S-Clarke

The feeling I've got with PSR over recent years, is the more you cheat the rules the better you become and get away with it. They'll probably sell off their women's team to generate income to offset it. Their stadium revenue will also fill some of the gaps. It seems as if you abide by the rules and keep your finances in check, like us, you're held back and inevitably regress and get kicked out of the league. If we ever get back up I couldn't care less about PSR - just go for it, spend, breach the rules. Who cares.

Rejected, but likely to be accepted at some point shortly I'd imagine. We're at the final negotiation stages, usually played out in the media with a good few days lag. It'll only take another 4-5m up front and they'll have a deal.

The words from Dragon were that we were trying a Striker, Defender and AMC - and we can do before selling. We got the striker and defender, but maybe the AMC just didn't materialise for whatever reason. We do need to be mindful that we do still have Aribo/Edozie and co on the books though, they need to be shifted. Not just financially, but squad size wise really. The vibe I get is that the club want to improve on Aribo, Edozie.

I can't find them now, but the stats were travelling in a similar direction of -XG let in shots. God knows what it would have bene had he had more games. I feel pretty low that he'll be our Number 1 next season, it feels like we're just cycling back round in circles ignoring the mistakes of the past. I just want to forget the last few years, but the continued inclusion of guys like these make it hard to move on. The biggest telling thing for me last January is that we openly put Bazunu on the market for a loan, we told the media pretty much and I'd imagine floated his name out there to get takers. No takers, not one, no rumours nothing. We got to the end of the window and the only reason he went to Liege was because the manager was his former youth coach at City. That to me is fairly telling in terms of how others perceive him as a goalkeeper. I guess the key positive in all of this is that the club will add a GK to the squad, with Ramsdale gone, Lumley gone and McCarthy firmly third choice, there is a gap. I just hope the club buy another keeper who is good enough to really push Bazunu and jump in when required, as otherwise we are in a right old mess.

The news is that the club are calm and relaxed about the situation. They feel they have a good squad even without additions, and will only add if it improves the quality of the squad (that's in jest) In all seriousness, we still need to shift numbers before we can realistically start adding more players. We do have holes in terms of quality, but we're still totally bloated with players on big wages. The squad is a bit of a mess, loads and loads of work to do in 4 weeks. I still think this will take a few windows to cycle through properly, so we won't be the finished article in September - Whether that will be enough for us to be competitive is anyone's guess at this stage.

Haven't they got a new ownership group now? The Friedkin Group or similar. They aren't City levels or Chelsea levels of flush, but they can move now.

Which makes a mockery of the entire medical process really.

MLG is working off of FM Ratings, which are hugely skewed in our squad at the moment I find. So, no, the reality is if we don't replace Dibling and Fernandes we do not have a top Championship side, far from it. But we will replace if they go, so it's a moot point.

Martin loved Bazunu, I thought he'd want to go into some sort of relationship with him at some point (probably cheating on Stephens). We were forced into replacing in the summer because of his injury, had he not had an injury we'd have started with him in the PL (but i doubt we'd have even got there tbh) Dean Thornton stayed with us for the rest of the season, but we now have a new GK coach brought in - I think he worked under Still previously. So it's an entirely clean sweep in that regard.

Downs paired with Archer does have a nice look about it. Archers best season came when he played with Akpom, a powerful striker, which allowed Archer to make the runs in and around. It worked quite well. That would require us going '2' up top though, which doesn't seem very fashionable these days.

Didn't he reject Burnleys contract offer and leave them, as he had interest from higher up? (Not just English, but Foreign leagues). There's no chance he ditches Burnley in the PL to drop back down to the Champ.

Oh christ, yeah - I forgot about ABK - so we have stacks of CB's on the books! Defo need to shift 2 IMO. I think Sanda would be the easier player to accommodate that 5th floating CB role, it's probably a bit unfair to stick Wood in that role as he's at an age where he really needs to play - so he's probably best to find a club as a starter.

