S-Clarke

This is the sort of ruthless action we've lacked for the last 5/6 years. We've just dawdled through pre-season to pre-season keeping the same status quo and never upsetting the apple cart. This is such a positive sign of change and the first I've seen in many years. There is no doubt that there needed to be a big change. Fleming, Davis and Watson have been around for many years - before Ralph. I'm sure Fleming and Watson at least supported Pelligrino and possibly Hughes to a degree, so those areas have been a problem for many years for me. It's also admission, in my opinion, that the club feel that they've never been able to truly back Ralph with his own people, or at least people has a significant say in appointing, rather than just a jobs for boys effort. I don't like seeing people lose their jobs and Davis in particular has been a fantastic figure around the club for many years, but you can't stick on sentiment and you have to be ruthless and that's exactly what we've done and it feels long overdue. This is a positive quick start to what needs to be a big summer for us.

Ah I didn't realise he'd done his knee, that's a shame. I still have a lot of time for Bertrand, certainly got our lot of him when he was here. Let go at the right time for sure.

That's positive news, great times ahead for a lot of them and some security. Some decent investment from the club to fund this, a good sign for other areas maybe.

What ever happened to Bertrand? He seems to have vanished, I'm sure they signed him on a 2 year deal as well.

I don't think WHU fans would describe their owners as ambitious and daring, quite the opposite! You have to remember that WHU talk and they talk a lot without actually doing a great deal.

Good player Dragowski, the sort we need to bring in that would expect to oust McCarthy from day one. I can see the freebie being a replacement for Harry Lewis and maybe an alternative if we don't sign up Willy. Cole Palmer is a very, very talented player. He'd improve us straight away, but it would still be good to sign our own attacking player as well rather than have the panic about him going back at the end of the season with us getting no $$$.

I've just had a look at this site - EPL 2021-2022 Payroll Wages Tracker | Spotrac 13th last season, but the seasons before that Top 10 and even Top 3 in 2018. It does illustrate what a burden the likes of Hoedt, Boufal, Lemina and co were putting on the club. With Forster leaving this year, possibly Long and maybe next seasons will be even lower. You'd hope, based on that alone...we have more scope to play with now FFP wise. This could be the first summer we can actually move.

Brilliant. Watch the ticker at the bottom after 6 seconds. BBC have been forced to apologise to Man Utd 🤣

It's true, we can blame the big purchases of Boufal, Lemina, Hoedt, Carillo etc to a point...but those were still funded by the sales of Mane, VVD, Wanyama etc etc. So we've never really pushed the boat out, even our season under Koeman was created with a net profit because we didn't spend all we got in. Brighton have had a go, Bournemouth had a go. Palace had a go last year. These are all clubs within our level in my opinion, if we cannot compete with those guys anymore then I don't know what we've been doing. You can get lucky with that approach for a limited period of time, but when you run a club so drastically under resourced for prolonged periods of time then it will stand still and eventually fall away. Like you said, it's a terrible way to run a PL club and it shows absolutely no ambition and we might as well not be here. You've got to speculate to accumulate in this day and age. Sure, we can still get excited over the profits we can make in the future for some players...but let's actually show some ambition for once and spend a little bit more than we get - it will open up a different league of targets.

I think when Ralph said that it was an admission that he knows both keepers are incredibly limited, so keeping both on their toes may actually gain an edge in their performances and move them above absolutely shit to average. It did to a point with Fraser, but McCarthy just seems flawed.

Huh? He got picked for England when he was actually playing left back for us. Playing left back and right back adds another dimension to his game and that's probably what brought on his call up in the first place. A couple of the full backs on that list are ones who can play either side - Justin, Trippier etc. So the fact KWP has shown he can play both sides and given that opportunity by Ralph has actually added another string to his bow and if anything increased his chances of future call ups.

One of many priorities. I think GK and attack is equally as important, ditto CB. Basically the entire spine.

