S-Clarke

If you asked me to pick a player least suited to the style Martin implements, I'd pick Onuachu. I see no place for him here in a team which is based around agility, mobility and ball retention. He was signed when the mad Nate was implementing our aimless kick it long to anyone tactic. God Willing it could have been the best tactic in the world.

Both Dibling and SAA have been offered the chance to go to Spain to 'stake their claim', Martin wants to see if either are really ready to push for a first team place. There are stacks and stacks of clubs interested in both for loan deals, L1 and Champ. We'll probably see movement on this when they're back from Spain, I do expect at least one of those to head on a loan.

I think this young kid at Palace has potential, but I thought we were avoiding doing that this time in critical positions? I get the CB signings, as we already had experience there - but we have lost Brooks, Fraser, never replaced Tella etc - we need PROVEN options in attack, at the moment our attacking options are horrendous and would be just about passable at Championship level. What will SAA and Dibling feel if we sign an unproven kid in their positions? Let's focus on developing our own young wide players, not spunking £12m on other clubs young wide players. Sure, buy wide attackers but they need to be proven and an upgrade surely? (Given our lack of quality in this area). This deal would be bonkers for all reasons.

Wasn't he spot on with the Jay Rod stuff back in 2012? That's how I remember his name coming into the forefront, he was all over that deal.

This is why I wouldn't be too worried if we blast most of our budget on O'Riley for example, as I genuinely don't believe we'd be able to afford what it takes to bring in a CF outright of the required level. There will be lots of top strikers at big clubs who want to get a move at the end of the window. Look at Chelsea pricing Broja at £30m for e.g, absolutely no takers at that price, it might still come down...but the most obvious outcome for that one to me is that he's put up for loan at the end of the window. I'm not saying we go for Broja, just that there will be options for loans as we head towards Sept.

Gave his all, was a thorn for defenders over the years. However as someone put above, certainly part of the reason for our struggles in recent years. As a club I thought we hung him out to dry in our last PL season. Everyone and their dog knew that he wasn't a consistent goal getter, he is a support striker who will do all the dirty and unselfish work for someone else to profit from (whilst also benefiting from a few goals himself). The club had it in their vision that he was our leading man for that season - hence we were relegated and got desperate in January for Onuachu. It was often his movement and strength that got him into decent positions, but his finishing was just horrific when he had to think about it. It was the right time to part ways, it'll be interesting to see if another league is less forgiving/he gets more opportunities. Wish him the best, but I'm glad the club get the chance to move on from this one.

I would hope that's the case, McCarthy backup, Lumley third choice. Or it could go as last season with McCarthy third choice given that our treatment of him was a bit bizarre for 90% of the season!

You've read that all wrong. Basically he says the club will look to bring in a GK once Lis leaves as he wants to play football. The question mark is if we look for a keeper who is better than McCarthy or Lumley, or just look to fill a backup keeper slot? Hopefully it's the former. Bazunu won't be seen this season, so not surprising he's not being mentioned.

I'd be surprised if Ross wasn't out there. Martin said that both Larios and Stewart will be going to Spain to get a good block of training under their belt, they may not play the friendlies, but they'll train. I can see Larios in the pics as people have said, but no Stewart is suggestive that he cannot even train with the group. Like Hypo said above, this will focus minds - forget Ross, he's finished here - not that it ever started.

The problem is that sort of outlay in $$ terms will put us on the brink of PSR punishments. It's all a load of nonsense really. You need to spend to compete, but can't spend out of fear of punishments.

Apparently it's because they're still being investigated, but I don't buy that totally. If you look at it, Man City bring PL and FA a bucket load of $$$ in revenue, from overseas deals, marketing etc. Punishing them will be in effect punishing the money men of the PL, so they will leave them alone and alter the rules when it looks like they may fall foul of them. Forest/Leicester/Everton don't have the same pull, so the PL can go all in on them to prove that they're following 'PSR' rules.