I disagree wholeheartedly, the fact he came bottom of the GK stats last time out in this league puts him more of a 4/10 at best GK for this level. Stoke have a good GK in Victor Johannesen, in fact they bought him for just under £1m. Sensible, no frills, no risk signing. We'd be able to get better than Bazunu on a free - Matt Ryan for example, so I don't buy the ''to expensive to improve upon' angle. Maybe I'm overly harsh on him, but I'm only saying what I see in front of me (not just stats). Talking of scar tissue, I've got it from Bazunu I'm sure.

Robinson and Fraser are probably the only wide players we currently have.

Number 10, wide right and wide left. But if they're clever, they could buy one proper '10' and another player who could play multiple positions across the front 3 (versatile winger type). Certainly the attacking area is the priority even without selling anyone else, so it's interesting to see what they do. 3rd GK - surely 1st choice GK CM and RB are probably nice to haves and depend on departures, i.e. if Smallbone or Bree leave. Although to give us a bit of cover it wouldn't be unreasonable to have another CM. So potentially 3-5 new players? (taking us to a total of maybe 7 for the window) That's not asking for much, but they all need to be starters - that's the key.

Or Edwards, he showed up well last season and could represent a profit if sold.

I hope something happens with Wood soonish to be honest, as whilst we are overloaded at CB it makes me uneasy that we may look to cash in one one of the better ones - and see it as bonus income.

You do make good points, we have lurched from one 'style' to the next without any forward planning or understanding. The issues of the past still haunt us and it has all been very chaotic, but I'm still in the zone of giving the new setup a chance as we've not had a revamped 'scouting/analysis' role like this since SR have been in. Yes, we're lurching back to another style of play again...but I always think this style (Aggressive/powerful) is more beneficial for smaller teams anyway, if smaller sides try to be tika-taka it only ever ends one way. Let's see what situation we sit in next summer.

Wood seems to be the odd one out in all of this - maybe he'll get a move before the end of the window? We've also got Sanda who the club rate (fits the profile of Still/Spors). Sanda would make sense as the floating 5th squad CB, moving between U21's to first team as required. Cheaper too.

I think £35-40m is a standard price these days, yep. If clubs aren't prepared to go there then they're not paying the going rate. It's the standard going rate for PL players really, and having PL experience adds another £5-10m to that price. Because we never shopped there is why we're now where we are. We spent lots, but on lots of sub £20m - which just bloats the squad, with maybe 1 or 2 gems in and amongst.

Oh absolutely, especially the first half I thought Downs was way too isolated. But it just highlighted the lack of attacking options we have across the 3 (10, wide left, wide right). We need at least 2 across that area, 3 if we're being really ideal. We can't go into a season with Fraser and Archer being our wide options, or even 'false 9's' as Fraser played during points. He'd get eaten up and spat out doing that at any level. Fraser can be an asset to us, but only as a sub. If he starts as a first team player for the majority of the season then we've cocked up recruitment imo.

What part, the losing of them or replacing? Seriously if we lose those 3 and don't replace, we'll finish below Top 10 - guaranteed. It'll be a mimic of our season in 2005/2006, and Still will be made the fall guy for an inadequate squad. Genuinely the club aren't that daft though - they can't lose the amount of attacking depth we had (which wasn't even great, let's be fair) and blindly go into the season without replacing. It would be negligent on levels we 'eve never seen before.

My fear is that any bump during August is going to be greeted by a chorus of ''get him out'', as we've all been conditioned for many years with shit managers and the expectation that cycling through them mid-season is what we do. Genuinely I think in this instance we simply have to allow him the time and space. He's shown he's capable as proven in France, arguably more of a calibre than Martin was when he joined us. Juric 'could' have bene good, but the massive issue he had was inheriting a team that had absolutely no ingredients to play the way he wanted to. This is the initial problem Still will face - so we have to stick through it, allow the squad to evolve around him with the right sorts and hope we don't fall too far behind the likes of Ipswich.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought that. I thought I was maybe being ultra harsh, but it's another case of coming away from a game, conceding multiple goals, and wondering should Bazunu have saved or got to at least 'one' of them.

Expected and probably the right move for all. Not sure he's the right sort of player for a high intensity team in any way. With Edozie, Aribo and likley Fernandes all offski....we are going to get some exciting new additions in the attacking areas!