S-Clarke

Not totally convinced that Downes works in our potentially high-press/high energy team. He seems like your typical crab footballer. Charles, Rudoni with Fernandes more advanced could work better. Rudoni has more energy about him, but less defensive discipline. If we scrap the 3 at the back, we could go with Charles, an-other, and Rudoni - with Eduard and Fernandes floating in those attacking zones.

Yeah, of course, it's Will Still on the end of the phone making up the valuations. Nothing to do with the club or DoF, no. All the manager. Seriously, they should have never dumped off the old lot. Dawson, Sidwell, Morrison - utter shambles. Awful bunch.

Nice find! I didn't have the patience to find it hopefully we see this bumped a bit more often this season.

They still need to make at least 1 big sale this window to bring themselves back inline with PSR in 'this' financial year, which will then allow them some flexibility in the market. Without 1 or 2 more 'big' sales, they can't move. Everton won't pay what they want for Fatuwu, so it will probably be El Khannous who leaves as he has a fixed release clause - under £30m I believe.

Hopefully someone fancies finding that ''Portsmouth lose at home, Southampton win away'' thread. Been a long time.

That Wrexham game was mad. 3-1 down on 90mins, drew 3-3 and won on pens.

I mean after, what, 90mins - that's a crazy conclusion to come to. I've heard not giving players a chance, but this is all a new level.

The quality up against him wasn't great, so he wasn't tested hugely. His passing is what irrates me though, puts us into trouble so much. He cannot ever seem to find his own teammate.

I mean, Fernandes can also do a 10. I wouldn't discount us continuing with Fernandes and having Rudoni too. We'd just have a really strong attacking base. (still need to improve the wide areas). What I would say though, if we get Rudoni and keep Fernandes, that almost certainly equals the end to that Eduard move - if it was ever on in the first place.

That's what I'd call him, yeah. A more attacking Downes, or an upgrade on Smallbone if you like.

I think he'd rotate with Downes, and potentially start in a 3 if we ever reverted to that (and dropped the 3 at the back crap). He's more energetic than Downes I'd say, more of a goal threat from late runs. I wouldn't call him a 10, defo a CM with an attacking upside.

He puts in an effort, he just can't pass the ball accurately enough. Definitely wouldn't compare him to BBD, at least Suguwara looks like a professional footballer.

Would be a really smart signing, Championship ready (one of the best Championship players in his position) and a PL upside to him if coached properly - he's still only 23/24. One of the midfield signings I wanted us to make, we defo need cover in the CM area.

Standard early season cup game really, the only memorable one in recent years has been that 8-0 away at Newport. They're always pre-season friendly-esque, just like this one really. Nothing to really talk about, other than what we already know. Archer has such a poor touch, and BBD is simply not a professional footballer. He reminds me of the centre forwards you see in Sunday league games, I'm not kidding either. How can we get rid of him? Anyway, next round.

Pushed them up much higher, moving it quicker in the final third. This comm keeps mixing up all our players too. He's called Suguwara THB, and Fernandes Suguwara a few times already.

£51m now.

Cracking finish that. His touch and composure was top class. Great run and intelligence too.

Maybe we can package BBD in a box labelled Dibling? Could work.

The natives are really not up for this Martin train. Plzten hit them with 28 shots today, could have got 4 or 5 goals on another night. His defensive coaching is still top notch.

Back to my eyes bleeding again then.

Yeah, horrendous. Not much more to be said really. Not even close to being a competitive team. It looks very much like an early season game, lots of rustiness etc, but for the wages and rep some of our players have, they have been technically horrendous. None of them seem to be able to control or pass a football. I don't like 3 at the back, never have done. I think it confuses the entire shape. Charles lost on his own in the middle, Fernandes isn't a partner in the CM role - he needs to push higher. We need better alongside Charles. We need such an injection of quality in the attacking wide area's though, but sadly what we have out there is almost £20m plus worth of it, which we need to ditch first, and none of it is good enough. A real problem area for us. (I'm not including Downs in that, way too early)

Every summer we're linked with a 'coup' level signing, but we never manage to pull it off. I'm not getting myself excited over Eduard until there's more evidence to support an actual move. It's all hope and speculation right now.

Pretty poor, didn't do much. More sub appearances for Anderlecht than starts. He was injured and in and out of the team too. I hoped it would be the season that announced him, but sadly it was just more of the same form Sam - so the club are well within the rights to ditch him at this point.

I notice that ABK isn't even mentioned or spoken about anymore, not even included with the 'Aribo/Edozie/Dibling' cohort training separately. I can only assume he's not even present at the club and is keeping fit away from the group. He's always been proven to be an incredibly bad egg around the place, he has been kept away by multiple managers. It can't just be rumour at this stage. I'd personally accept buttons for him, just to get him out of the club.

I don't think Aribo is part of the squad anymore, he'll be off sonnish. I thought the use of BBD yesterday was quite telling too. We threw everyone on the pitch at the end, even Ross Stewart, but he stayed on the bench. I'm sure the club are hoping for a bid to come in for him too. One of the worst attacking players I think we've ever had, almost certainly not suited to any form of high pressing football.