S-Clarke

Yep, that's true. If that's the case then sadly this league is way too rich for us and we're better off out of it, as it'll be miserable otherwise. Any team in this league, bar Norwich and Burnley, has the means to spend more than £25m on a single player. And we know what happened to Norwich and Burnley. As crap as it is, money is needed at this level and without it you're hanging by a thread. I just find it staggering how we're in this position though. 10 years of PL money, 10 years of TV revenue, over £150m in player transfer fee's. Two takeovers. Hopefully I'm wrong and we do put some decent money down for a CB or an CM/Number 10!

Some players will sink or swim. It's fair to say Small, given his high ratings when he joined us, has sunk in the short-term and has struggled in the first team environment. That's what can happen - he was really highly rated, lots of excitement over it, but what happened with Small can happen to any young player no matter what their talent is. Like you said, we need better experienced players first and then we can get excited by the young links. We're hanging them out to dry atm, but the club seems to be completely wedded to the development club mantra and the miserable comment from Semmens really doesn't hold out much hope for us. ''For us it's not about where we finish in the league, or how many points we get, it's how well we've developed players'' - that translates to how well they've developed players so they can make $$$$$$.

Maybe slightly too early to say this, but based on our links and rumours thus far it does seem as if we're still fixated on the £10-15m Market. That's why Pope for £20-25m was never a goer. Our seemingly fixed budget won't get you much other than unproven up-coming players, or maybe if you're lucky a star from a lesser league (but that's pretty rare, as even those level of players cost upwards of £15m now). It's a huge risk when the experienced players we have are all pretty shit bar 1 or 2.

I've got no problem with us signing or finding 'Livramentos', it's quite exciting actually.....but, it shouldn't be at the expense of experienced and established players. We need a mix of both. Like you say it feels like the club is blowing smoke up it's arse again thinking it's won the formula with the Tino deal.

I think it's a huge gamble when you don't have any capable number 1's at the club as it is, I don't think our goal keeping situation is in good enough of a place to be able to take gambles on youth if I'm honest. It may be work out, but it's not the 'certain' upgrade/number 1 we have been crying out for. Ultimately it means McCarthy remains number 1 in the short term and that is not good enough really. We're crying out for a bit of experience down the spine of the team, this isn't the start we wanted to see. (Again, nothing against Bazunu as he is very talented but ultimately very young and inexperienced)

It would be very saintsy to sign an injured player.

For £10m he's going to be our only first choice GK signing, we'll sign a third and a 4th (probably that Turkish guy, then loan him out) and then maybe Willy for a year. That doesn't fix our problem position one jot. Maybe it does in a year or so, and maybe we can get a decent profit in 2 years on Bazunu but I don't care about that. I just don't want to see McCarthy in goal for the club I support, as it's a waste of time.

The thing is, they can make signings like him and Wood with a view of them being a stop gap for a season or 2 whilst they 'get higher up', at which point they'll be dumped. They have the luxury of not having to care about what they sell them for in 2 years time, it doesn't matter to them. They can focus in on the here and now.

I don't have any concerns with signing Bazanu, as I think he's really talented. My concern is that he's likely to be be the only GK signing we make, and for a position that is in such a mess and in need of a starter today, signing a young and for the future player as the only GK is a huge, huge, huge risk. The club are basically rolling the dice if he is the only addition in goal. McCarthy has proven time and time again that he is horrific, look at what happened when he came back into the side at the end of the season. Goals, goals, goals everywhere. He shouldn't and cannot be in our squad next season, let alone in the starting 11, but sadly I think we all know that he'll start as number 1 and that is a huge (pardon the pun) own goal by the club in a summer that needs to signify a change.

He'd have had to! I can't see anyone paying what we were paying him to be a 'backup'. Absolute madness, upwards of 85k p/w I believe.

No doubting he has technical ability, but he's just horrendously slow and weak. He'll stand out technically in a lesser league, because he is decent in that sense, but his lack of pace and strength will always hinder him at the top levels.

