S-Clarke

I did squirm when I saw that happen, he seemed to walk it off ok at the time, but maybe an issue caused by this has come to light after a few days rest. Great timing. Valery it is then, as I can't see us throwing a new signing in for Saturday (Even if we do make them in time).

I don't know if I could deal with the pre-liebherr years under Wotte, Wilde and Portvillet again though.

Doesn't feel like it was that long ago. I remember the stories broke from nowhere on a Sunday night, some ITK's on a Bristol Rovers forum started posting some info on it and then the papers in Bristol picked it up. Exactly the sort of signing we needed in L1. Someone suited to that league, probably the best goal scorer at that level and it set the tone for the calibre. I don't think anyone expected him to continue his journey with us to the PL and play for England though, that is true fairy tale stuff. The years supporting this team with Rickie in it were the most fun I've ever had as a football supporter.

Exactly the same as said last time. We were going into the game at their place on the back of a pretty tough night against Bournemouth, so most were expecting us to get done. But even if we didn't play great and don't have 'amazing' players, we're still levels above that lot. Even Redmond looked like a world beater.

It's a bit of a mess. Stephens isn't a good player, I know fans clamour for him because of his passion and all that stuff, but just watch him positionally for a game. Inept is the only way you can sum him up. Gets pulled all over the place, has no idea where to be. Not a PL CB, never has been, yet for some reason he's existed here for many years. Bednarek is pretty tosh, but he's also a victim of the setup in the sense of how exposed he is. He's very slow, not very mobile, so when the midfield gets done and the oppo are running directly at him he will look like Bambi on ice. Because he hasn't got pace, and he knows that, he commits early to try and win the ball and often ends up on his arse and makes us even more exposed. He also struggles in the box against quick players who turn, due to his lack of agility he can get done very quickly over a short space. What happens then is you've got Salisu as the last line of defence as the only one with pace. Salisu has the right attributes, pace, height, strength. But lacks experience at times, it feels like he needs a bit of guidance through some situations but a lot of the time it feels like we put all our eggs in the Salisu basket as he is the last line of defence once Bednarek is left on a heap on the floor. Bella-Kotchap is another one with the right attributes, but obviously experience is going to be an issue here. Salisu and ABK as a pair 'could' be ok, but there will also be some pretty horrible moments born out of inexperience. Obviously, you only get experience one way and that's by playing, so I'd still be tempted to pair him with Salisu. Valery isn't a CB. End of. Lyanco shouldn't have been signed. Really annoyed by that signing to be honest, we should have been a bit wiser and got a loan for the season or something. He's too rash for this league. Simeu will be one who lives out on loan I imagine. I don't see the problem with us signing a freebie player to bolster the u23's, but he looks like a decent lower league player to me and nothing more. So, we certainly could do with one more once we shift a couple out. Someone mid 20's with a bit of experience would be ideal. I know people talk of Bednarek and Stephens offering the experience, but they're very limited players so it doesn't really help a great deal.

I'm fairly sure Selles was brought in with a view to take over at some point, as he seems to be heading on that trajectory (following the Thomas Frank journey). But....this season would be too soon, I'm sure the club will explore that at the end of Ralphs deal, but if they have to change up before that we'd have to go for an established manager.

Were you asleep during our £58m outlay on 7 players before the start of the season, and even before pre-season in most of the cases? That's certainly not something you can wave at the club this summer.

I do now remember a link to Leicester, the talk is that they wanted a new keeper to replace Kasper - but that new keeper would be more rotational/more backup, as they're looking at Danny Ward to be the new number 1. Given that Brendon seems to love shopping here so much, maybe we can do a special deal and include Bednarek as well? Buy 1, get one free.

There was talk about Lis moving on loan, and our 3 keepers being McCarthy, Bazunu and Willy - but apparently Lis doesn't want to leave on loan, so maybe we still need to shift one of the keepers - would make sense to shift McCarthy as it would save us a bit on wages. Getting £1-2.5m for him is a win in my books, just so we don't have the risk of him playing in goal.

If we get the scouting wrong then we're done for, no beating around the bush on that. The next signings we make will make our break our immediate future. But I think the club are looking for better than Che and are using this opportunity to maximise return on him. Let's see how it looks at the end of the window.

Oh for sure, I'd be totally expecting two strikers brought in if we don't keep Che. I'd also be disappointed if we only signed one. We currently have a gap for 1 striker as we haven't replaced Broja, so logic dictates that we still need a Broja type and then a 'new' adams if he goes. I just hope the club aren't counting on Aribo being a number 9 though.

Madness if we don't replace him or if we only replace him with a kid who has never played mens football. If we replace him with a couple of better players then we probably won't miss him. If we get it wrong then it does have a Fitz Hall vibe about it for sure.

