S-Clarke

Yeah, this is Brighton hitting the same glass ceiling we did. There's no real way beyond that for clubs like us, the good players we have will always do the above if we try to stand firm. They're enjoying their moment as we enjoyed our moment, but this is why being competitive in the top half in this league for more than a fleeting period for clubs without major, major backing is pretty much impossible.

Just realised I posted that in the wrong thread, meant to post that in the fantasy thread. Doh.

One to certainly watch though, be interesting to see where he is in 18 months.

Dion Drena Beljo

JWP will be the first out of the door, I'd actually guarentee you that the club are banking on the fee they get for him to cover any shortfall from relegation. The club will ensure we get a good fee for him, there is absolutley no situation he stays if we go down, not a hope in hell.

Bit like the summer one really, started promising, nothing in the middle, and an incredibly infuriating end to it which undoes any of the good work at the start. (Still some days to go through!)

To be fair he did win the previous EFL Championship Manager of the year.

It's not all about who spends the most, but it certainly does have a say in the probability of success - but you can do two extremes really. You can try and do it on the cheap with lots of kids, potentially get lucky but most likely drop like a stone. Massively risky approach. You can go and spend millions and millions on a new team of 'superstars' and equally flop, as they don't become a team (Fulham a few years ago spring to mind). There needs to be a balance, as a club you need the flexibility to be able to attract those young players but mix it up with some proven experience (that costs) as well.

This is a good post, during the Gao years it was obvious this league was too expensive for us. I had hope (and still do, somewhat) that SR have a bit more clout behind them, as they certainly have spent some money, but the markets we're shopping in (10-15m players) is not the market for PL clubs if we're honest, we seem fixated on getting players for that price and making them better so we can sell for a profit, which sadly doesn't really suggest we are as flush with cash as you'd hope. The approach we take makes sense, but......not the all encompassing way we’ve approached it, we need to be able to mix it up. So, for example, we can still get the Lavia's, Tinos in our 10-15m bracket...but we need to have the clout to go and buy proven in the £30m+ bracket, as otherwise you cannot build a strong enough team for the ‘now’. Having a mega billionaire throwing money around would be exciting, no one can deny that, but I personally get much more satisfaction from 'sustainably' building a team - but you still need some decent $$$ to even do that at this level. It feels like we are heading to our level of a middling Championship club to me, we've acted like it for years and constantly speak about how we are lucky to be here, so maybe they're being straight - we have no right to be in this league with the lack of clout we have. Truth be told I don't know why we're like that given we've been taking in PL TV Money for 11 years and have a 32k stadium, but that's the way it is.

''Where were you when you were shit''

I fail to believe anyone in the media would ever have those levels of specifics.

Niko Kranjcar followed him everywhere, triffic' lad.

Given that the club have spent the last 2 years convincing us all that we're lucky to be here, then I'd expect them to have put clauses in everyone's contracts given that they've been preparing for this day with their attitudes and actions.

Burley had Wright.

The same Dennis who has flopped and hasn't been able to get into the team ahead of Surridge? I was never sure on him, he had a purple patch at the start of the year with Watford and then fell off a cliff. That never recovered at Forest either, for £20m I'm glad we steered clear.

Antony Gordon, looks like Claire Balding.

Or we can actually look at what really happened - we didn't score through an Adams clear chance, and got done down the side to concede a goal. The referee didn't cause any of that. The two VAR calls were correct, their one was disallowed correctly and so was our one - Armstrong made a hash of his first attempt. There is no agenda against Southampton, we are a nondescript to everyone out side of our fanbase so any thought of an agenda is a bit laughable.

These stats totally backup what we are seeing - he doesn't seem to ever make any saves, any shot on target is a goal. That's why we don't keep clean sheets. I looked at him the other night and he looked like a midget in the middle of that goal, zero presence.

Not sure why everyone has got worked up about this, we'd be lapping it up if JWP was pulling faces and gestures to Zaha.

I'm waiting for the ''we have a log jam of players in the striker position'' line to be fed into the media.

You can tell we're heading back to small-fry territory when we have club plants on here.

If you don't mind, I'll prefer to wait for the full review from Sidney.

Everton want to sign Chelsea's Ziyech #ZiyechWatch That would be, in my opinion, a very tidy upgrade on a very average Gordon. Not sure why he has so many suitors.

Not just Pope, we could have also had Leno who has also had a decent season. £6-7m for him, signed by a promoted side so totally in our remit if we weren't so obsessed with 'sell on potential'.

Is there something I've missed on Bree? Apart from a little article a few weeks ago, I've never seen anything concrete - unless something has been leaked today? I'd say signing Bree is planning for the longer term, with the safe assumption that KWP is gone if we stay up or go down, AMN will go back from his loan and Lynco will probably head off to Brazil. And Tino is likely out for the rest of the season, and who knows what state he comes back in - so we do need someone in there with next season in mind.