saintant

To be competitive we'll need to sign a minimum 4 good new players who can step straight into the side (including a goalkeeper). Will we get them? I doubt it. Even if we do they need to adapt to the RM way of playing and we had all that at the start of last season. My guess is that we'll get in a few underwhelming new signings and muddle along. Hope I'm wrong but that's the vibe I'm getting. Decent money will not be spent and we'll miss targets because we won't offer the going rate. We must sign a keeper, a striker, a solid midfielder to slot in alongside Downes and a creative number 10.

Even if it was possible I'm not convinced JWP is what we need. I'd rather we signed someone in the mould of Romeu who gives us more of a physical presence.

I wonder what the likes of McCarthy and Lallana are earning. Maybe we need to be less sentimental and more ruthless when dividing up the salary budget.

No idea but we should be competing with West Ham for Rodriguez.

He is currently listed as 'without a club' so surely there is no transfer fee involved.

No transfer fee to worry about. Offer him a generous 2 year contract. Him and Downes would give us a very secure midfield and that is something we are going to need in the Premier League.

Hard to argue with that.

Don't think we'll be getting another player who operates on the wide left.

Agree, from what we've seen so far, SR is not prepared to back us to give us a realistic chance of staying in the Premier League. As ever there is talk that we are after high quality players at reasonable prices but we always seem to miss out on them. We then end up paying less for players many of who end up being a total waste of money. Maybe we just don't have the budget to compete with other teams of our standing or it's something to do with FFP restrictions. Whole month to go I know but I am getting the usual vibes this pre-season.

Why not? After all, he continually championed Baz as an acceptable number one when he clearly wasn't.

He needs to stick his nose deep into the coffee jar.

Madness if that's the case but I suspect you are right on the money.

I'll give it a miss I think.

He looks to be a huge upgrade on Che.

Goalkeeper made the assist.

Well if Darren Mowbray can step into Jason Wilcox's shoes he was clearly not as good as he was made out to be and we were paying him far too much.

We can increase it.

We could always offer him a new deal on top money that he'd find hard to resist - it would be cheaper than trying to replace him.

Think someone who can save the friggin ball is more important for us especially in the Premier league. Plus I've watched games where Ramsdale played some superb passes.

My point is not that we sign Ramsdale (unless he wants to come and we can afford him) - what I'm saying is that, having had a season with a decent keeper such as Ramsdale, assuming he shows his worth and saves us points, the fans will not want a return to Baz and will expect the club to source and invest in a better option.

I think if we bring in a decent keeper on loan and he does well the club might well be forced to change their narrative on Baz. If we get someone who makes a big improvement for a season most fans will not be happy to see the return of Baz and will want us to sign a quality keeper.

I would argue that the Spanish manager made a good job of organising his team in such a way that the players knew where each other would be and what runs to make. Their first goal was a perfect example of that.

I reckon we'd be crazy not to give Charly a chance rather than selling him. Just watched his 'Welcome to Juventus' video which includes clips from his games for us - if he was someone we were considering signing most of us would be praying we got him in. The guy has undoubted talent and could be great for us this season. He's spent 5 months at Juventus and will have learned a lot. He's our player so let's get the best out of him and I reckon he'd also learn a lot from Adam Lallana.

He would be an ideal replacement for Stu Armstrong. Hope there is some substance in this. Think he is still a Man City player after his loan spell at Sheff Utd. There is bound to be a fair amount of interest in him so hope we move quickly if we are considering him.

Can only be James McAtee from the steel city of Sheffield and 'spoons' as in teaspoons.