S-Clarke

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.

Can't see this posted on here yet, but he come across very well in his interview (speaks excellent English too)

Tidy.

We didn't sell Best or Jones that season. HTH.

0/10

For the sake of his career, he needs to get the **** out of WBA though. The fans hate him. And it's an horrific club to play at, feel sorry for anyone who has to.

The sort of player we've been crying out for (for years). I look forward to watching him, he will get bums on seats!

I don't think his knee injury is anything severe, from what I read he underwent a routeen procedure to clear up some cartilage - nothing more than that. Sounds like exactly what Bertrand had last summer.

The quotes from him were odd as well, he was ''surprised'' to find that Forest had accepted the bid for him. I don't think he was advised to leave as such, more so that Forest saw the $$$$ and said cheerio.

Do you realise that website features made up and fantasy rumours?

Hopefully Rickie can find himself a great club at Championship level and help them to promotion.

Last seasons start was a lot ****er tbf.

He doesn't speak for me. Seems a very hysterical rant, knee jerking on stuff he doesn't really have a full insight on. I can remember games under Koeman and MP where we played a hell of a lot worse - a hell of a lot. Way too much over the time tripe is being written about this formation. Just seems an easy thing for people to lump at the manager when they don't really have the full insight or knowledge.

Sky sources are telling us that Southampton now plan to keep Jay Rodriguez after he was linked with a loan move to West Brom andHull. Our understanding is that Southampton were considering letting him out on loan to get game time after spending so much of the last two seasons injured. The forward, 27, scored his side’s late equaliser against Sunderland at St Mary’s yesterday and has made just 14 first-team appearances since suffering a knee injury in April 2014.

Absolutely spot on - everything you say is right.

There were times I felt we had a lack of control, I wasn't as impressed with the ball retention through the middle as I have been in other games this year - we were pretty sloppy, and Romeu wasn't at the races again (for me). But for this formation to truly work we need two attacking full backs who provide the width. Cedric does this to a certain extent on the right, but Targett is not providing any threat. Once we get Bertrand back, we'll have pace and threat down the left - we'll look a little more balanced I hope. As i've said above, I don't see anything catastrophically wrong - just a little rustiness, start of season blues. We're not a bad side.