S-Clarke

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.

He would have cost us legit money, so that rules us out immediately tbf.

Oh dear. That is a bit of a shower from our point of view. 18 months we've chased him. Not a pot to piss in.

Young left back from Hibs #itkwatch

One of our former targets, Olivier Ntcham, is available on a freebie. His Celtic contract has come to an end and Marseille didn't take up the chance to sign him. Wonder if we're still interested?

Will probably be somewhere in the £40m region I reckon.

But isn't he forgetting the primary role of a LB? Defending. And he can't defend. And to be fair to him that shouldn't be expected of him either, he's an attacker. If he's effective offensively then we play him as a winger, which is what he is. Would be suicide to have him as a LB in the PL.

Really? Bailey is a superstar, he'll rip it up. Cantwell has improved massively since his season in the Prem. Watkins is much better than Pukki. If they don't finish top 6 with or without Grealish then Dean Smith needs binning. We'll be nowhere near them sadly. They've gone up a couple of levels since promotion and have overtaken us in the process.

The mass subs have done the usual tbh. Killed the flow.

I know it's only a friendly etc, but I've seen him in these last two games and he's still as limited as he was when we loaned him out. Like you say, slow physically and slow to the thought as well. Really not suited to our game at all.

Love Armstrong.

Fairly sure Benduia will come out of that fee as well.

Neither of our keepers can play that 'sweeper keeper' role, so it baffles me as to why they both keep trying it. Must be coaching encouragement. Which is equally as baffling.

Tella looks like he's going to be one of the first names on the team sheet this season. His progress in the last 12 months has been extraordinary. McCarthy trying to play football again, which he can't. Wish he'd just cut that shit out and do the basics.

Life isn't an exact science, clubs and agents make things up. Injuries and knocks are made up at times, just as an excuse so they don't have to play/get injured. It might not be the case here, but as others have said...this guy never misses a game. Not friendlies, not cup games, not league games. Never misses them. Then all of a sudden on the back of interest he's missed two in a row. That's why it 'smells' a bit.

Yeah, that does 'smell' a bit to be honest. Let's see what happens.

I don't think it was just a case of us needing to pay Koeman the money, the club as a whole got full of it's self. Believed it's own hype, got carried away on the black box train. Thought we could unearth the next super star manager etc etc. We did have the ability in those days to spend decent money on players because we hadn't previously saddled ourselves with crap (And we had lots of good players already here who we were able to sell for big money). Sadly we then went on a campaign of messing up every.single.major transfer we made in that period. Boufal - failed, given away on a free. Hoedt - failed, given away on a free. Carillo - failed, given away on a free. Just there alone is around 45-50m of player we paid for...and didn't see a penny return financially or even on the pitch. That's what's killed us. Things have improved since in relation to Diallo, KWP, Ings, Adams etc...but significant damage was done in those proceeding years by Reed and co who really should be held accountable for gross negligence. I've always felt that Ralph is the right man but at the wrong time. Just think of the money we handed Mark Hughes, Puel, Pellegrino and look at the constraints a much better manager has to operate under. It's very frustrating. But again, that's all mistakes of the past.

I don't think we're up financial shit creek per-say, I just think we're struggling as are most clubs with the huge losses. I'd say the difference between Leeds, Villa and Everton to an extent is is that they have ownership to offset those losses slightly. We don't even have that. We have an owner with no ability to offset any of our losses, so we have no external investment what so ever bar TV Money, sponsorships and player trading. Those external payments have to service everything from stadium upkeep, staplewood costs, day to day business costs etc. For a club of our size...the only way we can really operate at this level is to have shit hot scouting and shit hot coaching, we cannot afford to make big mistakes and big gambles with transfers. Our ideal model means you can buy a player for £10m - sell him in 2 years for £50m etc. or Develop young players for 'free' and sell them for multi million pounds. We're not a massive club and without ownership investment then this is the model we have to follow in order to be 'successful' - but 3 or 4 horrific transfer windows have totally killed us dead. We cannot move. We just need to bide our time and see where we are in a couple of years, if our scouting has improved them we may be able to sell a Diallo, Salisu or Perrud for those big, big fees that will allow us to compete more. And we may even have new ownership, which is more important than some realise.

Strange career he's had, never really a premier league player if we're honest - very good at Championship level. Yet he's won the PL!

They're still busy spending that Grealish money then. We'll need a fair bit more than that, make it double.

The only bank we're going to be breaking is the piggy bank in the secretary's office.