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Lord

Pony

I'm not sure that taking steps to stop a club loaning us players that will improve us amounts to us "doing something right".

Eh? Asking a loan player if he's happy is a wee bit different to asking a loan player if he'd like to sign permanently and floating the idea in the media.

Turkish is correct. If clubs lend us their players and we encourage them to sign, and unsettle the player, its pretty obvious that we'll damage our chances of loaning other players. It's a bit like having a crack at your mates hot wife when his back is turned.

All players are sounded out before a bid is made, its a fact of football life. The important part here is not biting the hand of Chelsea that's been feeding us very well. That's the tapping up that is a no no here.

There'll be all sorts of possible permutations to a deal involving us signing Broja, or agreeing to end his loan early. Tino's buy back could come into play, ditto all sorts of other players. They've got Bettinelli as number 3 keeper who's no worse than McCarthy, for example. Tino is superb but we've shown we're OK without him. Broja over Tino all day long for me.

Of course it does. Chelsea don't let us borrow their contracted players only for us to try to talk them into signing permanently. Chelsea are looking after us very well, and pissing them off wouldn't be clever so we need to tread carefully.

Lamb

Towel

Entitled to respect, yes, but it's a tournament that doesn't respect domestic leagues or the clubs that employ a huge number of the players in the tournament.

That'd be us going backwards. We've paid more than that for loads of players and if we want to progress, we've gotta aiming higher than that. Anyway, £15m bought us Adam Armstrong and if that's the benchmark at that price point, we've got problems if £15m is our cap.

Knot

Nope. It's obvious to anyone that this kid is going to be very special. Sure, £40m is mega bucks, but ask yourself whether a desperate Saudi backed Newcastle paying double what we paid for Carillo a few years ago is really that outrageous.

Only if the deal has a recall clause, or we agree to cancel if there isn't. If there's no recall clause, all sorts of deals could be done to encourage us to cancel...other loans, a transfer with subsidised wages, a deal on the Tino buy back, Betinelli on a free, anything really.

So about what we paid Guido Carillo and Vestergaard. Seems like a bargain in comparison.

A loan to a bottom end league 2 side makes you wander. Eastleigh Town wouldn't have been a much lower standard. That said, it'll be regular men's football which will do him no harm.

Yep. Disrupting major leagues in the middle of the season for that nonsense is ridiculous. Play it by all means, but off season.

It could be that, but there may be restrictions re unsettling him or seeking to buy him. One interpretation is that we've pissed Chelsea off, have smoothed it and will now shut up as we don't want to bite the hand that feeds us.

Caddy

Nice show of intent, but I'd be staggered if we get him for that. I think we've also gotta be careful about keeping our relationship with Chelsea sweet. They're a conveyer belt of talent for potential loans and talent and we've got to keep an eye on the bigger picture.

Chimp

Yep. He had a shocking period, and it was a tad odd to read people argue that he had not made mistakes that he admitted making. The corner appears to have been turned though.

It's all about opinions mate. Some people think Ralph has become more flexible, but some people can't. That's opinion, and we all see it differently. I mean some people think Adam Armstrong is better than Broja. It's the opinion of people like that, on managers and players, I struggle to respect.

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