S-Clarke

We didn't beat them the few months ago we played them, we let Glen flaming Murray equalise. Have no confidence in us to beat anyone going by who we've failed to beat this year.

This guy? Sammie Szmodics Highly rated down in L2 tbf. But I would guess this is one for the U23's

Should we be concerned that he'll be there with Harry Redknapp.

He's injured at the mo, so big no from me.

Who is the absolute polar opposite of the sort of player they're looking for.

How many times does that need to be brought up. It has nothing to do with that. Fraser Forster is with Stellar Football Management.

They're having a laugh. Surely.

He is part of Stellar Group, nothing to do with what was dug up the other day. Same agents as Bale, Lallana etc.

Stellar Football I think https://www.transfermarkt.com/stellar-football-ltd/beraterfirma/berater/190

Also a criticism of Puel. Maybe at this point we need to then look at the makeup and recruitment of the squad, and the fact that two managers have been chopping and changing the side in the hope of finding a formula.

One of the biggest mysteries of all - which that article picked up on - is why on gods earth was Fraser offered a new 5 year contract in the summer? Why was that needed? What had he done to deserve that? It was only a year on since his last 5 year renewal, so it's not like he was running down his contract and we needed to act. It's no wonder the levels have dropped if they know they don't have to play out of their skin to get an undeserved pay packet. That decision is still a total wtf in my mind.

Is that all you've picked up on? It is a bang on article in all aspects.

tbf as one of the big clubs, Chelsea's recruitment has been a bit wtf in recent years, generally.

But remember Ralph already has these on his desk, he just needs to spell check them. 5 pledges. I wonder if one of them mentions single digits.

Well, hopefully we can make use of him deeper if he's willing to learn. But having a presence in the box will be a bonus for us. Bertrands crosses in particular are brilliant, but Cedric needs some work. We've been crying out for more height down the spine of this team for a while.

To be fair he doesn't speak English, so probably a bit harsh unleashing him on 20 or so sotonions! Still would be good to hear from him in terms of a statement though.

You'll need someone to keep an eye on Son, Eriksen and Ali too. Their movement is really, really fluid.

But the average players at the big clubs would probably be the best players at mid sized clubs. We're not signing washed up, they're still young. People like Lemina, Hojbjerg, Hoedt are still really young and have tons of growth.

I'm a little more reassured that this looks close, because attribute wise he's exactly what we need. A powerful, tall centre forward. Someone to play off of. I'm not condoning long ball, but you need options and you need someone to give the rest of the team the opportunity to push up - he may not score bags and bags of goals, but what he'll bring us in holding up the ball will allow us to get more from the rest of the side And our pacey wide player we seem to be targeting, who is also a 100% requirement for this team.

To be fair, Toby was a reserve player when we signed him. But I do get what you mean in a sense, but you also need to look at the clubs we're getting these players from. We're not going up to Celtic or Saltzburg, we're getting players from Bayern Munich, Juventus, Monaco, Napoli etc. They'll obviously be reserve players there as we wouldn't be able to get near a first team player. They may be reserves, but they're good quality reserves. It's up to the manager to build a good team, we don't have bad players.

Clearly heavily influenced by Pellegrino as he worked with him when he was manager at independiente (i think)

Yeah, I know that's the case. I'm not really expecting to see full financial details, but just some ideas of their plans wouldn't go amiss. To have such a large takeover and to hear nothing on the back of it is just odd. In a sense I'm glad they're not shouting from the rooftops like the Venky's, but there is another extreme to that - not actually saying anything! Will see how Ralph is getting on with those pledges soon I guess.

This is where we need a bit of transparency to be honest. If Gao has taken out loans to buy the club AGAINST the club he's buying, then we are ****ed. But I can't see that would be the case, surely the loans are against him and his company, rather than hooked onto the club? So fair enough, he may want to dip into the club to help repay them, but we shouldn't necessarily be seen as carrying that debt. Does need some clarification to be honest. Still waiting.

Yeah I saw that one yesterday. He has been a bit of a disaster at Milan if truth be told, but he has pedigree. It'll only be a loan though, not a buy, and I don't think the club are really looking at loans as priority options. We're just fluffing around unrealistic permanent transfers before we try and mop up the remaining loans left on the 31st, after we've failed to sign any of our unrealistic permanent transfers. (sorry, still being cynical)

It's the classic case of ''oh he's being sold, he's **** anyway'' ''oh we've missed out, he was too expensive anyway, better value in europe''. When the reality is for £20m there isn't a single player out their with his pedigree, attributes or experience in this league to get. Probably a choice of the player, but given the position we were in 2 seasons ago (finished 6th) we really could have had the pick of proper talent, but we decided to sell it all instead.