S-Clarke

They're taking us apart here. Got through our midfield and straight at our back 4. Valery hopelessly out of position as has been a consistent theme of his career.

Not been anything said to be honest, but we all know his recent injury record so I wouldn't be surprised if he's out.

I think we've looked ok in possession through the middle, and the back 4 have been fairly composed. But the attack is just horrific, as predicted as it would be. There's just nothing there, midfielders haven't got anyone to play in, they're static up top. Moussa is just not even doing anything.

McCarthy losing his head again. Flapping like a mad man.

Not sure why this £70m loan keeps being brought up. We haven't got that loan to buy players, it's to cover all sorts of losses over forthcoming years, not just year 1 or year 2. It may help with a little bit of flexibility in the market in some situations, but I've never, ever seen that loan as a loan to help us buy players. It's to sustain the club in light of the enormous losses seen last year.

As it stands, despite all the bluster from the end of last season in terms of how we need to be stronger, we'll have a much deeper squad etc, we look likely to start the season even weaker than we ended last. Which is crazy really when you think about it. I think we were relying on an Ings or Vestergaard deal early on to give us the money we needed to move early, but it dragged on a bit. Still think we want Vestergaard to go in order to give us some more cash too. I think we'll add maybe 2 players to potentially bring us up to where we were last season squad wise - but I'm not seeing the promise of 'a much bigger squad', if we're talking about Moussa as a LB option then things have gone wrong. It's hard to be sure at the moment as so much is up in the air, but if the scouting is top notch and we are able to invest some money then we may be ok and be looking upwards towards Top 10 - but if we fail to reinvest or reinvest the Ings money badly then I think it's curtains and it probably won't even be close.

That front two is truly diabolical. Not even close to being competitive for a Championship side to be honest. The reality is that we decided Long and Obafemi weren't good enough last year when he was shipped out to Bournemouth and Obafemi almost to Swansea. They might be good lads and all that but a serious PL side should never be starting with Shane Long these days or Obafemi. Hopefully the next few weeks will weed Long in particular out of the equation, he shouldn't be anywhere near our squad. I know they probably won't start many times in the PL, but I don't think they should even be in and around it.

Whilst Minamino did 'press', I always felt he lacked a lot of physicality to be really effective. He wasn't even that quick. I wouldn't have him back tbh. I was just making that point that he'd probably have been seen as an unlikely addition given his 'profile' and high rating across Europe. Loan deals like him can crop up at the last min. Also, fanny. seriously.

That's why I can see us getting a 'cheaper option' initially, and then biding our time until the last few days to see 'what occurs'. I know it didn't work out, but Minamino was totally unexpected last season. No one would have thought that was a possible deal at the start of the window.

Exactly. It's part and parcel of football, players come and go. Kane pushing to leave Spurs as well, so it's not just us who gets in these situations. I know there's a lot of bitterness, there always is when a player leaves. ''He was shit anyway'' ''He'll be injured'' ''Past his best'' etc. But let's be honest, this guy single handily kept us up over the last few years so for that reason alone I can't be that bitter towards him - he helped my club for the period he was here and that's all you ask for really. It's up to us now to replace him with a player who will hopefully be sought after in 2 or 3 years, might sound a depressing way to look at it, but that will equal he's been a success and contributed to our success. It's the only way clubs like ours can be sustainable really.

Interesting - thought they'd given up on him! No harm in having him in the squad I guess.

I dunno, Sorloth for me is an interesting option. He had a stonking season in Turkey and not as good a year at RB, but I think there's something there. Great physicality and arguably the sort of centre forward you could say we're missing and have done since Pelle left. Be interesting to see how much he'd cost, but I wouldn't be so dismissive of him.

The silence from both sides is deafening. Something sour has obviously occurred, sadly.

