S-Clarke

They've signed Allan, but he's a completely different type of player. Rodriguez will play number 10 or out wide, Allan is a sitting/destructive central midfield player, similar to Doucoure if they get him. They needed to refresh their midfield more than anywhere else.

It doesn't seem to be a crazy deal by Everton, just under £20m guaranteed fee. Just a 2 year deal, option of a third they can take if they want. He's prob on a decent chunk, but it's a 2 year gamble and they've only paid £20m for him. Gamble worth taking IMO for a player of his undoubted talent and standing in world football. Can't wait to see him in the PL, big fan.

How bloody good is Haaland by the way? Unreal technique, great strength, great height, great pace. If you're looking for the attributes of a perfect centre forward, he has every single one at like 10/10. He's going to be insane if he stays injury free.

Foden is a proper chav, so it doesn't surprise me. Talented, yes, but the mentality of a moron. He'll struggle to fulfil his potential due to his seemingly dumbarse chavy ways.

In my opinion any player coming in to this team needs to be good enough to become a leading/starting player. We had a period where we 'built out' the squad, but it just saddles you with players who are never quite good enough to be regulars. They may not immediately be at the level fitness/tactically, but eventually they will become starters. If we can get 3 players (KWP/Salisu+ another) of starting quality, then that's a solid window IMO. I think that was Ralph's aim at the start as well. 3 signings, very clever signings to improve the squad.

Weird, ditto. Small world and all that.

It's a pittance, for sure. But for the money we'd save on wages, it's probably worth it. Another big signing which went horribly wrong. He seems like a good lad, good attitude, clearly talented, but he seems to lack the physical attributes or footballing awareness to cope with the pace of this league. He'd be a decent player (not a world beater) in a league like La Liga, just not the PL.

It'll be interesting to see what sort of team Brentford field, at the moment it's a very tricky team. The 'mass exodus' that most predicted hasn't happened yet, so they still have a frightening array of Premier League level attackers IMO.

Redmond is one of the first names on our team sheet, IMO Pilchards. Whilst he can be guilty of sometimes going backwards, or running into blind ally's, he is absolutely perfect for a counter pressing style due to his acceleration and appetite to win the ball. When he's 'on it', we often win pretty comfortably. Boufal is a completely different type of player and wouldn't offer us anywhere near the same threat and ability to stretch teams.

Appreciate the update - must admit, the last forum I ran myself was run on PhpBB - remember that? Things have probably moved on a fair bit. Is there any appetite for moving to an entirely new forum platform (again) or is that just way too much pain? I'm guessing one of the selling points for Invision was it's 'ease' of transition from VB? I must admit though, the last few days have been as good as it's ever been. It's always been painfully slow for a few days, and then 'usable' on the others, but honestly it's just flown over the last 2 days better than it ever has. So any changes you have made have been spot on.

He's not good enough, so I wouldn't want to be relying on him. If Boufal goes we would certainly need an additional wide attacker.

I agree with a lot of what you say, and there are definitely advantages and disadvantages with our approach. But one thing that is absolutely critical to our general approach is scouting, they have to nail that with a fine toothcomb. For sure, every club has players signed for big money who haven't lived up to the hype, but when you look at our 'flops' then they were all bought within a similar time frame, under the same DoF and technical director and none of them worked out. Elyonoussi, Hoedt, Carrillo, Lemina, Boufal, Vestergaard - that's around £100m of transfers, every single one has been an absolute failure. I wouldn't begrudge the approach if one or at worse two of that lot didn't work out, but for every one of those big signings to not work out is catastrophic and signifies horrific scouting on multiple levels. That period over 2/3 transfer windows, when we sat with around £60m from VVD, was a criminal offence in my opinion. What should have been a strong legacy for our football club was flittered away on players for big wages, big money, that now no one wants. Ross Wilson and Les Reed, take a bow. The general idea of getting good players, offering them a decent amount of money compared to over leagues, is all well and good - but you need your scouting to be top notch, and during those 3 windows it wasn't acceptable. I'm glad we've restructured that area now and hopefully over time we will see an improvement in our approach. I guess I've been frustrated at the lack of investment, but we're hindered by the poor decisions and poor management of the past. Let's just hope we can get through this bump and eventually Ralph is able to build a team fully in his mould.

No more excuses for Gao, I bet he can't wait! I look forward to his imminent investment.

£3.5m for Boufal? Absolute loose change again, but what can you do. I guess if you add up all of his previous loans we may have recouped close to 8 or so mill for him, but whatever is said, he has been a catastrophic signing and a financial disaster for a club of our size.

He's had a lot of injury problems, but he strikes me as the sort of mobile/forward thinking midfielder we lack. It's not like we're 300 miles from London, pretty much straight up the m3. Bertrand lives just outside of London anyway, so I can't see that being a problem. Plus, once he see's west quay and the Marland's, there's no going back to London.

Apart from Chelsea! Talking of loans, they may have a few worth looking at once the window draws to a close. Loftus Cheek?

Terrible game of football. Slow pace, no movement, backwards and sideways for 90mins. Very lucky to have won that. Iceland are a dreadful outfit too, so a big wakeup call. Need to get the best out of players like Foden, Sterling, Sancho, Kane etc. That's as good as an attacking 4 around, but they just didn't get into the game. Lots of work to do I think.

It's been flawless now for a good few days. I hope this is it sorted now!

I'm sure Gao would put his hand in his pocket to cover the outlay. So glad we have such a responsible and engaged owner.

That's probably more to do with COVID than anything else. Sky are going a bit mental with their cut backs, but with the online content nowadays and the PL review show the need for those sorts of shows has diminished slightly. I never really saw the point of the 'Debate' show, which has been canned as well. I guess in a way Sky Sports are evolving in the same way they evolved when they ditched FanZone, You're on Sky Sports etc - both massive staples of their 90's coverage, but they moved on from those.

Good point. That's when we were best placed to jump in when one of the big 6 fails? Yeah, that went well. Cheers Les, you blundering old fool.

Well run club, Leicester. Lose a key player and they have a replacement straight away using those funds. I don't think we're that badly run these days, we just need to get rid of more to free up the space for our PEH replacement. Issues from the past!

Some positive news - Premier League clubs hold positive talks about the prospect of additional matches being televised. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/54016886

I think that's what we all want to know, but it's all gone silent. A lot of people have offered their help on this thread as well, unsure if any have had their offers taken up.

I've used Invison forums before and I've never seen it act like this, it looks like some sort of server backend issue to me, rather than the forum software it's self. No updates at all anymore though, I think this place is being left to die on it's arse which is a real shame. As someone has said, if Steve doesn't have the time to run this anymore, and he's done a bloody good job for years and years off his own back, then please just see if someone else would like to take it on rather than let it fall away.