to shift the others out eventually is the answer.

So just to be clear, you think we've got too much deadwood in the squad that we've overpaid for but the solution is to bite the bullet and buy more players?