The argument is that he needs to play, being a squad player in and around the bench here is not going to help him. We need to get a loan for him next year, for his sake more than anything. No one has any idea if this guy will ever be able to cope with men's football over a period of time. We don't have the luxury of testing that, so maybe a loan to a lesser league where the demands are less...is beneficial for all. I'd be disappointed for him if he's still here in September, behind both Taylor and Manning.

"They will probably not play in the games for another couple of weeks, I would have thought. I think we're probably looking at an under-21s game for Juan." They're both feeling little niggles. I hope Juan gets a loan move, he needs to play mens football now - and not PL mens football, somewhere a little easier for him to adept. As mentioned above on Ross, I just don't see any way back for him at the top level no matter how positive the club lines are.

Not sure why people are going a bit OTT over this? We offered him a contract, it probably wasn't long term or anything huge pay rise due to his age and increasing injury issues. He decided to leave and asses his options, that's what he's doing. Brentford haven't offered him a contract, he's not agreed to join them, he's just assessing his options and they've offered him a trial. I think the fact that he's having to resort to trials shows how he's seen amongst other clubs - ended the season with a nasty injury, has slowed down massively as a player. Had some good moments last year but he didn't take the league by storm and it was the right time for him and us to part ways. If he joins Brentford he joins Brentford, I don't think it will be of any odds to us.

I don't think that's fair on a few accounts. Firstly he's the club captain, clearly a massive voice and respected figure in and around the group. The contract we gave out was before the start of last season, it just included an option to trigger an extension. We haven't just given him a brand new long term deal, just trigged an option in the existing. Nothing to really see here.

I guess this is where kits will always polarise opinions, but that training top is awful for my taste. Design wise it's pretty horrific as the sponsor is just lost in the nonsense. Certainly wouldn't be rushing to buy that. Each to their own though.

I thought he was at the centre of a tug of war between Man City, Chelsea and Bayern

He was kept on to run the rule over Ross Stewart.

I guess the club are being extra cautious and will slowly introduce him to pre-season, after so long out - but there's also the argument that he needs as many games as possible to be of any use to us at the start of next season, so I'm totally at a loss as to what we do with him. We bought him last year for £9m, at the time it was a bit of a risk but we were told he should be back September time - but obviously that was wrong. This is a timeline of how much football he has played since 2022 - Start of 22/23 Season - Block of games, started the Champ well. Then injured with a hamstring injury (Played 7 games) Dec - 22/23 Season - returned for December and January, then injured with a serious rupture (Played 6 games) He wasn't seen again until Nov of the 23/24 season when he was with us. November 2023/24 Season - Two cameo sub appearances against West Brom and Huddersfield, 17 mins all in. Injured again. May 2023/24 Season - Back for Leeds away, played 7 mins at the end. Played 17mins in the WBA away leg. Then we didn't see him again. Overall, since summer 2022 (2 years ago) he has only been able to start 13 games. With an additional 4 cameo sub appearances for us in that time. I don't see any way back for him as a top level player based on that output, his body will have lost most of his match conditioning. We gambled on his signing and it backfired as we all expected. The club need to move on and stop assuming he will be an option for us to count on at all in the PL. If anything, we need to loan him for his sake - see how he holds up.

I genuinely think you're trolling here, it's an incredibly bad effort as well.

Just saw that Everton's latest takeover attempt has fallen through. They are in a whole new world of shit now. Maybe this is the season they will be flushed.

Dear me.

Of course he's a solid part of our 11 for next year, it would be odd to think otherwise. He deserves a crack after 24 goals for us last year, forget what happened before and see how he is in this environment. He never led the line for us last year though, he came in from the right or left - I expect he will continue with that role, and we'll have someone else leading the line profiting from his running. He was one of those entering his final year, so of course we had to offer him a new deal. Protecting his value and rewarding him for his efforts last year. No brainer for me.

There was no rush as far as I heard, as CSA said above - Darren Mowbray stepped up. The idea was the club were reviewing structures and looking at within, and may not even replace him with another DoF. I think the search function was disabled when we had those massive database slowdowns a year or so ago.

Wouldn't Ings have been before him? The best one we've made for many years for sure, although that was totally up for debate when we had to turn the loan permanent. But it all worked out well in the end, £20m well spent for sure.