Saint Matty 76

Sticking in the 532 with THB - Bednarek - Edwards as first choice defence, with Stephens and Wood as rotation/back-up. ABK sold to (hopefully) cover the cost of Edwards and Wood? Sounds like strong business to me.

https://fixupx.com/nickmashiter/status/1808130670394277967 "Southampton have bid around £6m for Bournemouth's Max Aarons (which will be rejected if not already). Saints also close to finalising Nathan Wood and Ronnie Edwards deals. More @BBCSport" Close to finalising Wood & Edwards apparently? I promise he's a real source despite the name.

Apparently £5m for Wood, can’t complain with that for an England u21 CB. Have to say I wasn’t impressed in either game, but you’d assume he’s either 1. Not coming in as a starter, or 2. Bumping Stephens down the pile a bit. THB, Bednarek, ABK, Wood & Stephens CB room first area to be sorted? Or does ABK go and we get one other?

Could probably get away with Edwards' height if we stick with the 5-3-2 and play him wide.

Good shout, forgot about Danny! Players signed in our most recent top flight era, I should've specified.

Can’t believe people are disappointed about Perraud. Just because the second worst defensive left-back I’ve ever seen was currently alongside the worst, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try and improve. Genuine liability.

That's an exciting link for a change! My Dutch mate thinks he's class and said he was expecting him to get a better move. Bittersweet on KWP though unless we're planning on him being on the left permanently, both as wing-backs.

And the Roma fans are talking about how they'd buy him the one-way-ticket themselves. Remember being excited for Carrillo until I translated some tweets from Monaco fans who were just laughing at the fee.

Brereton-Diaz loan with an option, same as Sheffield United just had, seems like a no brainer. Just had a good goalscoring rate at a really poor team and it'd still allow us our two PL loan spots.

Would be an absolutely excellent signing, with/without KWP as he could just move over to the left. I imagine he'd have a better option within the league, but maybe there'd be some sort of preference for him to play in a possession system like ours? Seems unlikely, but I am intrigued to see how much use we can make out of our two PL loans this year.

Appreciate it! Wasn't doubting by any means, just truly clueless to how it's all laid out these days. Chelsea don't help.

How is this possible though, given the fact that we pretty much recuperated all the money we spent from 22/23 last year?

I'd be surprised to see us go away from the 5-3-2, especially given that CB is probably our strongest depth and it was trusted in the important games at the end of the season. ? KWP - THB - Bednarek - ABK - Fraser Smallbone - ?/Downes - ? A. Armstrong - ? Suddenly looks a little less daunting in terms of incomings. Potential for players like Stewart, Alcaraz and Lallana to fill those gaps if we don't get business done before August as well. Definitely not an exciting team, you have to say.

The worst part about the absolutely massive amount of squad building we require is that we’ll probably still lose our best player (KWP) due to him only having a year left on his deal.

50-odd PL appearances in the last three years at LB, RB, LM or RM in Brentford. Couple of spells as a starter but mainly utility player by the looks of it. No complaints if it’s true, definitely not messing about with a lack of experience this year. No genuine idea of his ability, mind. https://griffinpark.org/forums/threads/saman-ghoddos.134246/page-59 Top guy, rarely let us down but questionable physically seems to be the consensus.

Tammy would be excellent but definitely out of our reach. Any striker we sign is going to have red flags, just like Ings did when we signed him off the back of the ACL’s. Not going to be a perfect sounding option out there.

Brereton Diaz did okay numbers wise for Sheffield United on the face of it, but that really is one uninspiring list. You'd like to think we've got a decent amount of money to spend this Summer right? £130m spent in 22/23 before making £150m in 23/24, and now the added financial bonus of promotion... Going to take a lot to even have a good go at it, if we're being honest.

Confirmed we're in talks to extend both Che and McCarthy. It's a thank you and goodbye to both from my perspective, based on both what they'd want and a real need for us to progress.

One of my favourite players over the past few years, hope he gets a good move back to Scotland or that Fiorentina one I’ve seen mentioned. Great player on his day, legs are on their way out but a great signing for £7m(?).

£4m for Lyanco would’ve been a nice start. Hopefully someone else mental matches that.

Love to be proved wrong but we’re not signing Ramsdale. He’ll have plenty of better options, such as Newcastle. We should be aiming for Pope if at all possible once that happens.

Charity home regarding Broja is pretty unfair. Fair enough with Ings/Lallana etc. Given the fact he's 22, he actually perfectly encapsulates what has been our most successful business model of the last 10 years. Signing young, promising players who've fallen out of favour at a big club but could do a job elsewhere - KWP, Hojbjerg, Ings, Romeu, Bertrand. The injury is definitely a worry, as well as the Fulham spell, but I think anyone expecting us to sign a "sure thing" is kidding themselves. If it happens, I'm happy to be of the belief that an actual run playing football could get him back to where he was, rather than the fleeting in-and-out spells he's had both at Chelsea, and at Fulham behind Muniz who was in record-breaking form. Wouldn't be delighted to throw £20-25m at it off the bat, and would only love the signing if it was on more favourable terms such as a loan with an option/obligation based on performance. However, definitely wouldn't be labelling the move as a charity signing. Links to players such as Gimenez and Guirassy are just comical, and will never happen within our budget. We have to take risks.

ABK is an absolute no brainer to reintegrate for me if his heads in it, and I feel with him attending Wembley that it probably is. We'd do very well to find better than him in our price range, and with a good PL year he's immediately a £40/50m player. THB, ABK, Bednarek, Stephens + one new signing feels like a good core of CB's for me. Lawrence to try and break through, or one more year out on loan? Alcaraz is difficult. He was, for me, the standout positive of the second half of last season, but he was really disappointing in the Championship. Doesn't seem to fit the Martin style of football due to somewhat questionable passing. A good player but not one who is right for this system? Sell (if we get a good fee) and reinvest candidate, but I'd be happy to see him involved. I can't say I've ever rated Perraud. Better than what we have? Yes. At the level I'd want? Probably not. I'd understand bringing him back and using him to fill a gap if we feel like there's bigger priorities this Summer. It wouldn't be devastating for him to return, and it certainly wouldn't be devastating for us to receive ~£10m and go elsewhere. TLDR; I'd be disappointed to lose ABK. Alcaraz/Perraud not particularly fussed either way.

Absolutely fucking not! But it truly cannot get much worse.

This is where we need to stop being so "romantic" as a club. Thank you very much for stepping up when it mattered, McCarthy. However, you've been more than appropriately compensated for that throughout your contract here and it's time to part ways with fond memories. We have to get a better goalkeeper now, and we're legitimately fortunate that Bazunu is injured otherwise we'd have unfathomably given him another shot in this league. Ramsdale and Ortega are two ambitious (and remarkably unlikely) names of keepers available this Summer. If Ramsdale ends up going to Newcastle, could we get Pope? Di Gregorio was statistically the most impressive keeper this season, so that's a name I wouldn't be surprised to see a link for. Although based on Bazunu, I think SR stop caring about statistics when it's in relation to a Goalkeeper. I was impressed by Max O'Leary at Bristol City, for a more realistic name. Brentford & Brighton (the two other similarly ran clubs) pulled their Goalkeepers from Freiburg and Anderlecht last Summer however, so I'm sure we'll end up with a name we've not heard before.