S-Clarke

Good for him to get some game time, be interesting to see how he does. You can't get away from how much weaker we've ended the window though, losing SAA, Cornet, Armstrong and BBD as attacking options and not replaced (granted, the output from them all was pretty shit). We only have Onuachu and Archer as viable 9's. I hope we don't get any end of season attacking injury crisis!

Oh yes, good point. I was thinking of Kuryu Matsuki at Goztepe, who equally looks decent tbf.

In the snippets I've seen, this guy looks good. I think it's easy to forgot we've got him coming back into our 11 next year, and he certainly looks Championship quality - probably higher than that. Looking forward to seeing him.

Surprised there were no takers in England (actually, maybe not that surprised!). I think it's the Edozie and Bazunu derby in a few weeks.

Oops. Reminds me of a player Leeds went for a few years ago, at the same time they were pushing for Gakpo with us. He agreed to go to Leeds, then decided to go elsewhere, that didn't happen and then he was left in limbo at the club who wanted rid.

If we're not strengthening Gozepte, we're strengthening our U21's. Shame about the first team. 😉

I agree with this in the main, my gripe has never been with Dragan - who like you say has put his money where his mouth is. The biggest issue is the lack of a footballing department, even aside from the DoF's there hasn't been what I'd call a stable recruitment environment. The ideal situation is that the DoF builds his own footballing structure, including analysts, scouts and the such - Shields nor Wilcox were here long enough to even implement that. If we can get a DoF who wants to stay longer than 6 months, then he has a chance to shape the scouting and recruitment in a way that aligns with an overall strategy. What we have at the moment, in the absence of a footballing structure, is a club which is hopping between styles and philosophies every other day. I still find it incredibly odd that we felt it was a good idea to ignore a replacement for Willcox when he left, and try to shoe-horn non-football people into those roles - look at how that's turned out. As a club we need to start getting ruthless. That starts with the DoF calling the shots and setting the goals within the department, but equally requires the manager to call out players who need calling out. Some of the first team squad have enjoyed comfortable lives for the last year, going to work with their best mate. In isolation there isn't a problem with a manager being friendly with his team (Poch had an element of this), but there is a line and I think Martin created an environment which crossed that line and it encouraged cliques. The summer is a big one for us, even bigger than the last time we went down. We will likely lose a lot, but in a way it provides us with an opportunity to reset everything. I don't envisage us being amazingly competitive in the first year, but long term if we get it right I think we'll be on the right track. I think building the footballing department and scouting setup is step 1, then the rest will follow over time.

A total WUM account, nothing to see there. But out of interest, why wouldn't we be preparing for the Championship? It's the most sensible thing we can do at this stage, which is why I'm somewhat happy we've not blasted loads of money around in a vein attempt to stay up - which has been over for months.

I assume SSN are ramping this up as one of the greatest, dramatic deadline days ever? It seems pretty null and void from what I've read. Sky Sports website is mainly reporting on SPL and random lower league loans.

You're not wrong, I thought in the main we were pretty shit. In fact it was a truly horrible game of football to watch, a proper slug fest between two awful sides. We came out on top of this one, but based on that I can't imagine us pulling any sort of run together against better sides, of which all 18 others are.

Ammar Jemal and Elliot Ward vibes.

A buy clause certainly makes more sense if we're giving them SAA with a buy clause. Not sure we'll be spending £15m on both him and Albert in the Championship though, gives us an option though I guess.

I think they evolved physically, certainly Morgan. But 10-15 years ago the league allowed players like that to evolve and adapt if you know what I mean, you don't get a chance these days - you have to be ready straight away. I even look at some of Ipswich buys, top Champ players in Clarke (absolute cheat code down there) and Greaves at CB - but Clarke in particular hasn't been able to adapt at all. Maybe spending big on 2 or 3 'ready' players to lift the overall level of the squad would help, and allow these guys some room to evolve - but I think we've just thrown Downes and THB (as two examples) into the lions den and expected them to evolve and grow on the job. Not sure that's possible anymore.