It's been a weird pre-season for Everton, lost their manager, lost a player for reasons not to comment on.... Not buying anyone, looking in the similar bargain bins as ourselves. They'll start the season without that grumpy fuck Richarlison as well, always seems to score against us. It's not been a perfect build up for Everton, but you know full well that Benitez will make them a boring and well drilled team, which automatically makes it a tricky game. And it's at Goodison. Maybe we'll win there? It's not an insurmountable challenge though - It's got to happen at some point I guess.

But you need an owner who is willing to accept that risk first and foremost, we don't. He's invisible, doesn't get involved, not inputting at all. I doubt he's going to want debt saddled on his purchase either, so we are fully constrained because of the ownership. We cannot spend above our means because we have no way of getting money that we don't have. Other clubs with ownership that is engaged have that bit of flexibility where there is sometimes the approach to speculate to accumulate, which is what I think you're referring to, but without ownership engaged then we're stuffed. We literally have to generate every penny ourselves. I've never heard of that happening before, but it's happening here.

I think it was Eric Blacks fault to be honest.

He's just not very good to be honest. At the cutting edge it's about having the composure, the ability to see a pass, to know when to release. In the Prem that is split second stuff, you cannot dally on the ball in any position. Against lesser oppo he gets more time and he's allowed to dally on it a bit more, and unsurprisingly he looks better. He's just not good enough for the Prem, a couple of good games against Champ oppo in pre-season kind of confirm that. Not denying that he has technical ability, but his mind is just too slow.

Wow, this is one hell of a bump. I got confused by the opening post mentioning Cortese!

We're all assuming that the loan is for player transfers. Do we know exactly what that's paid for? Nope.... I assume it was to cover the enormous shortfall of almost a year without match-day revenue or hospitality revenue, that is massive. And that shortfall will be felt over many years to come and that loan will help cover that over numerous years. I think it's naive and daft to think ''Oh, we have an 80m loan - just spent £40m on Abraham' - that is EXACTLY the mentality that gets you relegated and in League 1 with Wigan and no money. At least with this approach, whilst we may still go down, we're not going to be suffering from having spent over our means in the recent years. Let's also revisit some of those mega signings we've made in the past that were supposed to propel us: £18m Boufal - Fail £20m Carillo - Fail £17m Hoedt - Fail £16m Lemina - Fail £18m Osvaldo - Fail Our best value has come from the Armstrongs, KWP's, Bednareks, Tadic's, Mane's - that £10-15m bracket. Yes, values have changed over the last few years, but they're still out there if the scouting is good enough. I'm desperate for us to improve the squad and invest, but as we are today the answer isn't just spending £40m on one player when as a club we clearly cannot sustain that under the current ownership model.

Anyone who thought we were going to spend £20m on a striker is going to be incredibly disappointed, we cannot do that. The scouting is going to need to be as shit hot as it's ever been to get this right. It's not impossible to buy a super player for 'cheap', just need to look in the right places.

The club 'now' is being run quite well, I think. That might seem like a crazy thing to say, but after the crazy and wasteful years under Wilson, Kruger, Reed etc we have an actual local board who I trust with my club. I know what they are doing is with the best interests. There's no agenda, no fluffy bollocks - I've listen to Martin Seemens a few times and he's straight to the point, no bollocks with him. All you got with Kruger was an hour of management fluffy buzzwords that meant nothing. As I said the other day - see the club as two parts. The invisible, non-entity ownership, and the actual board who are now running the club amazingly well in the circumstances they are in.

I think the club identified how utterly terrible the U23's were last season, that had a knock on to the u18's as we had to keep picking apart their squad with players that weren't ready. So I think there has been fair focus on that this year.

Not having a dig at your source, but that feels a bit far fetched to me. The words 'hate' seem a little unlikely to me.

We have no money, that's why we can't replace before we sell. So we will always remain on the back foot until we get new ownership. It's a consistent theme over most recent windows to be honest. We're good for the first signing, Salisu or Perrud - 10ishm outlay. We seem to be able to do that, I'm guessing that's paid for by commercial revenue, bit of the PL riches or the new sponsorship deals etc. But then anything else we want to do has to be fully serviced by the players we sell. And that money has to be in the bank before we can move for our targets.