hypochondriac

Or a situation where we do have players good enough to do that, but teams come up with tactics to neutralise that style and we don't have the knowledge to counter it.

Excellent news. Bidding war please!

From what we've read, Is Martin capable of doing that? I'm not sure we have time to transition to a new style, we need the style in place and ready to go for the start of the season.

Yep. The thing is that someone like City can just play how they want to play all the time because their squad quality and depth are vastly superior to everyone else so no one can stop them. If you're a smaller club with less resources and quality like us then you're going to have to change as the circumstances do and you inevitably come up against better players. One of the most frustrating things about Ralph was his lack of a plan B. Weirdly whilst seeking a completely different style of play, we may encounter those same problems once again.

There's another Athletic article about Martin and his style today. Is it just me or was there a lot less focus on our style of play last time we were in the championship? I don't recall big in depth conversations about Adkins and his philosophy, we just seemed to get in a load of really good players, have them a few years to gel together and then let them do their thing. I'm not sure if such a focus on our style that we seem to have will not be quite restrictive. Can't we just adapt as the situation is required?

I really hope some of these reports are wide of the mark. We badly need experience in the team, we have enough youngsters with Bazunu, livramento, Edozie, mara, Larios. Carrying on with the same tactics isn't going to succeed.

Agreed but it's very unlikely to happen. It's not physically possible to replace all of our players in one window and for that reason we won't be selling 15+ even if they all want to go. Tino is very unlikely to be one of the ones to leave unless they offer something stupid like 30 million but why on earth woukd they do that after his injury?

At least I can claim some semblance of itk.

He might go there, but I'd be very surprised and gutted if he did. It's even possible that Fulham and us coukd swap places next year. West ham makes sense, particularly because they have Europe. Fulham would be a bit bizarre.

I'm not sure we can make that judgement at this point. We could end up stuffing the team full of leaders which is where it really counts. We currently have no idea what the makeup of the team will be in September.

Part of me would have loved them to have been honest and seen some people on here shit themselves. "we were shite last year and the atmosphere was largely horrible, particularly during the end of the season when half the squad had given up. Most of the decent players are gagging to leave. We can probably keep some of the above average ones and we also have a crap load of money for this division so should buy some decent championship players too." everyone knows what the reality is. We don't need some crap that no one believes from Wilcox to make us feel good. Win the first 9 games and then you can drop your trousers and take a shit next to the Northam and you'll get applause. No one cares about words.

Exactly. Everything that is said is just pr guff. I'll judge him and sports Republic by what happens on the pitch.

It wouldn't surprise me if he stayed. From his perspective, he's not likely to get in the England team anyway and he'd be a real legend here if he led us to promotion. I could see him wanting to go to West ham because they are in Europe and maybe a team like spurs but I agree that I don't think any of the other big team would want him.

I'm going to predict now that jwp ends up at West Ham for 35 million. Makes by far the most sense.

Yeah it could have happened, seems like an odd thing for an account that's been around for a while to just make up. Possible embellishment but some of it seems to fit.

We need to sell to ensure we have enough money for the next few years and to cover the drop in revenue of relegation as well as allowing us to buy players that will be competitive in the league.

But surely he must have made them believe there was at least a possibility that he will stay?

Do you think he's going to give us a year? Seems quite idiotic to use him in the marketing if he leaves in a few weeks.

I always think of Asamoah Gyan who basically gave up a promising prem career in his 20s to get ridiculous contracts in places no one has heard of. Nice work if you can get it I suppose.

They are black and white. Difficult to mess them up too much I would have thought.

Jesus christ if that's real. The person who told me what it was said it looked better in person. I beg to differ that is hideous!

I see some loons on twitter are getting themselves worked up about the prospect of signing Fonte. Happy to place on record that this will never happen and is a stupid thing to suggest.

Saint Garrett is basically correct. I'm pretty sure I received duff info about what the home shirt would be because I haven't seen it this year and I was told it was something different than the home shirt he has posted. Black and white away and 3rd shirts are correct though.

I think the issue is doesn't city have a sell on clause? So if we were to sell him to someone else we would end up with less than the 40 million their buy back clause is next year.

Thinking about it, maybe we will have to sell one of Lavia or jwp for slightly less than we want in order to go e us some financial certainty and allow us to stand firm on some of the others.