S-Clarke

Jelert is a left field one, but he can play left back and right back - given the injuries to Wellington and Bree (and maybe the departure of Bree), this makes sense. I never felt Bree suited a 'Still' system, and Jelert is much more similar in style to Mads. Potentially could have Jelert at left back, mads at right back. Fellows and Leo Scinza in front of both, Azaz in the 10 and someone up top. Defo need some to go before more come in though. It's weird to sit here after all this and still be a little bit confused about our 'striker' options. There is a lot riding on Downs for sure. But everything else looks spot on, the jump from starter to backup in the main outfield positions is closer to equal than it has been for a long time. That will stand us in good stead for a 46 game season.

I think that's the signing relaint on players going due to squad size. We need Edozie, Aribo, BBD and co out of the door before we can contemplate another addition. If we get all of those deals done, then we may well drop a loan in on deadline day. I reckon Edozie will end up being reintegrated and we won't need a loan, just my feel.

Club hinting to Alfie that we're done on incomings, focus now switches to shifting out some of these squad players. It will still be a busy few days!

ABK has already gone to Verona thankfully

Would be happy for you to re-quote it!

He's a little more unknown than the Azaz/Fellows/Mads signings, but he's still a no brainer upgrade on what we had depth wise in that area. We needed that extra CM and a little more security in the Downes/Charles roles, and he'll give us that. Nuremburg fans love him, which is always a good sign.

These last two days have been ridiculous. I said we had to be in for an existing few days, and we certainly have. This signing is top. Exactly the sort I wanted way way back in July when Still mentioned his requirement for wingers, he was that no brainer, championship tested and top championship quality signing which would make all the difference. We've pulled off the best deal of the window here. The fee is just nonsense, I have no idea what that's all about.

Not seeing much whining in there tbf.

lol

No he doesn't. You can forget this one Dave, it flew away from us in July if we're honest. We're not signing Eduard Spertsayn.

Football fans are weird. He's come to a club who has just been relegated with aspirations to get promoted again, he leaves Boro who just swim around in mid-table also rans, and they're digging him out because he said he's happy to prove himself at a club operating at a PL level. Bitter morons are football fans.

That's probably a better signing than Furlong who they sold, for 3.5m. Not sure what Ipswich saw in that one.

I assume you have better knowledge than most on this one due to your Plymouth connections! I fancied us to get him when he made his move to Boro in 2024., I'm sure we were linked at the time and went for Brooks instead (equally good, but used awfully by the fraud)

Never his fault, no, never. It's their fault for not buying into the Rylan Circus.

This is exactly what we needed to do. We already had a squad of mish-mash quality, not enough competitiveness in training etc - we needed to raise the level, in terms of the level we're now at. The signing of Downs and Quashie add some profiles we didn't have before, but they're not what I'd call ready made. George Long was a bit of a wtf. But Azaz, Fellows and Mads are much more like it. All 3 of those immediately increase the level of the team and improve the quality in their respective positions. Let's hope we have a couple more up our sleeve too.

One of the best attacking players in this division, with the stats to back that up. What's not to like? It feels like the old days of us being under Adkins, buying the best players in the league we're in in common sense positions. This guy, Roesrlev and Fellows are no brainer/top of the tree style signings for us.

I imagine he was our 'limited funds' option, but now we have some money to throw around it's opened some additional doors for us.

We've just lost Fernandes and Dibling though, two key players. You just get on and replace those. If we're still waiting for squad players in Edozie/BBD/Smallbone/Aribo to leave before we do anything then we're a little daft. I don't think we are though. The sales of those two have given us the money we needed to move on players, I think we were thin on the ground in terms of funds until that point.

I wouldn't worry too much about Azaz/Fellows/Jander, we wouldn't be so advanced with those ones if we were relying on the departures of BBD/Edozie/Aribo/Smallbone. They'll still happen, we've lost Dibling and Fernandes at the end of the day.

Jander, Azaz, Fellows are all but done. They're not dependant on anything. They're pretty much ours bar the announcement, those 3 are too advanced to be relying on departures. Scienza/Guilovougi/Ikone (if that was genuine) are the ones we will pivot to once we lose an Edozie or Aribo.

The Aribo situation is odd, I can only imagine his wage demands are putting everyone off. I'm sure he was on 50k last time out in the Champ, then probably got a boost after promotion. He's a 20-25k p/w player tops, who ever negotiated that contract needs to do one. That's why we struggle to get rid. It'll be a loan at the 11th hour with us covering a high % of the wages I'm sure.

He's speaking personally I assume, incredible for him as he got to play in the PL - and thus secure a move which keeps him there. I had hoped we'd keep him to be honest, a bit like KWP, but it's best to not keep players around who clearly want out - it upsets the whole group when you have one bad egg. Sometimes after relegation it's best to have a clean slate, no matter how good the players are. I remember some PL clubs who came down and kept some high level players, but in many ways they weighed them down Stoke scream out to me - Kevin Wimmer (who was shit tbf, but on big money), Shawcross, Butland, Allen, Martins Indi, Imbula etc. They kept a lot of their high PL earners in an attempt to go straight back, but they were awful for them and that was that. After a season we've just had a clean slate is undeniably the best option.

My feel on Downes is that his rep has been tainted by his actions in January. So, everyone is on heightened expectations with him - i.e. he's going to need to be amazing to appease us. I remember in our last Champ season he often did similar, gave away the ball, or left large gaps in CM - but he was still good. Because of how he acted in January it's altered our opinion of him IMO. I wouldn't be sorry to see him go, as I think a fresh start would be good for both.

He does sound great to be fair, one of those out of the blue signings - a bit like Fernandes was for us last season. Sounds like he had options to go to the Bundesliga too, so this could be considered a coup. I did feel we needed another CM of his style though.

Maybe that's how we got Fellows for such a low fee, we've absolutely rinsed WBA if that happens.