S-Clarke

You still need to be able to defend as a RWB though, it doesn't automatically discount you from being part in a defensive setup - and he's just not good enough defensively in my opinion, positionally he is shocking and his concentration is equally as poor. I can see what people see in an attacking sense as he does provide some threat when he plays, has a bit of pace etc, but in my opinion his primary game should be about defending and he's rubbish at that. You're saying 4 or 5 games...but what if KWP has a bad injury and we need him for 3 or 4 months? That would be a disaster and it's why we need better.

Begovic was out of contract though (I think). Next season will come the opportunity to reshape our goalie situation in my opinion, we're not going to renew both McCarthy and Fraser so at least one of them will be out of contract next summer. I think we saw Gunn as our first choice keeper, with McCarthy reverting to backup - sadly it didn't happen as once again our scouting came up short. We had money then though, as we still had some of the VVD fee to play with - but in hindsight we probably shouldn't have splunked £10m on him.

It would make sense for sure, but it would still require a loan fee. It seems we're struggling to even raise the capital for loan fees though, anything we seem to do whether its a loan or a perm seems to hinge on getting money in first. I honestly think we're going to have to bite the bullet and sanction a big sale to give us the flexibility we need, otherwise we're standing still with a squad not deep enough as it is.

Yeah, there have been questions over his attitude and off field stuff in the past - something else going on for sure. But like you said, away from all that, he's not even close to being a capable PL player so I'd be pretty deflated if we're keeping him around in the squad of a PL team.

We're not going to bring a goalie in unless we shift one of the existing, no matter how cheap they are. Not sure how that would be Ralphs fault. Both our keepers are the example of pure averageness and are the leftovers of poor squad management over many years, but I'd still have them over Asmir Begovic or Wayne Hennesey on a free for example. If we were to get a new goalie then it would need to be a proper investment, not just an average freebie or cheapo option.

It's only 6 months initial though. My thoughts are that the club see him as a potential player to provide full back cover, and they're giving him a chance to prove that. People may say that's a cheapo way of approaching it, but that's where we are at if we're honest.

Sadly it didn't really work for us because we pissed that once in a generation transfer fee up the wall on a load of complete and utter shit. Criminal what we did with the VVD money to be honest. It should have been the basis to allow us to go on and evolve like Leicester for example, but sadly we had Ross Wilson and Les Reed running the charade.

I just don't think we have a pot to piss in to be honest, it feels as if anything we do is fully dictated by what we can bring in or save on the wage bill first. That's why I think it's a positive that we've lost guys like Hoedt, Gunn and possibly Lemina soon - that should free up some space in the wage department, but for outright transfer fee's I think we're going to need a strategic 'big' sale in order to start moving. If we do it right...then we have a chance to evolve the squad a bit, but if we do it wrong and choose poor players again then we're probably done for.

I think he's on our radar, along with Armstrong. But it's impossible to see how we can afford either without shifting Ings first.

Sadly that's another club in and around us who will now have the tools to leave us way behind squad investment wise.

Sadly this is the result of years and years of terrible squad management. It will take some time to get back to where we were but I'd like to think we are making some 'baby steps' back in the right direction, it just takes some time and it will be overall several windows because we have no money. We just have to hope we continue to keep our head above the water really. Great to see Sam involved though, must be tough for him personally so I'm glad the club are keeping him around.

Hey, just trying to be positive! I think the club have learnt their lessons from January and I doubt they'll put us in that position again. The only reason to feel a little nervous is if we are truly skint beyond what we even believe, but we'll find out.

Wasn't that Obafemi? I've only seen Obafemi linked to that one.

I think we needed to shed the players not good enough tbh. That should allow us the space to replace those with better, so hopefully...if all goes to plan, we'll have a better more rounded squad next season. Still 7 or so weeks to go, but I think we need at least one big sale before we can do what we really need to. But shedding the players not good enough is step 1 of creating the wage space.

At which point he said it was the club policy. He's the guy setting these policies and structures, all to do with the merging of the B Team with the first team and get them interlinked etc. I guess maybe that comment/intention was made when it wasn't clear how absolutely hopeless most of the lower age groups are at the moment.

