hypochondriac

I've even got normal non forum people mentioning in conversation how shit this transfer window has been for saints unprompted.

I would suggest if we have arrived at rak sakyi that we are already some way down our list.

Not exactly a nostradamus prediction given he's one of the only wingers we've been linked with .

I'm assuming Azaz and rak saki or similar and a CM backup option will be our lot. Will be interesting to see where we are stronger if anywhere !

If Fernandes goes will be interesting to see a comparison of the first 11 for this season compared to two years ago. Will be quite close I would have thought.

I assume a backup cm will very much be of that level.

Always the most likely choice. Perhaps him and Azaz and a winger on loan and that's it .

Chris Wood was the one for me. I thought we shoild have signed him for ages yet people turned their noses up because he wasn't sexy or exciting.

Why on earth would we agree to spend almost 9 million pounds in the championship on a striker that our new head of recruitment had nothing to do with? What madness is that?

"if it isn't broken consider breaking it". Edit: see someone beat me to it!

That's the bit people have an issue with. And who is to say Norwich are in a position to turn down 20? Sell Fernandes, smallbone, aribo and get Azaz and Sargent and two wingers on loan from the prem and we will go up imo. You won't get a better championship striker for the money even if there are doubts about him in the prem.

Living in hope we just sign a brilliant player with no previous links. Whilst there's time there's hope.

Brum are very much the exception in this league though. They are something of an outlier it must be said. I'm not writing off Downs and Quarshie yet, simply saying that I assume we didn't sign them and expect them to hit the ground running and we probably knew they were works in progress that may be able to contribute at some point in the future for us. I'd argue those weren't the sort of signings we should have been making at this point unless we were also buying established players to improve the first team now in those positions. Downs at this point for me is a bit of a waste of a squad space. What we badly needed was someone immediately superior to Stewart and offering something different from Archer and Armstrong and I don't think we can say with confidence that we definitely have that at the moment and that's a problem when you're spending that amount on a striker.

I think this week will tell us a lot. If I had started this summer and had 8.6 million to spend on one player (an absolutely massive amount of cash let's not forget), Downs would not have been the player I went for. He's going to have to really go some to justify that price tag. He's going to have to start justifying it this season, not be someone like Charles whose value is now paying off after three years.

Fuck me 8.6 million from a championship club for Damion Downs. He better start performing soon and settling into this league because that's a huge amount of money for this league.

I agree. Our scouting is mostly crap and I've seen very little indication that there's been a big change of strategy this year despite the different personnel and despite the slight changes of location for the players being scouted.

That may be the case but in fairness that's why I was reluctant to put up names when someone routinely demands that we name better players than the ones we have brought in already. As I pointed out earlier, the club have an entire department who should be able to find names similar who wouldn't cost as much. Maybe we do have to bring in one of those bigger names though if the alternative is underwhelming and underperfprming signings from foreign leagues which will just mean we don't get promoted and end up losing the remaining quality we had anyway.

Haji Wright would be a good signing too. See there's loads and that's only looking at the championship. It's a nonsense to say there are no other options.

Thank you. It really wasn't a difficult one to understand unless you were doing it wilfully...

A good signing that is about the sort of signing I would expect us to sign. So I never used the adjective uninspiring then. So no you weren't right. There's obviously levels of signings and he's about the level I would expect for a good championship team. I described Fellows as the sort of signing that I would consider to be more impressive in a different position as I consider him to be slightly above our level and probably a good lower prem player.

Why has he been playing in the first team then? No one has currently come in for Sargent yet. Are there reports that we have bid 17 for him to test their resolve? Maybe we should have not bothered with Downs to try to give that a go instead. Who is calling for better signings than Azaz or Rudoni? I think this argument is in your own head. I'd also take Brooks.

No I didn't don't make things up. I said he was what I would class as a good signing. And who said it was easy? It's certainly not easy for one fan on a forum to come up with a list of realistic striker signings better than Downs or centre half signings better than Quarshie but it should be a heck of a lot easier for a professional football club. We managed THB last time out and he was certainly better than Quarshie. You're the one demanding people name players and then dismissing them all when they do.

And an entirely pointless exercise. At least smirking Saint has now stuck his neck on the line and admitted that he thinks the likes of Downs and Quarshie are the best players we could conceivably sign in our position.

Absolute bullshit. Someone just named Hamer. I quite liked the like of Furehashi from Birmingham. Absolutely no one has slammed an Azaz signing, the only thing I said was that he was about the level of player I would expect us to sign in our position and that I'd also like to see someone like Fellows signed who I judged to be exciting and quite ambitious. I never described an Azaz signing as boring you've just made that up. Rudoni Fellows Furehashi Hamer Brownhill That's 5 signings I'd liked to have seen us sign but like I said I'm not a big football club with a scouting network and it's for them to find the best players possible. Now watch as you dismiss all those players because I've dared to give you some actual names.

Who has slammed the Azaz signing?