S-Clarke

From what I could work out from his interview and Les's few comments, he's actually back from his injury - it sounds like just needs to play a bit of catch up re: pre-season. I reckon we'll prob see him at the back end of next month.

Apart from the year he scored 18 goals in the Premier League.

Not sure why we'd want another CB or LB. Haller seems very likley from previous links and the price quoted. Looks like a straight replacement for Pelle? I wonder if this will open the exit door for Jay...? (as it would be hard to give Long, Haller, Jay and Austin all the game time they want)

For the FM players out there...

Remy has been pretty injury prone these last couple of years though, hopefully he gets a run of games there. He's a good player.

Well he's been made available for loan and will defintley leave before the end of play tomorrow, I haven't seen our name against any reports though. I reckon he'll turn up abroad somewhere. Arsenal should have taken the £35m bid from City a couple of seasons back!

Boufal cost us less, go figure.

Yeah, I guess. But I don't think we're that sort of club, may be wrong though!

Don't particularly see the point, a very short-termist signing.

They missed out on Joe Hart as well, he chose Torino instead. Whops.

Yeah, another odd ball chairman and a situation which won't well.

Aston Villa and Hull are in talks over Abel Hernandez. £20m+ fee being discussed. what the actual ****.

Not sure we'll get Saponara to be honest. He was probably just an alternative we looked at when we were pushing forward with Boufal.

We were never going to be held to ransom by someone. I was one of those against him seeing out his contract, all we'd have had every week would be stories linking him to new clubs next year, journo's asking the same question week after week.....so it was either take our offer, or go. He decided to go.

Joe Hart to Torino on loan is happening. Bit of an odd one.

See, I wouldn't even call your viewpoint optimistic - it's just plain common sense.

I wouldn't say it was superior insight, just flaming common sense for anyone with a brain.

One win in 10 games in all comps. 1 win in 8 league games. Between November 21st > Sat 9th Jan. (our only win in that period was the 4-0 league win over Arsenal on boxing day)

We're never going to be in a position to go and replace a Mane for e.g, with a total like for like. If there was a like for like out there, then he'd have already moved to a big club. We have to go down the other route - look for young potential, players who want to improve and have all the raw tools to reach the top level. That's where our 3 signings rank. When we brought in Mane he wasn't a world beater, he had a similar profile as Boufal (possibly not as highly rated at the time), but also had the right attitude and raw tools to improve. We improved him, just as we'll improve Hojbjerg, Redmond and co. I think there is a sense that people look at how Redmond performed at Norwich and see that as his maximum, but I can assure you the club wouldn't have signed him if they thought that was his maximum. In a season or 2 I'm sure we'll be back on here winging and moaning that we cannot keep Boufal and we haven't replaced him with a decent replacement etc. And the wheel will go round. and round. I accept where we sit on the football food chain and as a club we've got it down to the t. There's still no real reason for the hysterical rubbish written on here. (Although mainly from trolls and WUM's it has to be said)

Him, Saint Charlie, Slugger etc.....are never in the same room together. hmm. Just saying.

Great post - I personally believe the majority feel the same as you, it's unfortunate that a few WUM's on this site can influence the thoughts of others. It doesn't annoy me in general how short sighted football fans are (not just ourselves). Lose a couple of games, re-invent the wheel - new manager, new board, new players. History tells you that patience and sticking with what you have for a decent amount of time is often the best fix you can employ. People need to be careful what they wish for, we could have so easily been taken over by the types of people in charge at Forest, Hull, Leeds, Coventry...the list goes on. We struck gold with Markus and thankfully his daughter is following in his memory. Les Reed gets so much abuse on here and I've never known why. He seems to be the automatic person to blame when things aren't going well, yet when we're doing well....it's all just luck (apparently?). Improving season upon season for 7 years, with him as Director of Football, isn't luck - he knows what he's doing and people should trust in what he does, it could be a lot worse - a hell of a lot worse.

Going to WBA for around £15m by all accounts. I honestly don't see us signing another central midfielder. If we make another signing, it will be another striker/attacker or a RB (depending on the Cuco situation)

He had Matudi, Marquinios et co in knots a season or so, they couldn't stop him. He'll have fun up against some of the slow cloggers in the PL. Looking forward to it. For what it's worth, sounds like his injury is long sorted - it's just a case of getting him into a mini pre-season to build up his fitness.

We've signed Redmond, Hojbjerg, Boufal - 3 additions of genuine quality in the team. And by all accounts, we're still active for at least 1 more. So if you add those and all the huge extensions, it's not fair to label the ''we have no ambition' card at the club.