StrangelyBrown

No they didn't - it was £40m!

No one will be spending £50m+ on a championship player so if we want that sort of fee we'd be better selling now than at the end of next season. I don't know why anyone thinks his value is going to go up with a season in the championship - while logical in reality it just doesn't seem to work like that.

To be fair I the championship we sometimes swept teams away brilliantly, but we were inconsistent at best often riding our luck rather than putting inferior teams to bed.

I think you've missed the point.... Half the time Russ' football was anything but beautiful - it was often incredibly tedious. We so often lacked the courage in the final third. So often played the ball backwards in good positions. So often gave the ball away in the same old positions in the same old way. Give me Koeman, Poch, Ball or Nichol over Martin any day - those guys knew what good looked like and knew how to entertain.

There's something very iffy with the way the PL is officiated, but maybe Liverpool benefit from the same bias that persists in the media - even when they were bang average they got far more airtime and praise than they deserved.

Surely we can't only have one? Most of the squad deserve stick for being utter shite.

I agree it's difficult to be certain. Unfit teams normally suffer from losing late goals - we're so bad we ship goals for fun all the time. Having said that we don't seem capable of running as much and as hard as anyone else in the division and our players aren't very strong in the tackle, but that could just be that we have a team that aren't as good athletes as the rest. What is clear is that our squad is bloated with players who just aren't athletic enough for this division whether or not you call it fitness or call it physical capabilities and that is on the scouting and coaching teams (past and present).

It would be incredibly saintsy for our players to realise they are in the shop window and turn up for this one and play really well but still lose in the last minute. Everyone will ask why haven't we played like that until now and the we revert to losing 4-0 every week.

We need to break the cycle. We've got a whole bunch of players who are too good for the championship, but who have proven over and over how inept they are at PL level. I'd do something drastic and next year I'd only keep younger players who after a good season in the championship might make the step up with better players around them. This would be pretty limited though ... Wood Edwards Welington Shea Archer (at a push) I'd love us to keep ramsdale, dibling and Fernandes, but they'll be long gone. I'd drive everyone else to wherever they wanted to go.

Leicester really are utter dogshit. They've actually got a few decent players and yet look worse than us which is some achievement.

I couldn't agree less. 3 CBs is harder to play than 2 and isn't just a case of adding extra bodies. 3 at the back creates freedom for fullbacks to play higher and become wing backs, which in turn allows an overload midfield. Plus one of the three should step up into a more offensive position when we have the ball. Sadly our players just aren't good enough to play that system.

It seems simple. Go 4-2-3-1 with... Ramsdale KWP THB Bednarek Wellington Les Downes/Aribo Dibling Fernandes Sule Onuachu The only real choice for me is whether to bring Downes back in.

It's the last bit that really resonates with me. No matter how good our scouting is without a coherent strategy we'll still struggle. Unfortunately Spors seems to be a recruitment guy rather than a club strategy guy so I'm not sure we'll be much better off even if he is better than I expect him to be.

How many of our players would you want in our squad?

MLG schooled by his own methods.

I'm with you on the relegation squad. We didn't always look completely convincing last year in the championship and we've barely improved upon that team. There is a huge gulf in quality between the leagues so it's no wonder we're struggling.

Time will tell, his early CV is good albeit he didn't stick around anywhere for very long, but his time with 777 partners is nothing to get tremendously excited about, they gambled on him bringing success through a multi club moneyball project (sound familiar ???) and it failed, but then they've had other problems to contend with.

I'm not sure why Spors was bought in at all - he hasn't exactly worked miracles in his previous role and right now we need something better than more mediocrity. I just hope something happens that will change our trajectory, but we seem to be making poor decision after poor decision and there really is no clear plan.

Unbelievable that they've managed to find someone else who rates Smallbone - the odds must have been 1000000/1.

Do you think we haven't got to sell to make up the shortfall of revenue resulting from relegation (last I knew this was between £100m and £150m)? We may buy some players, but we haven't got the same level of saleable assets we had last time round - the likes of Bednarek, KWP, Aribo are all at the end of their contracts. Dibling might get us £50m, Fernandes might get us £30m or £40m at a push. I can't see us being able to spend big enough to make a difference.

I hope you are right, but I've got a nasty feeling we're in for rough ride next season. On the 3 centre backs, we seem to have had a weird obsession to play 3 at the back ever since SR took over... Hassenhutl seemed like he was being forced to do it, Mad Nate played 3 at the back to start with, then RM and now Juric is playing with 3 at the back. I'm convinced that this is Rasmus' contribution following on from the success of playing 3 at the back with Brentford.

Ha ha. Good point

Depressingly I could see us starting the season with Baz Suga Bree Wood Edwards Welington Charles Downes Archer Smallbone Edozie Onuachu I'm not sure that's anywhere near good enough to push for promotion....

To be honest, and as a Ralph fan myself, he'd run out of ideas and we needed someone new to freshen the place up. The mistake was replacing him with a Welsh PE teacher who wanted to play a completely different (and basic) style of football.

Aarrrr is it time for Captain Jack to make sure we get a jolly rodgering??