S-Clarke

I watched him with my own eyes, and so did a lot of other people. I know what I saw every week to be honest, the stats just backed it up. So that's that really. I'll respect your view.

We're at that moment in the contract lifecycle really. The 2 year mark is predominantly the point where football clubs either extend or sell. We clearly want to extend, but he doesn't - so as a club, protecting our asset and ensuring we get as much profit as we can, I can see why we wouldn't just put out a blanket 'not for sale' message on him. With the advent of PSR and all that rubbish, Dibling would present pure profit - 100% profit, no sell on to pay anyone, no transfer fee still being paid - it's just all our money, straight onto the balance sheet. That gives us so much more flex in the market. Leave it a year, we may go up but we end up in a position where he commands maybe 15-20m - we're then a PL club with £15m in the bank to try and replace him with, whilst upgrading the rest of our team. Alternatively, we stay down, he still leaves - again 15m. Doesn't go as far. If he doesn't want to sign it's the right time. If he still had 3 or 4 years left, then I'd expect the club to shut the door on it and tell him to get his head down - but I think we've got to be sensible about it really. Get as much as we can, and allow us to evolve this squad away from what it is. It would have been good for him to be part of it, like the Adkins years, but football has changed - it'll never happen like that again.

I do think people overestimate some of our players, especially when you put us up against a Leicester or an Ipswich (in current guise). Downes, Charles, THB, Edwards, Archer, Armstrong, I'll give you as a good basis of a talented Championship team who are proven and hardened at this level (there's a lot more to it than names on the paper though) Beyond that cohort I'm really not sure we have much beyond mid-table at best. Suguwara needs to show a lot to prove that he's capable, Downs and Quarshie are still really unproven. Stewart hasn't played regular football for 3 years, and BBD does not fit our team. (imo) So to be competitive for the Top 2, I think we need two wide players, a 10 (or 2, one who could also cover CM), a new GK and better cover at RB (someone to really push Suguwara). 5-6 players isn't asking too much I don't think, but they all need to be immediate starters, not 'pet projects'. The level of the squad needs to be lifted as the gap between the first team and the rest is way too big right now. We do need to shift out quite a few to free the squad space though, so I just hope we can do it. We'll buy 100%, I'm not worried about that, I just hope we go far enough as you cannot underestimate how bad last season was - a few of the players still rotting around in the squad simply do not deserve a chance to play for us again. There is lots of work to do.

Even from a standing start, if we kept our team intact from last year, ditto them....they were still a whole 10+ points better than us in the PL last season. There was already a gulf there, and that was without the sales going on this year. Equally Ipswich were a whole 10 points clear of us too. Honestly, you just cannot underestimate how disgusting we were last season. We have to really pull off an incredible last few weeks to be in the convo for Top 2.

How do Chelsea keep doing this? Their failed signings keep generating either profit or get sold for net, so they keep making mistakes but never seem to lose out. It's crazy. Based on his impact last year, he shouldn't be going for anything north of £15m really. There's no way he's still worth what they paid.

We did, but I will also stand by the opinion that it was in spite of Bazunu. I truly believe had he not been injured, we'd have been knocked out in the playoffs. We won a lot of games because of our firepower, making up for the lack of defensive stability we had. Of course that was also down to our style, but we also ran the risk of any shot against being a goal. We let in 64 goals, or along those lines - for a promoted side that is horrendous. The defenders in Bednarek and THB were good enough to be stronger than they were, but the feeling I had is that any shot on target went in - and that was illustrated by the statistics at the end of the season, which had Bazunu bottom of the table on expected goals against by some distance. He didn't prevent any, he actually let in something like 10 or 11 more than he should have. He's a funny goal keeper because there aren't many absolute 'howlers' he drops, but there are also not really any game changing saves he makes. Teams know that if you get a shot on target and he's in goal, it will more than likely go in. That could be in part due to technical limitations in his game, or more to do with mentally in-game. It's probably a bit of both to be honest. Obviously I'm not a fan of his, but I don't want this to seem like some sort of personal crusade against him - I'm just speaking out because I'm frustrated by the acceptance of mediocrity, not just by fans, but by the club. The ruthlessness I wished for has not yet transpired, if you also add the Stephens contract into that. I respect peoples support for him, but I just feel it's a little misplaced that's all.

The Chuba Akpom deal is turning into a bit of a saga. Birmingham thought they had it wrapped up, then in nipped Boro. But now, Ipswich have jumped to the head of the queue. All 3 have agreed loan deals, now Ajax have left it to the player. Good signing for whoever gets him, getting on a bit though. Although he's guaranteed impact, rather than a 'young and hungry to improve' type we like to target.

Isn't there already a thread for all this? But as we're here, Vinicius Jr, Isak and Rodri.

West Ham/Everton and those sorts are the levels of clubs that will be after our players nowadays. It illustrates just how much we've dropped off in the last 6-7 years. That's what happens under awful management and disjointed ownership, but this is our new reality. We're small fish to those lower half PL sides now and will be for some time to come.

He's definitely done something to you personally, some weird bias going on between you and Parsons.

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.