SNSUN

The Villa fans for one on their forum! They can't believe they're signing a Championship centre back to play in the Champions League. Despite the fact he played and scored for England and was one of our better players in our Prem relegation season. He may not be the same level but he's only 24. The fact for us is that he is our best CB and will be tough to replace but I wouldn't begrudge him a move to Villa and I suspect it'll be 25 million up front with extras up to 30 and a sell on clause. We can do business with that but it still blows that it'll come at this time of the window. I just hope it doesn't cause any unrest amongst others that might think their futures are above us.

Good signing for them. I guess they just wanted Anel more than we did. Someone of that calibre though would definitely improve us though. Decent money for a Championship proved CB at a good age.

I don't think we're top 2 material this season despite how good our form was at the tail end of last season. The League is much stronger. But with the next six in a play-off spot we should be fine. But as you say, it's impossible to say until the window shuts. Larin and Peretz were good permanent signings, we just need to do that again a few times.

We can only hope we can sign similarly decent players again. Of course it would have been better if we hadn't spied, won the play off final and had the money for Spors to sign better players for the Prem. But that's moot now. Burnley may have beaten us to Ahmedhodzic but for the money he was available for and his Championship pedigree, it's the right sort of player we should be looking at.

Can he play CM?

THB may be off soon but he will be replaced, the problem is getting someone in of a better quality than Jack and Wood. Also it still surprises me that quite a bit of time has passed since Shea left and we haven't yet made a move for a midfielder to replace him, especially since Jander has been injured. You'd like to think SR have contingency plans in place for such eventualities. I still wouldn't be surprised to see late moves for Jander and Leo. The transfers in would have to be amazing. Spors and co have a lot of work to do. You can't just expect people to swoop in and buy/loan our unwanted players before we make moves.

THB could have a better partner if we gave him Anel. Shame we're set to lose out on him and now all we have to offer is Jack. Unless we take Jack off and give him Wood.

Probably rightly so, we have West Ham coming in all guns blazing, Wolves will be up there again and Burnley will still threaten. On top of that Boro have gone about their transfer business very well and the other usual suspects are stronger. We don't have a bad team but we have only really signed Dobbin and Mubaba to last season's squad and lost Shea and Stewart. We're almost standing still by other team's standards. I still expect a flurry of activity late on in the window though, there's only so long we can go with 3 CMs anyway for a start.

Wood is good in the hole, Downes is good in the holding role. Jander moves from box to box. Leo? Inside Forward. Fin prefers it behind Larin. Football is filth when you think about it and you have childish humour.

With Sheffield United in potential trouble, it may be that they can't afford Anel which is good for us.

Add a back up GK and a LW to that and you'd be closer. I know it has been rumoured we still want a back up GK but to go into the season with Long as back up scares me. We can only hope we can shift Ransdale and Baz out and get one in. We also don't need 5 CMs so if we got Louza we wouldn't need JWP.

I've heard Blades' female supporters are right up for it happening. They've loved Anel in the past.

I'm a big fan of Anel. I hope it happens.

Question is really, who do you have more confidence in, Jack or Nathan. For me it's still Jack. not that Wood is terrible. I'll give our captain the benefit of the doubt before dropping him but one more silly mistake that essentially costs us points and my mind will change. We're play-off material currently. If the club want us aiming for the autos then we do need strengthening. That said I think we have enough to beat Stoke but it really depends on what happens with THB between now and Friday. Hell we might be starting Jack AND Nathan!

SR won't fund an upgrade on Stephens or Wood. We'll bring in one CB and that's if THB goes. Same with CM - we should be going out and trying to sign someone as good, or better than, Downes and Jander - that way if we lose Jander late in the window we don't notice too much of a dip while we then have to bring in ANOTHER CM to cover his sale. Personally, and hypothetically, if the window slammed shut now, I'd be pretty happy with the squad. I'm not looking forward to these last 2 weeks.