S-Clarke

I'm slightly worried that there are no credible links/rumours for us, but plenty for our 'rivals'. The Veerman one has gone quiet as well. There are literally 2 working days left, what an absolute shower we are. Still. Still, time to prove us all wrong...!

They're managing this as well as the transfer market, by the looks of it. Feel sorry for all those who renewed, I honestly think the club should refund all the money back and then sell individual tickets if we're allowed to attend games by the spring. No clubs should have offered season tickets this season imo.

Interesting piece on RLC https://theprideoflondon.com/2020/09/17/chelsea-just-might-ruben-loftus-cheek-now/

Are you ITK? To be fair, he would be a good start. A very mobile midfielder, goal threat, good physique etc. Think he'd be perfect alongside JWP. The only concerns I'd have over him is how long-term is it? Are we simply borrowing him for a season and then he'll go back to Chelsea or get sold for a large sum after a good year with us?

TBF Given how hamstrung we are financially, you probably have to give credit to us for managing to get KWP and Salisu over the line. I'm sure there was some element of swap in the KWP/Hoj deal to make it financially viable to us.

We need an additional wide player, not an Armstrong type. We are relying on Tella to provide that pace/directness, but we do need someone else to provide that as well. If one of Moussa or Redmond is injured, our only bench alternative is Tella.

We've had another predicable transfer window nightmare. 3 working days left!

That's a strange one, more so because we've missed out. This is someone Ralph pursued massively when he was at RB, we were also linked with him heavily when Ralph first arrived if I recall correctly. It's clearly a position we need to sort, he'd add depth to both wide area's, and he's only a loan. It seems a bit odd that we've not even gone in for this one? (or tried?)

Monday.

Fulham sound like a bit of a disconnected team, from the board down to the first team. Their transfer strategy last time was to invest a lot of money, you cannot blame the owner for that imo - he really backed them. The issue was the scouting (they chose the wrong players, generally) and the coaching. Scott is still very young, still quite raw and with his tactical changes (they went to 3 at the back last night) you can see he has a lot to learn. They have some good players though and they will pickup, but they will be in and around that bottom lot for the season.

Not sure what you're on about. The whole model of selling multiple players for profit and then using that to continuously evolve the team generally isn't sustainable. What helps sustainable success is when you have an owner who is engaged and willing to help the club grow, allows you to keep the core of the team, and allows you to add to it without having to sell anyone who can breathe. The model of sell, sell, sell before we can buy will immediately fail when you have nothing to sell, that will eventually lead to regression and eventually relegation. Unless we have an owner willing to put some money in to turn the tide, we are stuck.

This is where your owner steps up to the plate and provides that injection, so it doesn't deter/harm the club he owns. I totally agree with supporting the lower leagues, but that outlay without help from the owner is going to harm what we can do as a club.

It will eventually trip you up and leave you relegated. It's not sustainable. In some windows you need to invest a little, because not every transfer will be a success - it's impossible. We can't keep peppering this line of 'sell for a profit, reinvest that money in the team - but no more than what we brought in' - one or two bad windows and your entire stance is ruined, because you can't raise enough capital. Which is what we've found. Little bit of help from an owner wouldn't go a miss.

Moussa just needs a run of games, he is coming into this season with no form at all. He had a very stop-start first year with us, in fact it was more stop than start. Not sure what the injuries were, but it was certainly hampering him getting up a head of steam. If we've got to the bottom of those injuries and he's now fit, give him a run of games and we'll see the trickery/pace that we know he can produce. He was utterly hopeless on Saturday for sure, but it's a hard game to judge him on as he needs to find his way back to some form.

But we should have got enough background info on everyone on our 'list' to understand the work permit issues/if there are any. There's no excuse for the substandard bollocks this club puts out in the transfer market, every.flaming.year.

Three becomes one, what happened to Ralph's 'two minimum, maybe three''. Absolute mess. No doubts the club are proper hamstrung from the pointless Gao, but their planning never ceases to amaze me.

The work permit isn't a get out of jail for the club. ''Oh fair enough, club can't do much there!'. WTF are the club doing chasing after a player who would have been very difficult to get a work permit for, when they've had an entire 12 months to plan for this and to eek out all this info before making a bid. Shambles is one word for it.

I wasn't talking about Boufal, I was talking about Redmond. As far as Boufal is concerned, he offers nothing and never has. If getting shot of him frees up the money to buy someone more direct/quicker, then let's do it. We won't miss him.

When he's on form, we win more than we lose - without question. The problem is that he flits in and out of form so quickly, he needs to find more consistency. But no doubt that he's a top level PL player when on form.

I don't think we'd be able to get Chouduray, as he's quite expensive. English young player, first team player for Leicester (ok, not every week). Upwards of £25m imo. Davies on a nominal loan is probably the option we'll go for.

14/15. We lost a lot, for sure, but we replaced them well and didn't leave any obvious holes in the squad. The second season under Koeman we signed VVD, but we also started to baulk out the squad with the likes of Juanmi etc - and that was kinda a sign of things to come.

Barring the 'weather', I think it's going to be a winter of being indoors more than being out anyway. If fans are in stadiums before the spring then I'll be very, very, very surprised. They should just start refunding season tickets now imo.

I honestly think our slowness is because we have to wait to release more players, which in turn releases more finance. that's my hunch. They'd probably come to us without much issue, but if I was them I wouldn't want to hang around whilst we tried to find a buyer for Hoedt/Carillo/Boufal etc. Kinda puts their career on hold if they have other options, and that's what PSV presented as.

Think Reed is injured (no surprise there) and Lemina is probably just being Lemina. Can't say we made a mistake letting either of those go, the mistake will be if we don't use those funds to replace.

I think so..? However, there will be an additional, domestic window that continues through to 5 p.m. on Oct. 16 when clubs will only be able to trade (either loans or permanent registrations) with EFL teams (so not internationally or with other Premier League clubs).