S-Clarke

I find it really odd that a thread about our two average goalkeepers, who the club have given decent money to and don't have the finances to replace right now, has turned into a blame game on Ralph - the goalkeeping situation is his fault, the lack of finances is his fault. Huh? I don't follow. If we had money we'd get a new goalie, I'm not doubting that what so ever. Sadly we don't have any money so we have to prioritise elsewhere. Whilst Alex and Fraser aren't great, they're not total calamities let's be fair. Apart from Ralph getting out his own personal loan to either pay off Fraser, or buy a new GK, I fail to see what he can do. And 'making Frasers life hell' so he leaves isn't what I'd call an approach. Completely out of touch.

It's probably a package which 'could', but is incredibly unlikely to reach those levels. 4-5m is prob what we can expect staged over two payments I reckon. And that alone is a bonus as I thought we'd end up loaning him. So...#unsellables wise....we have sold Hoedt (kind of), Lemina (almost), Carillo (Given away), Boufal (given away). Not sure if I've missed any, but that's some decent wedge off the wage bill over the last year or so - just a shame about the £50m+ loss we've had to make in the process. Cheers Les. Just Elyonoussi from that group....but I think he's going to be given a first team chance.

So you'd rather run the risk of Stephens or Salisu at full back, maybe a young kid coming into CM, or Long starting up top as a regular just so we get a decent goalie? I get we need a new goalie and in an ideal world we'd sort it, but it's not an ideal world and we have no money so there are just more pressing concerns.

Nothing wrong with Antwerp per-say! I just see Chelsea youngsters going back on loan there season after season, then eventually leaving on a free and never fulfilling thier potential. I wouldn't imagine he's coming here thinking he's going to be first choice, but in and around the first team for sure would be an expectation.

Or better value from their attackers. They didn't get any value from Jahanbakhsh, I imagine they'd have expected a decent haul from him. I'd also expect more from Trossard tbh. I think they could do with someone better than Maupay, but they also need to be better in all attacking areas. They look great up until the box (well, they did last season).

I wouldn't even say he's working to a budget, he's working with nothing. The club are working in the background to generate the funds to enable the movement in the squad. I guess the question is - would you consider an Ings replacement less important than a new goalkeeper? I personally wouldn't. Goalkeeper is a position that would be nice to upgrade, without question, but there are many other pressing areas that take my attention long before the goal keepers. If we had stacks of money it wouldn't be a question, but we have no money what so ever...so we've got to be very clever with what we do. Shelling out any fee on a goal keeper when we already have two well paid ones on the books, and leaving gaps at full back, up front and midfield would be utter lunacy in my eyes.

These sorts of signings are sound. It seems as if these Chelsea youngers have got fed up with stagnating in the Chelsea Reserves or away on loan deals at Antwerp. I agree with a previous post above - I think this will allow Salisu to become a starter, Vestergaard to leave. Simeu and Stephens as number 3 and 4 Centre backs. That allows us to sell Vestergaard for a decent fee and reinvest that money in other areas of the squad. Could be a sound move and the bit of business that finally allows us to fill some holes in CM/wing back and maybe even up front.

I don't disagree, I'd love to sort the situation right now. I think it's crap, two pretty average keepers who are backup not first choice. But I don't see how we can put the finance towards that when we have more pressing issues - such as full back, CM depth and attacking depth (including an Ings replacement if rqd). I think those are the more pressing areas in this window in my opinion.

I think clubs are monitoring him, but he's just not their first choice in my opinion. They'll see how the market shifts, look at what happens with the likes of Kane, Halland, maybe Mbappe etc and then see where they are. If Ings goes it will be right at the back end of the window when clubs are clear on player availability, and that could be dangerous for us. We could refuse it and potentially upset Ings, or we could accept it and have absolutely no time to replace. Ideally we get in someone like Armstrong whilst Ings is still here...then we have that safety net. But who knows if that's possible without a sale first.

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.