All the best Fraser, was more than decent for us during the Koeman years. The first contract he signed in 2016 made some sense, but the next one he signed in 2017 made zero sense and that painted him and the club into a corner and tarnished his time here. He was never the same after that weirdly. Glad he came back this season and had a final crack, but we do need to move on from both Forster and McCarthy and this will free up a considerable chunk of wages. He was one of our highest earners, maybe top 2.

This was the argument put to the Theo signing, but if at over 30 he can't play regularly due to injuries and is infact quite poor nowadays then it's another squad place wasted on total crap - as he won't be cheap.

I wouldn't have got rid of him this summer myself, as we need the depth and won't be able to do everything in one window. But I wouldn't be giving him a new contract, I'd let it expire next summer and then replace him with better then. I guess we're trying to protect our investment.

Mount really seems to struggle at International level, maybe it's just a step too far for him. Always seems a bit lost. Not sure what the Saka hype is all about either, never seen much from him. Maybe it's just me.

Bellingham on.

I think Channel 4 won the rights to show England internationals. Not sure if it covers friendly's, but certainly all the qualifiers and competitive stuff.

Hopefully it's announced at 1pm on Friday afternoon 😉 Holy-grail time for any announcement.

Henderson is all but done to Newcastle I think. On paper you'd say Chamberlain is a no brainer, but it's a massive risk. The guy has always been incredibly injury prone and his knees are shot to pieces, his most recent injury was a potential career ender as he damaged every single knee ligament and cartilage. He won't be the player we remember bursting through with us, or at the start of his Liverpool career. He could still add something, but there is almost a guarantee he'll become best friends with the physios. It is a shame because he had all the tools, but injuries have destroyed any progress.

Kept our heads above water and hasn't made any stupid decisions. Seems a very sensible and trustworthy guy. He was pretty much our owner under Gao, with no money himself, so we were creative in how we could do things - which he was able to manufacture. He's a sensible and non-reactive CEO. We used to have Ralf Kruger and Les Reed pulling the strings, look at the mess they left us with (and they had money to play with).

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying he's a bad player...he obviously 'could' improve us and on form he's still light years ahead of anyone we have, but 'could' is the question mark I have. When you sign a player however good they are you want them to be committed to the cause, otherwise it's a bit pointless. I just cannot see how he'd be committed to club football, he'll use it as a vehicle for wales - no more than that. We play an intense front foot style of football, pressing high up etc - is he going to risk himself being hacked down by getting involved in the high press, or will he just become a passenger stood in space waiting for Redmond to give him the ball? The latter I suspect. He'd never get the ball in that case. He'd have retired from football had Wales failed yesterday, that probably tells you all you need to know about his club priorities. I'd definitely stay clear, no matter how good a bit of PR it would be.

If anything it makes slightly more sense if we're loaning him to Goztepe. They will soon be part of the Sport Republic wheel, so we're just moving him around within the group. It seems relativity low risk in the sense that it's free, we've obviously seen something in him and we'll see how he gets on. We will still sign another GK without question. These 'group' clubs often do this a lot, in some cases they never play for the club who 'own them'. City do it for sure.

It's a big conundrum to whoever gets Bale. You have to be realistic and say that the club will be his training ground for the World Cup, no more than that. He'll do enough to keep fit, but I can't imagine him pulling up any trees at the fear of missing his 'last hurrah' through an injury. Potentially a lot of money to be spent on someone who will always put the club 2nd.

I don't rate him, he can cross a ball and play a pass, but in terms of in-game defending he is dreadful. That should be his primary job, or maybe he should just become a winger.

I remember having a season ticket around a group of old blokes who absolutely despised Tadic. I started to wonder if he was sleeping with all their wives or something. If he miss controlled it he had all sorts of insults thrown at him, if a keeper saved a really tricky shot he was shit, if he did something well it was a case of ''well, he's paid well enough he should be doing that'' etc. Similar bile was thrown Pele's way, most of his first season. Not sure why he divided opinions. He was on a level above anyone else we've seen for years. We've had to put up with Redmond and Moussa running around and doing nothing ever since.