S-Clarke

We'll spend the next 3 weeks haggling over that one, until we realise he's free and then Bolton will nip in and grab him.

My cynical view is that the stuff coming out today are all the players we've 'tried' to sign over the course of the entire window, just so we look active in the final 24 hrs and can play the ''we tried so hard'' card tomorrow. Let's see what happens.

Bid in for Vitinha of Braga (£26m). Bid in for Paul Onatchu of Genk (not sure how much, probably £15-20m). Attempted to get Dembele, may still have legs but not sure. Interested in Ayew on a free.

Just saw that Chelsea are going to break the British transfer record on that Argentina fella, how are they able to do this? That's around £600m spent in 7 months. There are uneven playing fields and then there's that.

Would be more sensible to do a loan, but I don't think Lyon wanted that. At the end of the day though I reckon the player isn't interested.

When do we think this paragraph will be published? I'm going for 4pm tomorrow. ''Southampton were keen on Vitinha, and were prepared to break their transfer record to get their man, but whilst the player was keen it became apparent that there was simply not enough time to conclude a deal of such complexity and high value. Southampton head into the rest of the season with their current options and are understood to be relaxed and have belief in the talent already at the club. The club rejected several approaches for Che Adams and Sekou Mara this window which the club believe illustrates that they already have top quality options at their disposal, which meant adding better than those was always going to be incredibly difficult''. *For context, I've made this up - but it's very believable!*

That's a good draw, I didn't realise how few PL teams there are left. Decent chance for a minnow to win a cup this year, it needed to happen at some point for Spurs I guess.

The Lyon striker, former Celtic forward. Very good level, would be surprised to see him come here and I'm surprised there aren't other suitors at the price. I think the advice his agent will be giving him is to wait until the summer, unless we offer him a bumper contract with a 'get out' at the end of the season should he want to go. That's probably the only way we do this one.

The Vitinha link screams of Gakpo, massive fee to show that we 'have money' but actually no intention of ever getting it done. I can't help but be cynical right now, let's see where we are this time tomorrow. There is hardly any time for these deals to come to fruition.

Our young left back hoarding has been quite weird in recent years. Small, Vokins still around, Rodriguez (although I think he's gone now), and then Larios this summer. None of them good enough for the first team either. (yet).

And this is an example of why this league is seemingly too expensive for us. Players like Gallagher and Broja to an extent last year, not massively proven, just a young player from a bigger club academy...now attracting bids in the £40m region, whereas we are still flapping around at 10-15m buys expecting to find 'proven quality' in that bracket. Wake up Saints, you can't.

It is diffcult, but this isn't something that's struck us out of nowhere in the last 2 weeks. We've known for a year.

Well exactly, I'd say that's putting the club in a bigger financial shit - surely? Or am I missing something.

Not at all, a wide man/pace and a striker is what we need. But if it was a toss up I'd still go for a number 9. We do have Carlos and Orsic in to help with the creative stakes, who weren't here before.

Here it comes...

We've gone on from a couple, to now just trying to get one in...

Ralph was a success for us, anyone suggesting otherwise is not telling the truth. He was a forward-thinking appointment at the time and somewhat of a coup, he galvanised the club when he first came in and the results took an uplift. The total opposite has happened with Jones. A club already on a downward trajectory needed a lift, but they hired a manager which hasn’t just split the fanbase it’s brought it together in a single view. Things with Ralph became stale when we couldn't invest in the team, ironically the summer we did we have managed to have a shit show – but I still say that the lack of investment in a striker killed us. In the time Ralph was here we were never embroiled in a relegation battle. We may have been on the periphery from time to time, but we were pretty much like Palace - just floating around in mid-table.

If we're honest he shouldn't be anywhere near the bench of a proper PL side, let alone the first 11. Says it all really.

This is how I see it to be honest, we've not moved with the times. I don't agree with how expensive football has become and the transfer fee's that are floating around, it's insane, but if you don't join in then you're pretty much gone as a competitive club. Like you said, the £15m we spent on the likes of Boufal and Lemina a few years ago would now likely equate to more in the £30m range for similar levels of players - Weston McKinnie being a fine example of that. We just haven't been able to move on from our 15-20m ish range - so much so that the only players we can now get in that range are academy youngsters without any first team football, as the seasoned pro's are now above that figure. We have spent a lot of money from the sale of VVD and co, but it never really went above that 15-20m range on a single player and that will forever hold us back if we're fixated on that. So, if that is the case then this league is almost certainly too rich for us and we're only going one way.

Not really, but I'm sure that's what we'll be fed in the next 24 hrs.

Absolutley, the standard rumours we'll see over the next 24 hrs are not worth getting het up with. But....the quotes from the Athletic are worth following, they are fed by club sources so that's why people pay more attention to those. The fact that they even feel the need to put that quote out there is quite scary imo.

They spent £15m on a 20 year old CM from Argentina and £8m on an attacking midfielder from Croatia, that's £20m there which could have been put elsewhere. And I still believe that any credible scout can find a better striker than Che Adams on that budget.

But it's still the fact that it's so much easier to do this to a lower league club, even more so a non-league club. All they had to do was put a few bits of loose change in and they'd be better than anyone else, so automatically they'll start winning games and it's fun and the feelgood factor spreads because they win games. They win lots of games because they have spent money, that's the single factor in all of this. If they were bottom half of non-league and losing lots of games, I can guarantee you that their fans wouldn't be giving a hoot about Netflix documentaries and 'fan engagement', in fact they'd probably be calling it out. It's a lot harder doing that in the PL or higher as you need oil money.

That snippet from the Athletic will give me nightmares, it's club nonsense. I have no doubt that they're trying, but we knew we needed a striker on the First of July 2022. We're now into the last 48hrs (less) of the 2nd transfer window to fix it and we still haven't fixed it. I refuse to believe that any credible scouts cannot find a better centre forward than Che Adams and Sekou Mara within our budget. A kid, and someone who isn't a centre forward. They can dress it up as being sensible and not spending for the sake of it, but it's as far away from being sensible as you can get - it would be the 2nd negligent transfer window in a row had and heads should roll if it's like this on Wednesday. We'd need to cost cut in the Championship anyway, so what better way to start than to remove all these seemingly inept analysts we have failing to find a striker on all of the screens they gorp over all day.

The return of Lavia has allowed for the change of shape, which has enabled us to push JWP further forward. I think we all had the same view after the Chelsea home game, he is critical to our season and his spell out coincided with our midfield being the most weak and disjointed it's ever been, but now it has some structure again because of this prodigious 18 year old kid.