S-Clarke

The only way that happens is if Morgan Gibbs White moves in the other direction (Newcastle have been linked with him tbf). It'll be cost neutral at that point. Forest cannot spend a penny without sales.

So I guess he doesn't include Man Utd in that, given that they finished 8th last season. It's quite a scary league to be in these days, I would say most of it is already factored to the advantage of the Big 6 as it stands - Villa will have their wrists slapped very heavily by PSR if they attempt to compete again next year.

You speak as if you know the finances though and that we're in a difficult position whatever the situation. I just threw the question back at you to ask why you feel so sure that we are in a financially tricky position? I don't think it's as black and white as that at all. PSR will dictate how we operate and that's why we're seeing freebies and nothing major. If we could spend and weren't governed by these rules we would spend a decent chunk, I'm sure. We can still get good value from free's though, get ourselves safe and then go again properly next with with less financial red-tape around us.

And just to throw this back at you, how do you know the club are financially strapped? You've been saying this for months, if we didn't get promoted we'd be ruined financially, and now we're promoted we're still ruined financially. Not sure I totally buy it. PSR is what's making it look like clubs are skint, but we do probably have more resources than we did the last time we came up. We just can't use them.

Yep, they're offering out Isak and Gordon at the moment - no real takers at the fees they want, so they may be forced to accept low ball figures just to get them over the line. The football bodies need to have a real look at what a mess this PSR thing is creating to realise it's unsustainable. Clubs running scared everywhere, it's doing the opposite of what they intend it to do ''create an even playing field''

Just saw that myself. I know it's only the Irish league, but to be playing and impacting first team football @ 16 is pretty special, in whatever league. Beat some big clubs to this one. Hope we actually get to see him play for us before the inevitable transfer in a few years.

This is the part I take issue with - this should have been about admitting a mistake and replacing Bazunu with a long-term decent starting GK, keep Bazunu around and have a situation where he'd have to really, really fight for his place when he's fit. All we've done is basically nothing, which means Bazunu will be back automatically without having to fight for a place whenever he is deemed fit enough. I'd say 90% of fans wouldn't have taken this approach, so the guy who heads the GK department at the club has had a total brain fart if he feels this is a suitable way of going about this. Obviously this is all fixed if the club sign another GK...!

He's almost certainly on our list, we were heavily linked a couple of summers ago - but for crazy money, 20-25m I think. £10m would be a much fairer reflection. Like others have said, I think he has something about him. As a youth player he was prolific, everyone was excited about him and he was linkend to Kane in many ways. Defo a gamble at £10m I'd be happy to take (or a loan with a view)

Just putting it out there, but a young 20 year old Harry Kane was relatively similar before he made his proper break through - couple of nondescript champ loans at Norwich and Leicester where he did pretty similar to Delap, nothing mind blowing. We were linked with him in 2014 and I remember a lot of fans saying exactly the same ''Hasn't done anything, he's not going to do it at this level etc''. The rest was history once he got his chance at Spurs. Saints eye £10m Kane – The Sun

Ipswich signing one of their loans on a perm - Omari Hutchinson, £23m. He was decent for them last season, good player who is ready to make the step up imo. The money Chelsea make on their kids is insane though.

Martin and him are pretty close, think he was big in his career at MK Dons. Can imagine there is interest, I think there was last summer too. That price would need to come down a lot though!

Liam Delap was mooted.....there's a loan there with an option to be had if we want it. Amad Diallo at Man Utd another shout if we wanted more attacking depth. Rico Lewis (Man City kid RB) is available for loan, we could do worse than to grab him for a year if we lose KWP.

The loan market is massive for me. We were experts at that last season, our use of that is primarily the reason we got promoted. Let's try and replicate that this year. (minus a Holgate)

If it was a choice between Charlie Taylor, De Cordova-Reid, Fraser and Lallana on free's.....or £80m on exotic names such as Sulemana, Onuachu, Boufal and Carillo I think we all know what we'd prefer. They don't sound sexy on paper, but more often than not these are the ones that work out (As we are experts at finding out). I remember when we signed Long and Bertrand under Koeman, seen as massively boring at the time but they turned out to be excellent additions. Stu Armstrong, Oriol Romeu, Ings on loan etc weren't seen as sexy additions at the time we got them either, but made our big money signings of the time such as Lemina and co look shit.