If anything illustrates how big the gap has become it's those two. Absolute cheat codes in the Championship, but physically lacking in the PL. It's really difficult to compete, you need so much power and pace in the top flight nowadays - not just up front, but all over the pitch. 10-15 years ago we got promoted with Cork, Fonte, Morgan etc - I wouldn't say they were particularly powerful or quick, but they were able to adapt. If the same guys came up now I can't say they'd fare as well.

Of all our players, Downes has been the one who has disappointed me the most. He was arguably pivotal to us last year, we couldn't handle the midfield without him - so I thought both himself and THB would make the step up a little more comfortably than they have. Downes has been awful, really weak, really slow and caught out way too much at this level. Our biggest issue this year has been a lack of midfield structure and he is culpable in that, he's just looked out of his depth.

Not directly, nope. But he hasn't been given much game time. The thing with SAA is that it looked like he 'could' impact games, he just wasn't given the chance to show. We'll see what happens, I assume it's part of the deal to get their CB - but I'd be disappointed if we give them our player and don't have any form of option on their CB.

I guess it's not just Juric who has come to that conclusion, as Martin was very reluctant to use him either. There must be something we're not privy to, i.e how he trains or there are some flaws in his game which make him a risk in a certain system. No idea. Trying to make some logic out of it!

I'm quite sad for Armstrong personally at how it's turned out this year. After last season he'd had a reset at Saints, understanding the players around him, fans appreciating him, scoring bags of goals etc. I think he and we all thought he'd deserved another crack at the PL and would hopefully fare a little better as he's come up with momentum, although you have to appreciate he is pretty limited. But the fact it's gone even worse this time round in the PL is really sad. I'd keep him for next year as I think he's a Champ player, but he may feel that he now needs a change of scenery personally.

I did hope so, but this summer was a mess. Fernandes was a good pick, but they've let themselves down with the likes of BBD, Suguwara, Lallana, Taylor, Cornet etc. It seems for every good addition there is another 3 or 4 crap ones.

This is true, but then you just have to be ruthless upon promotion. We bought Billy Sharp to get us promoted in the Champ, then almost immediately discarded him in the Prem. Same went for guys like Hammond, Harding, Richardson, Barnard, Connolly etc - mainstays from our promotion teams but with a realisation that they weren't good enough, so we evolved from them. Building a Championship team full of players who can make the step up is impossible and financially irresponsible I'd say. They wouldn't be cheap and would want $$$. Build a team for where you are today, with an eye on players who could evolve.

And with our recruitment you have to worry... I don't have an issue with some of these guys leaving on loan and getting game time per-say, like Charles, but it's our insistence on adding 'obligations to buy' which is confusing me. Like you say, they'd be assets next year but we seem prepared to give them up. Maybe we're a bit up the creek financially?

I find the SAA really frustrating too, he's been sitting there crying out for a chance both last season and this. What are we not seeing that coaches are? Last season you had Sulemana struggling to get a place, and even Manning deployed as a winger before we even touched SAA. Granted, we have a couple more options this year, but I'd still have expected to see more of him. He never looked out of place when he played. The only logic I can apply to this is that he won't sign a new deal, he's out of contract in 2026 and we don't want to get into a situation where he's running his contract down and we lose value. We need to sort out our pathway though as it's not really there anymore. From SR's perspective, they're about to pocket £20m for two players they bought for £1.5m. (Meghoma and SAA). From a business POV it makes sense, but it's a shame it's more about business these days.

What is this odd feeling I have? I'm not sure what to do. I've not felt like this after 5 on a Saturday for some time. Looking at it objectively, I thought that was a showing of two pretty poor teams. The second half became more of a slog and I think that suited Juric a bit more. I'm still not keen on the 3 at the back, and I think it's confusing THB. He was charging forward so much and leaving the other two (or usually Bednarek) totally exposed, and that's why we let Delap run through free. I really enjoyed Wellingtons performance though, he reminded me of Bertrand in his style. It'll be interesting to see how he gets on over the coming weeks. Nice to finally get closer to that Derby point total though, maybe, just maybe, we'll end up getting enough points to avoid that embarrassment now.

As soon as the media started interviewing their CEO and proclaiming how much 'profit' they've made, you just knew it was over.

The 'groin tweak' for Archer is quite obviously bull. Leeds pushing hard for him.