S-Clarke

If they want him, they pay the going rate. If they can't pay the going rate go away and don't give us your deadwood.

Did I dream the fact we spent £100m in the summer window? I don't think that constitutes doing anything on the cheap. Decisions were iffy, granted, but they didn't withhold cash.

huh?

Vokins was rated at one point, but I don't see him going much further than non-league in his career. Probably needs to drop down to Conference South and work his way back up, he may make it as a league player - but no higher than L2, just don't think he's got it.

£475 for a new season ticket for L1 football is absolutley ludicrous.

If that is true, I'd probably look towards Swansea American ownership too who are known to change goalposts on deals at the 11th hour and delay and delay over everything. It's certainly not going to be as clear cut as ''we don't pay x'', if that is the case.

This is what I mentioned earlier, I think as a club we're totally confused and caught between two styles. That has also massively impacted our recruitment as we have such a miss match of a squad with no team suited to one way, it's just messy and incredibly unbalanced if you look at it on paper - that's why the attack is like a tombola, nothing sticks. We've focused so much in recent years on players who are good off the ball, but are actually pretty shit when they have it. That started to change a bit last summer, but it needs to continue at a pace this year whilst also flogging the players who are just caught in between styles.

You remind me of Always, just constantly attacking other views and mocking everyone.

Looks like Wolves are about to fall back into obscurity, this year may have just delayed the inevitable for them. Lopotegui's future in doubt as Wolves can no longer guarantee him any funds to improve or add to the squad - they can only sell this summer.

If we have any sense he won't play, and we'll have the likes of Alcaraz, Doyle, Dibling involved who will be much more important for our future than he is. But we won't have any sense, so I expect a front 3 of Ely, Aribo and Theo.

That SaintRob guy is everything that is wrong with twitter, he seems to think he's some sort of celebrity and even got himself a fake tick. Can't deny that he's a Saints fan, but there are ways to go about it and he's just painful.

Doesn't he have some sort of footballing academy in Brighton, or did I make that up? If that is true then he's a bit entrepreneurial as I believe he set that up himself.

In the last couple of years I feel that we've lost our identity, we've got a bit confused. When Ralph first came in we were a clear high pressing team, counter pressing for fun. Eventually, as Liverpool also discovered in this league, that was found out and teams came up with ways to not just 'nullify' you - but to actually expose the gaping holes that style of play leaves, if you beat the press then you have ample chances. For me, that 0-9 game changed a lot. We did go on a decent run shortly after that, weirdly, but a fear had crept into our game and slowly but surely we became more and more risk adverse and we focused more on what we did without the ball (to protect ourselves) than what we did when we had it. That's confused us because we're crap defensively anyway, but we've then nullified our attack through style and also the loss of personal (Ings), so it's been a recipe for disaster really. 'If' we can bring ourselves back with a style that we all know, a philosophy that we can all coach towards, then I think it will help. We can then also start recruiting players for the right style, rather than this mis-match of recruitment we have been doing in recent years. As much as I enjoyed 'gegenpressing', I think it's had it's time (2015-2019 ish) and now we are entering back into an era of tika-taka style football. As long as we have the substance to go with the style then I don't see it as a bad thing to focus on keeping the ball, it will certainly be more productive than focusing on what we do without the ball.

Everton are about to secure some investment, plus they have much higher commercial revenue than us - and will bring in much more with a new stadium too. Even though they are skint in relative terms, they still paid more last summer on a single player (Onana) than we have ever spent on a player ourselves. I don't think we should automatically expect Everton to implode if they get relegated, I think it'll be a similar situation to that of Newcastle - they'll have the stature to build a team way too good for that level. I remember the same comments about Newcastle when they got relegated with Duff/Owen and co in the side, they may go all the way down etc - never happened, as they were just too big for that to ever happen to - same will be true of Everton (not that I think it will happen, it'll be the same as it looks today imo). As funny as it would be to see 'today', I think it would have a negative determent on our ability to compete next year - so I hope they stay away.