No, not at all. Shouldn't ignore it and I don't think people are. That guy at Savills today - fine example of what this attention is doing, it's weeding the more naive types away. The sad thing is that there are still people out there, I don't particularly think it's all to do with education, I just think some people are born as absolute knobs and that's how they get a kick out of life. If they're not throwing vile racist abuse to get a kick, they're calling out disabled people or taking the micky out of anyone who could be seen as vulnerable. Social media does fan the flames though, it's a horrible place and it's why I don't bother with it (bar these forums). I think one method that could be put in place to help is to make it less easy to register, maybe a little bit more verification and validation upon sign up - but these are very tricky and challenging things to do, but something like that needs to be looked at as you can easily spin up another account tomorrow without any identity verification. It shouldn't be so easy to hide behind a blank alias with no picture in my opinion.

Yeah, in that sense - but there will be no earner here as you've alluded to. We'll be paying the wage I imagine and I can't see Lincoln giving us any notable fee. My view is that at 22 you've got to be making an impact at a club in order to get a long-term deal. He's done nothing for us. Now he's signed a long term deal, loaned out to L1. It's the same as the Kayne Ramsay deal, another player who is clearly not going to make it at this level that we're giving contracts to, then giving away to L1 clubs whilst we pick up the tab. Maybe the club are as nervous as us with regards to our future and they feel he could be a decent lower league player for us in the years to come???

Probably because it became pretty obvious that no one in the world, in any profession, is ever going to pay a single person circa £700,000 a week anymore. He was in a corner.

It's a strange one, our policy seems to change with the wind. Last season it was pretty clear ''We will not loan out players who have a future here, we don't see the benefit of players we want to keep learning the way of another club''. Now it's ''give a new player a contract, then loan them out''. What is the the policy here? Club still seems a little all over the place to be honest.

I think it's right to make a point of those who post the abhorrent trash on social media, I think it's got better (in the sense that the more obvious types have reduced.) but given there is heightened attention to it now even a few posts by spam accounts will get the headlines too. The sad thing is that the individuals posting above are most likely duff accounts, people sat behind spam accounts posting whatever they want. They'll close that account down tomorrow, start a new one up and get themselves a new VPN IP and away they go. Sadly the internet is a scary place and the tools for anonymising make it very easy for these few trolls to accomplish what they want. I wouldn't say they are even posting out of pure racial hatred either, it's just to get a rise and some attention. The same types are also busy on other peoples accounts fat shaming people or taking the piss out of disabilities etc. The internet and social media is a dark, dark murky place. It's very hard to police due to the laws within different countries and the ways you can anonymise yourself, but I think the approach of highlighting is going to weed out the more naive social media users - but sadly you will always have those trolls who specialise in setting up multiple accounts every day, just to bash others for a rise.

There was confusion at the start when JWP missed out, but I will say that Kalvin Phillips vindicated that decision and he added much more than JWP would have. None of the CM's are great and that's the problem, but JWP wouldn't have added anything tbh. We didn't lose the match because JWP didn't go, we lost because we missed 3 penalties in a row. Italy kept their heads and got what they deserved.

Better squad? You've got some high expectations of some of this squad. People are optimistic about it because it has Sancho, Foden, Grealish, Sterling, Kane etc....but the problem lies in other areas where teams like Italy, France, Spain are just levels above us - still. We benefited from the way the draw landed, but with our entire squad and weaknesses we did great to get to a final and a semi final last year. Let's not kid ourselves that this English squad is up there with France or Belgium etc, as it's no where near. On that basis to get us within spot kicks of a tournament win is huge. He's managed our shortcomings as well as he could.

Lots of chatter about Jankewitz to be honest, but I've never really seen it. He was part of an utterly dross B team this season, didn't stick out at all. Played okish in an U21 tournament but apart from that I never saw anything to suggest he starts in our midfield at this level. He seemed to get a bit too big for his boots, stuff has seemingly gone on that we don't know about either. I think he was overhyped based on nothing really. Let's see how this pans out in the next few years.

My view is that he's sticking around, we've decided to keep him and pulled off off the market in my opinion. Gives us more depth, but I kinda agree with you in the sense that it's pointless depth as he's proven he's not cut out for this league. But it's another body.

I get that view, in the sense of play to your strengths etc. But we just don't have enough in other areas to do that, as I just feel we'd be picked off too easily against top teams. If we could control the game then we could unleash the likes of Foden, Grealish etc, but we'd struggle to get the ball to them against the better sides in all honesty. In that sense I get Southgate's approach, it's pragmatic because he knows we are lacking in other areas.