The Che Adams one is an interesting one. Let's be honest here for a second, he's the best of a very, very bad bunch of attacking players we have at our disposal. He has good physical attributes, but as a finisher I'd class him as very limited. Our best spells over the last couple of years have coincided with top strikers such as Ings and Broja having good spells in the side, whenever we have to rely on Adams for a period of time to produce our points return falls dramatically. I cannot see Che ever getting 10 goals or more at this level, and for a support player that's probably not too bad, but when we needed him to step up last year after Ings departure he didn't. I think there is some truth in that we're looking for players to sell who 1) have interest in them and 2) have somewhat of a usable value. We've spent quite a bit this summer without sales, my hunch is that we'd hoped we'd get takers on Redmond, Moussa, Theo, Bednarek etc to maybe bring some funds in and lower the wage bill - but no takers as they're rubbish, so like someone said above we now move onto the next lot of expendable players. If we get the scouting right we should be able to find better than Che. I'd only have a problem with his sale if 1) we don't replace him or 2) the replacement is a kid.

I think what you look at with Dyche is what made him successful at Burnley. Two target men centre forwards, wide players who got up and down the line, and old CB's who just dug in. A proper old fashioned 4-4-2 English setup. When they tried to move away from that at Burnley and bring in Cornet, Collins, attacking wing back Conor Roberts (more footballing type players) he started to struggle. Bring him in here and we have none of the players to create the team he would like to. It would be a daft move that would end in misery for everyone.

I wouldn't say he's inexperienced in our usual approach, I think he's 24. Full season as first choice in the Bundesliga, Germany U21 international on the fringes of their first team. Previous season on loan in dutch football for a season. So he's had 2 or 3 seasons in a 'top division'.

Powerful typical number 9 type to be fair, decent stats last season but not earth shattering. He would have likely been recruited to the City academy by Shields, so might be something in it. Might as well rename ourselves to Man City B at this rate.

I wonder why no one else has yet? He was on my list of potentials at the start of the window too, he was linked to WHU but that never materialised. Like you said, last year of his deal, available in the 15m ball park. Not over the hill old, and at that right age of player we need to add. I do think we need to shift at least 1 CB before we can even contemplate signing another though, that's half the conundrum I reckon.

Let's not start that one up, it's going to be even more depressing.

They've spent more money than almost any club in the world, but everything about that club is just wrong from the scouting to the players. Their main striker target now, after Sesko said no, is 34 year old Marco Arnautovic. Baffling way that club is being run on the scouting side.

Yeah he's got another bad hamstring tear, few months I think I read. Got to feel sorry for him, much like Wiltshire injuries have totally ruined any chance of a top career.

Would be a daft move, you don't build a club on that. That's one way of moving from manager to manager to manager over a short-period of time. I can't see how we have the players for Dyche-ball either, for a start he needs defenders who know how to defend and target men who know how to play up top on their own. We have neither. I do still have the overriding fear that changing the manager will change very little in terms of our outcome. I just look at Utd and the amount of managers they've gone through, still utilising the same core of useless players and then wondering why it's always the same. Feels similar with us to be honest.

There's experience and then there's established players, I think people are calling for more established players if anything. We need more players in the mid-20's mark, young enough to still give us a potential all important sell-on, but experienced enough with a few seasons behind them to hit the ground running from day 1. I don't want us signing a load of 30+ has-beens on their way down, but we need a better mix. Equally I don't want our transfer policy being a case of trying to unearth every 'Tino' in the world (that was my fear at the start of the summer tbh). I know there is talk of there being 'established' players already here, but bar JWP and KWP our established players are pretty hopeless at football.

I wonder how long Utd will give Ten Haag? It would be ridiculous to even call him out though, given that many managers get the same tune from the same players - i.e nothing. Not sure what they expect to be different when they're STILL lining up with McTominay, Fred, Maguire, Dalot etc. It's just groundhog day. And every summer they seem to create some sort of transfer saga, by tracking a player who doesn't want to join them or they aren't willing to pay the fee for. It's funny to watch though. All the talk of this being the big Utd rebuild and they're still starting with Fred and McTominay.

I'd love to know the thinking as to why we went for Diallo once Sanagre didn't happen, if he rejected us then (or work permits were an issue) we were clearly looking for a physical DM, but Daillo is the polar opposite of Sangere.

Yeah, I'm not sure Selles was a Ralph pick. He had a say, but it was a SR pick with that in mind - thought that at the time. But I imagine it was ear marked for 2 years though, he wouldn't be ready yet if we pulled the plug on Ralph tomorrow.