Transfer League for the last 5 Seasons # Net Spend last 5 Years Purchased Gross Sold Nett Per Season 1 Manchester City £818.5 M £312.9 M £505.6 M £101.1 M 2 Manchester United £611.1 M £232.2 M £378.9 M £75.8 M 4 Chelsea £656.9 M £523.6 M £133.2 M £26.6 M 3 Everton £536.5 M £261.5 M £275.0 M £55.0 M 5 Arsenal £443.1 M £194.2 M £249.0 M £49.8 M 6 Brighton & Hove Albion £212.0 M £14.6 M £197.4 M £39.5 M 7 Liverpool £470.9 M £378.5 M £92.4 M £18.5 M 8 AFC Bournemouth £204.1 M £70.7 M £133.4 M £26.7 M 9 West Ham £308.1 M £152.4 M £155.7 M £31.1 M 14 Wolverhampton Wanderers £269.4 M £84.7 M £184.8 M £37.0 M 10 Leicester £381.4 M £268.8 M £112.6 M £22.5 M 11 Crystal Palace £161.5 M £105.3 M £56.2 M £11.2 M 15 Watford £204.0 M £108.8 M £95.2 M £19.0 M 12 Newcastle United £273.6 M £166.2 M £107.5 M £21.5 M 15 Aston Villa £276.2 M £78.1 M £198.1 M £39.6 M 16 Burnley £126.6 M £74.1 M £52.5 M £10.5 M 17 Tottenham £322.3 M £227.7 M £94.6 M £18.9 M 18 Sheffield United £55.0 M £14.7 M £40.3 M £08.1 M 19 Southampton £240.4 M £243.2 M -£02.8 M -£00.6 M 20 Norwich City £65.2 M £112.0 M -£46.8 M -£09.4 M That's quite ridiculous really and it's quite incredible we're still in the Premier League when you look at it like that. We've got no right to be. That HAS to change this summer, otherwise it's daft to expect anything other than a relegation battle and potential relegation. Christ, Bournemouth haven't been in the league for 2 years and they're still miles away. Brighton up in 6th, Palace in 11th, even Watford and Burnley have higher spends than us and they've been relegated. We've got to be able to compete with those teams and stop searching around for what we can sell to fund anything we bring in. Otherwise we are simply not rich enough to remain in this league and we should drop out for our benefit. This is why Ralph can't shoulder all the blame, we're actually overachieving. We've been Top of the PL and finished on 52 points in that time as well. There are obviously examples where money doesn't buy success (Everton and Bournemouth sticking out) but the other extreme of not spending a penny is simply not sustainable.

He won't be anywhere near now that Ramsdale is back. You could argue Henderson is ahead of him too if he gets regular game time. I quite like the young kid at Stoke (Bursik) and Etienne Green has a call up to the U21's now. So I think Frasers last call up was more of a cheerio to international football.

It doesn't paint us in amazing light if he thinks 1) we have a chance of Phillips and 2) We think he's a playmaker. Dear me. I do wonder about the expectation of some of our fans! They'll probably be expecting us to go for Pogba next to bolster midfield.

Swings and roundabouts though isn't it, on the other hand our wage bill shouldn't even give us a chance of getting two points against City or two points against Utd.

The only slight 'niggle' in the back of my mind is that we've agreed a daft release clause if a 'CL' team come in for him.

I think the PL has drastically evolved in the last 6/7 years, we've certainly been left behind in the financial stakes and we are finding it hard to compete. This summer will bare the truth of our takeover and if it actually does bring us closer to the action, but it's certainly not got any easier as compared to last summer Newcastle have also moved away from us. I know our moto has been ''We never stand still, we march on'', but it's quite odd to use that because we have been stood firmly still for at least 6 years. We've not been marching anywhere. I'm not expecting us to go and compete with Villa or Newcastle on huge statement signings, but what I now expect is for us to be competitive with other teams in 'our' league and make a try for players like Cucurella, Guehi, Anderson, Raphinia (I'm not suggesting them now, more so getting them before those clubs did). They're arriving at clubs 'in our region' for the £20m mark and we have bought in that region before, but our scouting was way, way off. Under Les Reed and co we got a bit up ourselves and started to congratulate ourselves at every opportunity, that lead to us taking our eye off of the main reason for our previous success - sharp scouting. As was pointed out above, we did invest money but clubs like us need those big signings to come off. Those signings were made to improve us and then provide a profit so we can go again. They did neither and we had to give them away in the end. We've lost the majority of those now, the big earners off the wage bill and I'd assume any 'instalments' for those guys long paid up. So in essence this summer is our first chance of a clean slate, not just with new players but with new ownership as well. We have to show some intent to compete in this league again with better scouting, otherwise yes - the league is too rich for us.

A lot = most of the season 😟 I'd only want to do a loan for him, with an option though.

I did wonder if we'd look at that possibility, he doesn't get a sniff at Liverpool now. But if he's available I can imagine much bigger clubs being interested, I guess the 'home club' is our main card to play here.

Seems pretty clear-cut to me. The goodbyes from Broja, no more soundbites about us wanting to keep him, not included in the final squad for the season. None of that points towards someone we are looking to keep!

We'll miss him, excellent talent who had raw attributes that really helped our game when he was at the top of his form. Enjoyed watching him when in full flight, one of the more exciting attackers we've had in recent years. I wonder what's changed in recent weeks? We were massively keen on him in January, the links were in the papers about us preparing £30m bids and the such. Ralph was saying that Martin and co are having the right conversations with Chelsea. I guess the situation at Chelsea hasn't helped matters, but we don't even seem prepared to go for him at all next season which is a surprise.

No he didn't 'get out', he was sacked.

I've seen enough of him to see that he's a bit of a brainfart defender, that is always going to be with him I think. He's certainly got talent and I love his commitment, but he is prone to trying stupid things in the wrong places or making a hash of simple clearances because he's over emotional.

Hopefully it's a Tino situation...! But it is risky! High Risk, high reward though you'd say.