S-Clarke

My hunch here is that Villa have just offered us absolutely ridiculous money, because they're getting excited with the Grealish fortune. Just my hunch. Think this will be a good deal financially, but all a bit shit squad wise.

So, now we've got some money to play with. Armstrong I assume will happen now. Can we get Delaney through the door...? 9m is the going rate there. If we've got 30m ish for Ings, £15m for Armstrong and £9m for Delaney with cash to spare.

Wow, that happened quick. What the fuck.

They must have offered us big dosh! Here's your European Football Danny... oh, hang on. JWP and Ings to Villa anyone?

Because then the club can trot out the following: ''We tried everything we could to keep him, but the offer was too good to turn down. This will enable us to be stronger going forward and Gao has allowed us to reinvest it all into the squad''. If it happens that'll be the line, word.for.word.

He'd cost a fair wedge!

Don't believe everything Blackmore says, I think the truth is somewhere in the middle of both view points. We're not going to shut the door to a bid which we deem good, because we need the money - that doesn't need Einstein to work out. JWP not being that 'interested' to go to Villa is also believable, so they'd need to put up a decent package to tempt him. So, it's two fold - they offer JWP a good deal, and give us a good amount of money and he is out of the door tomorrow. I think most of us accept that. The reality is that that probably won't happen so he will still be here.....but don't be blind to the fact that we will ship him out tomorrow if the money is right.

At least Long is on the bench though, we all know that means goals goals goals.

Still carrying some sort of 'injury' by the looks of it! Same as everyone else... 😅 That's a crazy subs bench!

On one hand it could be messy, but on the other hand we could turn it into a huge positive as we did in 2014. I have massive faith in people like Martin, Matt etc running the show. They know what they're doing. We just need the money!

Not in any of the pics. Seems odd doesn't it, the one player who is a fitness freak, never injured. Suddenly gone missing in the midst of transfer bids, with an injury that no one has actually elaborated on, unless I've missed it. Maybe I'm just being cynical!

Yeah, I do agree - and that's why people were trying to play down the hype of this addition yesterday. It's all about potential with Tino, no one knows how he could do in a premier league game as he's never been exposed at this level. Obviously coaches and scouts see something in him for him to be so sought after, and when clubs like RB Lipzig are sniffing around young talent then there is obviously something there. We'll have to see I guess. Hopefully he can get some mins in the cup games just to bed himself into professional football before he's thrown into a PL game. I think it's a sensible, gamble free addition though.

That Abdulmailk fella is actually quite highly rated isn't he. If he's the guy from Milwall then Arsenal were sniffing around him.

Without a doubt - Gaston Ramirez. Just promoted, signed a young South American talent being tracked by numerous top clubs - starred in the 2012 Olympics etc. It was exciting, it was a big statement at the time that we meant business. But it just never happened. Apart from that game against Villa. 😅 Other than that in recent times....could probably say Osvaldo as well, we'd just signed a Roma first team player....Italian international. Clearly had all the talent but nothing up top.

To be fair this is a rumour that just won't go away. There must be something in it. I wonder if there's a potential for a loan deal there as the window creeps to the end?

Good signing for Eastleigh that, but a bit of a comedown. Thought he'd end up at a better level than that.

From what I read, he didn't see a pathway. His nervousness around committing there was confounded when Chelsea started looking at another right back, Hakimi. I think he just wants a pathway and he probably see's that here. Obviously KWP is first choice, clear starter - so it's not going to be easy, but he probably see's it as more dooable than Chelsea.

Wonder what this means for Valery? There could be a couple of mill in there if a French club get desperate enough in the next few weeks. Then we can get a natural left back to fill Valerys spot. Sounds like Tino sees himself as a right back, not really a left back. So I'd say potentially a space still open for a left back if we are really going to go all out to fix the depth issue.

Not proclaiming to know he ever was to be honest. For me, I don't see us signing another striker unless Ings goes. I don't think we have the money for that.

I dunno, I don't think he's ever going to cut it. If we can use Obafemi in a deal to get someone I regard as a far more complete player (Armstrong) then we should be all over it.

I can't say I've ever seen him play, I've heard the reports of his reputation...but none of that is based on first team football yet, so I'm not going to proclaim he's the next superstar! He seems to have the tools from what I read though, but U23 > PL is a big jump - and he hasn't done that yet. From what I've read he can play LB/RB - but is more of a wing back than an out and out full back, so in that sense he fits us perfectly and fills the spot we needed filling. Question mark over experience, but on the face of it a smart and creative bit of business which I didn't think we had it in us to do.

Isn't he the guy who was going to Brighton...? Interesting if we've snared him, he's the pick of the bunch of that Chelsea youth lot.

That's exactly it. What worries me is the talk that Moussa is an option at left back, that is already screaming alarms bells to me - setting the ground for ''well, we tried - but Moussa has shown he can play there'' bollocks come 1st Sept. Hey, maybe we have actually agreed a deal with that Doig fella and we see that as better value - who knows. I just feel pretty flat about it all at the moment.

Not at all what I was saying. But if we've baulked at paying £2m for Williams, then I'm not sure who else is out there that could be considered as decent value. I just want us to compete, that's all.

It's a good deal if it provides us the cover which stops us going down. That £2m would have been seen as a snip then. Let's see if he helps one of our direct rivals stay up instead of ourselves, then we'll see what the good deal was. As it stands we are in a worse position at full back than last year, given that Perrud is an untested quantity and our only senior LB. The talk from Ralph about Moussa being an 'option' scares the absolute shit out of me, it shouldn't even be being considered.