Don't forget Ryan Fraser, he's pretty much a done deal I'd have thought. He'll be a strong option for the left, then De Cordova-Reid for competition on both sides. Fraser, Edozie, SAA, Armstrong, DCR - that sort of depth with no transfer fee outlay will be pretty clever IMO.

I quite like Charlie Taylor, a bit of a boring but pretty solid PL addition for me. When Burnley had their European season a few years back I thought he was outstanding, he always stretched their left hand side and provided some great attacking width. He may have slowed down a little, but he's full of experience and the sort of mentality you need IMO. Not a 'sexy' £40m signing by any means, but a sensible addition in our circumstances 100%.

I do see what you are saying, but I think it was too few a sample of games to really come to the conclusion that we've entirely ditched that. I think we did what was needed at the back end of the season to get us over the line, so we'll probably see a revert to the 'brave' approach next season. My biggest concern with this isn't that he will be our number 1, it's that the club are continuing to put all faith into Bazunu. This was the opportunity to replace Bazunu and fall on their sword, but by signing McCarthy it's clear we're just waiting for Bazunu to come back which is just bonkers.

There was talk of De Cordova-Reid if he didn't agree to a new Fulham deal, looks like this one may have legs if the above is true. Good free signing if we can do it, have always liked his directness.

Entirely possible, but maybe we'll pull out a Boruc style free transfer after the window has closed - once it becomes apparent that the GK's aren't up to it. (as we saw with Kelvin when we last got promoted, so had to act out of desperation once the window had closed). Our management of goalkeepers has been diabolical for so long now. We might all be wrong and we have a number 1 up our sleeve about to sign, but I think we've been here before!

First glimpse of Football Manager 2025 along with what we can expect from landmark new version - ReadWrite Tiny glimpse of the UI. not sure how legit this is. Couple of other notes of things they are removing from the game this time round.

I think we all know how this ends. This is our GK until Bazunu is back. Totally bonkers, completely backwards decision. If he hadn't come in for the last handful of games last season (he didn't even feature on the bench for us for 90% of the season) then he'd have walked off into the sunset on the released list. Somehow those handful of games have convinced us to give him a first choice PL contract for 2 more years. If he was a squad player then fair enough, but we all know deep down that he is starting next season and we won't be signing another. Lumley and McCarthy are our two GK's at PL level. At this stage we might as well have stayed down.

Absolutely this, it's not as if we're about to offer him a 6 year contract. It's just a fair reflection of the targets being hit and and like you say, you'd expect a bonus upon that. Keeps everyone committed and happy and doesn't tie us into anything monster-length.

But what if he just wants a fresh start and a move back to London? It's entirely feasible that an all money can buy offer wouldn't tempt him as he fancies a fresh start, and we may well have had that discussion with him. He has earnt a new start wherever he feels fit in my eyes. He gave us an extra year last year, it was ridiculous to have a player of his level in that league. He goes with my blessing. Now it's up to the club to ensure that we get the replacement bang on and don't end up with Bree starting.

Sorry should have clarified, I meant in terms of outlays transfer fee wise. I still expect us to get a Striker, but I imagine it will be someone in the loan market towards the backend of the window (if Adams leaves). If Adams and McCarthy do re-sign then I can honestly see them sticking with that (not that I'd agree with it). I think we're making use of the free market up to now, so I expect us to make equally good use of the loan market at the end of Aug.

It does sound like this move would help appease a lot of the PSR nonsense. I don't think we have the flexibility to put down money on the table for Downes outright and then sign a replacement for KWP - so including KWP in the Downes deal will free up the funds allowing us to get the RB replacement. I think Charlie Taylor coming in on a free, Ghoddos on a free, Fraser on a free, Downes in a swap and Sugawara (however you spell it) as a replacement for KWP will be us done. Still massively short up top and in GK though, but without a substantial sale or two more (i.e Charly or Adam Armstrong) we're a bit stuck. It's a clever way of getting two new players for the price of one in PSR terms really. It's just a shame we have to get weaker before we can get stronger.