hypochondriac

In the prem in their debut seasons I agree. We are now in the championship and some of them have had ajpther season of experience and are a year older.

I agree. He could end up being a failure here but that will at least in part be our fault and how we handled him last year. Even if he is, it doesn't make the strategy we are on bad. We only need one Lavia or Bazunu and it becomes well worth it and the strategy is even better in the championship where the players don't have to be as good so quickly.

It seems fairly unlikely to me but I would absolutely love it if he came back and played a role next year. Probably as backup but it would just be pleasing to see him out there.

Our strategy is very obviously to buy promising youngsters to utilise in and around the first team. We've done that with the Chelsea right back this week and have done it the past too with Tino.l and we've clearly gone for a lot of City youth due to the size of their squads and the lack of pathway for youngsters to the first team. Being overly reliant on youth was obviously a mistake last year and the club have said as much this year and imo it's likely that we will get in experience alongside investment in young players. It's too early and we won't yet be able to tell if we will recoup our investment in Bazunu, Larios and Edozie or make a profit. Edozie in particular could have a season like Tella this season and then it will look like a shrewd move. Bazunu has a chance of coming good too even if I personally wouldn't want him as first choice.

Like Lavia you mean? Or Tino? No one can argue that we haven't extracted maximum value from both of those signings.

Again what does that mean? We've signed loads of players from City because a load of our former and current staff are from City and probably have some pre-exisiting relationships and knowledge of a lot of their players. It's incredibly likely imo that this midfielder is more skilled than anyone else we would get for the money and is available because they want game time and city can't give it to them. He's probably looked at how it's worked out for Lavia and jumped at the chance. It's bizarre so many people calling it dodgy because we've looked at the best club in the country with their giant squads and got into a position where we have a great relationship with them and can get a great number of their players.

Exactly. For a club in our position it's not weird at all, it's actually incredibly smart to have a great relationship with City and Chelsea who have probably the best two large squad setups in the country.

There's nothing dodgy or weird about it at all. City have a shed load of decent young players who want game time and won't be getting it at city. We have a number of current and former staff with links to city and a proven track record of treating their ex players well. City don't want to sell their prospects to rivals so we are the perfect club to sell to. It may or may not work out but the impending sale of Lavia proves that it's worth it for us and the upside is that we get talent that is really much too good for us for a few seasons and we make a healthy profit. We really do need to augment those signings with proven experience if we want to be a success and I am sure we will.

I still have no idea what that means. We haven't paid over the odds for promising players. The success of Lavia proves it can work, why would we not go with what we know? I care about getting good players in, if that means we sign every single one of our players from city then why does that make something dodgy?

You can question the wisdom of signing the players but what's dodgy about it? It's natural we'd go for a load of city players considering who we have working for us.

We will need both of jwp and Lavia go.

I'm OK with this but ffs it's really making me nervous that we aren't being linked with much experience. Does every single link have to be a promising youngster???

The fact we are apparently desperate to sign him probably means we have at least spoken to him and received some positive feedback.

Probably because he's not as good as Rice and with the Rice money they want better. Doesn't mean he's not more than good enough for the championship though and potentially the prem. If West Ham really wanted to keep him then we'd have no chance clearly.

It gives me benthelegend "who is that black defender he is so dominant" vibes.

You play football sue? You must tell us about it some time.

I think there needs to be a bit of realism. Yes we shouldn't sell for a stupid price but a championship club doesn't force a player of lavia's quality and potential to stay when champions league clubs come calling.

Well we will see won't we. Absolutely no chance he's staying so if no one will pay 50 something will have to budge.

Liverpool would ask for more than 50 million undoubtedly. Our asking price is below what they woukd want. FWIW I think he will go for 40-45.

In fact it would be significantly more if it were on the back of excellent performances over a season.

Hard disagree. Given his age and the price of players in the prem now, he's easily worth 50 million. It's not potential he's already an excellent player and will just get better. If he was at a big club already then 50 million would be seen as a decent price.

There's an argument that jwp and Tino are overpriced. I don't see how anyone could seriously argue that Lavia is at 50 million. There isn't a better u-20 player in the Premier league.

Not in the championship he hasn't.

He mentioned changing the way he plays in response to some of the players. There was some suggestion that he had no wingers at Swansea and he also mentioned having dynamism in attack.

Twitter people getting very excited at some non-commital statements from Alcaraz on social media. In all seriousness though, if we somehow manage to keep Alcaraz, Tino and Tella we are going to have some seriously good players in the championship.