S-Clarke

Yeah, there's a credit in your season ticket accounts. It'll sit there unless you ask for it back to your bank account, or you use it as a credit for future purchases at the ticket office. It wasn't ever an auto refund into your bank account. Mine is sat there at the moment, I imagine it'll come in handy next year to put towards my season ticket when I renew when normality is back.

You might as well call Wolves the Portuguese national team. It works for them for sure, but the obvious links with Mendes is a little unfair to the rest of us!

Just the Carrillo loan to sort out now! I think it was always pretty inevitable that the unsellables would all go out on loan again. It really does highlight our piss poor we were run between 2017-2019 when the majority of our 'record' signings are all out on loan.

Doubt pubs are going to be open for much longer tbh. Well, they shouldn't be if they new restrictions are anything to go by. Ban social gatherings of no more than 6 people, indoors and outdoors, including pubs etc. If that's what they want to do, why keep pubs open? Sorry, don't want to go into a COVID rant! But the waffle and mixed crap never ceases to amaze me.

I doubt the club will provide any passes for away games, home games yeah....but away games, you'll just have to find a way to pay/watch it. Doesn't sound like fans are going to be back in stadiums anytime soon anyway, so we'll probably see most of the next two months broadcast live via some form.

Well, that was suitably dreadful.

No JWP tonight, he's on the bench. Slightly different formation, but Kalvin Phillips takes his direct place.

It's the longest run of flawless access for me, haven't had an issue for a good few days now. Maybe it's still not instant, but it's a world better!

They're another club who have got their big signings wrong, pretty much every year. The difference between them and us - they go again the next year, as they've got an owner who is prepared to bankroll to an extent. Now they've got a proper manager in there it may be different.

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?