S-Clarke

It's a real positive that we can make these sort of moves now. Our signings of Small/Tino etc have really opened the deals to these sort of players, but it's clear these lads aren't going to be anywhere near the first team yet but for the future it's very positive.

Who could sign Jesper Karlsson? Club: AZ Alkmaar Position: Forward Age: 23 Another shining light of the Eredivisie this season has been AZ Alkmaar's Swedish attacker, Jesper Karlsson. It is no exaggeration to suggest that he is probably the closest clone to Neymar during his time at Santos. A thoroughly exciting talent that brings together a lot of good qualities to the table. Breaking through in Sweden with Falkenbergs and then Elfsborg, Karlsson arrived in the Netherlands in the summer of 2020 signing a five-year deal with Alkmaar. Last season, he scored 12 goals and made 9 assists in all competitions aiding Alkmaar's push for qualification to the UEFA Europa League. He has followed it up in a similar fashion this season, maintaining the level of performance and output in his displays. As a forward, Karlsson is adept across the frontline in different roles, but he is most adept when deployed on the left with an aggressive fullback who can link up well with him, just as Owen Wijndal does at Alkmaar. Karlsson is full of flair, loves dribbling past his markers and has a sumptuous first touch. He is part of a new and exciting group of young footballers coming through for the Swedish national team. Normally favouring his right foot when shooting, Karlsson is able to generate a lot of power in his shots which makes him a threat from distance as well as within the penalty box. His long-range shooting is a noteworthy feature of his play. The Swede's numbers are excellent this season, he is well on course for double digits for both goals and assists His underlying numbers are encouraging too, averaging 0.39 xG/95 and 0.27 xA/95.

Yeah that is shocking. Wennington equally, if not worse. I've never see a fire ravage something that badly in this country in my lifetime, outside of Grenfell. Doesn't sound like any people were trapped or caught up in it, but I hope everyone got their animals out. But I can't imagine losing everything like that, cars and all.

Good snippet, thank you. I can't find any articles linking him anywhere that suggests the sort of fee we'd need to pay, but at a guess he'd probably be in and around the 10-15m bracket.

ITK, or a suggestion? Good wide player tbf, decent age.

WHU are certainly due a succesful striker signing. They've spent fortunes on centre forwards over the last 15 or so years and a winger, converted forward, turned into their most potent threat in that time.

This just sounds like Chelsea posturing to get themselves the biggest fee they can get. You can see it from Broja's point of view, he wants the oppertunity to be the main man at a club and lead the line, which I assume he will do at WHU. He has less oppertunity to do that at Chelsea and at best, you'd imagine, he'd be a bench player with occasional starts. Players win these battles most of the time if they want the move.

Same as last pre-season I think, we prepare him for playing every game in the real season by having him miss most of the pre-season games by the look of it.

I follow the same positivity as you, I find it confusing that some people assume we're not doing anything. I always anticipated our trip to Austira to be a quiet period for transfers as the focus is on training and team work. We'll see activity ramping up again from next week onwards in my opinion. That's not to say nothing has been happening in the background, but the lack of people at Staplewood makes it a bit harder to get stuff signed. (I believe Crocker went over to Austira too) But like I've said, you don't need rumours to confirm things are happening. There were no rumours for Bella-Kotchap until it was pretty much done. The players with the most noise around them (Richards/Broja) are usually the ones that don't happen I find.

It is pretty telling that our main source of goals last year were free kicks, taken by a free kick specalist. Not really much teams can do to defend against those. Can't wait to see what we have up our sleeve to improve the attack, as it really is horrendus and there's no other way of dressing it up.

I don't see us signing two 'strikers', one will be a proper striker and the second one will be someone who can play up front but also the wide/number 10 area's. We also need full back cover, so 3 to come in at the very least I'd suggest.

What's going on in London now is pretty frightning.They're struggling to contain fires all over the shop apparently.

I think Redmond, Theo were left behind.

Yeah, I saw that earlier. Terrible news for him. He'd just started hitting his potential after his season at Ajax too.

Sesko as the number 9. Colwill as a third CB or Dan-Axwel Zagadou (currently a free agent, not sure why - he was very highly rated) Pederson as a RB Cristian Pavon or Moses Simon as the wide options. Sander Berge as another CM. Never going to happen, but that would be pretty tidy.

I'd see him as the 'Broja' type loan, but we do need an 'Armstrong' type striker signing in terms of value. (but, please much better Saints). I wouldn't say Broja looked first choice straight away, it took him a couple of months to really bed in. By all accounts Delap is a similarish style of player in terms of his stature, he's certainly not as quick though.

Isn't that how pre-season usually goes? Teams ambitions are often tempered until new players are in the building. I'm sure Everton think they're going down, probably Bournemouth as well. But we all know that all teams will look totally different by the end of August compared to how they line up in pre-season. We know we lack goals, the club know this. We have owners now who are providing the support to fix this so that's why I'm more optimisitc than I have been.

If he was 'one of two', then yeah...maybe. But we need to focus our budget on a target man type CF in my opinion, then see what's left and get ourselves a wide attacker.

Exactly, I think we want to avoid a Broja situation. There are times when a player will come avaliable at a big club where a loan is the only option (players of the level of Hudson-Odoi or Chamberlain for e.g). But young players we seem to be trying to get in early before they commit their futures. I'm still fairly sure we'd have made efforts to sign Broja perm last summer had we had the cash, we'd have got in there before he signed his 5 year deal at Chelsea. I'm not, as yet, too worried about the attacking positions because I know we'll strengthen. I imagine our targets are people we've not even spoken about yet. Aribo, Bella-Kotchap came from absolutley nowhere. I expect the same for our attacking additions. We probably can't wait until the end of the window because we have nothing as it is, so I can see at least 1 coming in before we start at Spurs.

Yeah, I think we were pretty steadfast on keeping him out of Leicester until after the window shut. But Leicesters lack of signings is more around their lack of money, they're in the same situation as we were/are. They had 1 or 2 bad transfer windows and it's killed them. Shows how quickly it can change, as their scouting was absolutely spot on 3 years ago and they were selling big/reinvesting that money well. But it's all gone wrong.

Good point on Everton, i think they're still struggling financially to be honest. I think Brentford have done alright, some of the better recruits. I like Lewis-Potter, their LB is quality (Hickey) and their GK is a huge upgrade on who was their understudy last season.

There are still a few clubs to do very little of note, which is a bit surprising. Brighton haven't done anything of note yet (they need to replace Bissouma and Burn). Leicester have openly said they have to sell before they can get anyone. We've just lumbered them with the crap that stopped us being able to buy anyone. Bournemouth are the biggest surprise though. They've just got a free transfer in the door so far, they've got a lot of work to do if they're going to be competitive.

It does make you wonder. I've always wondered why teams of that ilk were interested in Bednarek, I guess it's because they saw a potential 'cheap' experienced option - but maybe we've told them he's not as cheap as they'd expected. If we're pricing him at £20m then we'll never get any buyers.

Don't the fee's they report account for every single potential add-on in the deal? (even though some may never be met)

Yeah, I feel a bit sorry for small. In the game against Cov in the FA Cup he was kind of hung out to dry surrounded by crap, and he was given a start today in a very substandard team with the likes of Stephens etc providing cover. He'd have probably looked better with Salisu covering behind him.