I don't think you could ever say they're avoiding making changes or slow at making decisions, they certainly don't faff around which I think we were prone to do under previous regimes. But the proof is in the pudding - all of those decisions they've made so far have been terrible, so we have to hope it will balance it's self out now as we cannot afford anymore bad calls.

Leeds need too much to go their way, whilst keeping Harry Kane quiet. Too much for them I think. Still feel that bloody Everton will squeeze themselves out of it though, I see both Leicester and Everton winning on the final day. I think Leicester needed to win tonight to really make Everton stress.

Leicester fans have been calling for those two to be dropped for ages, they can't stand either. Their biggest prob with the line up tonight is their midfield, they want Tiliemans dropped as well.

I really struggle with the ''He's done it in this league before'' argument, there may have been many reasons as to why - but based on pure technical ability, that wasn't one of the reasons. He is one of the worst footballers I've watched, his touch and ability on the ball is of a much lower level than the top two leagues in England. 2 years we've had him here and in every single game he has looked so far off the level it's been ridiculous, and decent Championship players shouldn't ever look as far off the PL level as he has - so I'm very sceptical if he's even a decent Championship player.

I think last summer they went half-way with their changes, but it's always risky in my opinion when you have a new ownership group mixed with previous parts of the old ownership group and previous management etc. Now they are having the clean sweep you could argue they needed 12 months ago, all the appointments at every level will be their appointments so the chances of everything being joined up is much higher as from where I'm sat everything looked a bit disjointed behind the scenes this year, different people wanting different outcomes etc. I'm pleased we're moving quickly and aren't dawdling, which we have been prone to do. So that's a positive, I just hope the replacements do the job we need them to do.

The third goal was just as bad. Sandwiched in between a decent save though. Our GK's are bipolar.

Think I got Fulham mixed up with their previous attempts years ago, sure that took them a few goes. Watford bombed a bit last year, but you could say that's more down to their crazy owners than anything else (hopefully we're not saying the same in 6 months) It's not going to be easy though, but hopefully more enjoyable than the last 4 or 5 years of utter crap.

Didn't it take Fulham a couple of seasons to come back? Ditto Sheff U, they finished 7th or 8th in the Champ last year. It will be very difficult to shrug off over a year of losing games, the whole culture of the club is rotten to the core which is why I'm so against continuing with anything that's in the building today. Start again, scrap the lot of it, and build again from there to hopefully put ourselves in a similar position as the 2011 team in a few years. I don't think we should be expecting a Burnley level season, we'll be more in and around what Norwich did due to the amount of change we'll go through.

This is where we are massively underestimating the Championship. In no way what so ever do we have a quality championship spine, not even close. We're spineless in whatever league we play in, it's not all about quality. I look back to 2011 and we had Kelvin, Fonte, Morgan, Hammond, Lambo down the spine. Now that's a spine, experience, leadership, guts and quality. I can see no one in the current squad who has the attributes any of those had, given that we'll lose KWP, Lavia, JWP then for a start our CM area needs an enormous amount of work - open heart surgery you could say. Let's not kid ourselves that we already have Championship class in this team, we don't. We have one or two players who did well years ago, but have been so far out of their comfort zone here than it will be impossible for them to ever do well for us in whatever league we are in (Talking Armstrong). So we're not well placed, if we went in to the Champ with the team we started with today we'd lose most games. Bullied off the pitch, with zero composure at the moments that matter. We need a lot of work and given the quick appointment of Martin it seems that that club also appreciate that.

It's boring, but you've got to respect it really. It's not simply down to money either, as seems to be the easy thing to proclaim. Man Utd have spent more than them over the last few years, and let's not even start with Chelsea. They might have money, but they've done it right and they have a manager in place who has raised the level of a lot of those players. When they bought Dias, Rodri, Alvarez, KDB and co they weren't ready made superstars, but he's raised their level massively. That's been the difference for me, you've got Chelsea chasing ready-made superstars, Man Utd going for Ronaldo/Pogba/Casimero etc, but City just doing it another way and developing. I know the piss is taken out of our obsession with Man City and copying them etc, but there is a reason why - they do a lot of good stuff there, money or no money.

So competitive that we will finish 10 points adrift in one of the worst bottom halves of the leagues in many years, maybe ever.