S-Clarke

Still no Lavia in the Chelsea team - was he injured when he went there?

Probably much easier said than done tbh.

Have you not considered it's more about numbers/squad size, rather than finance? We'd have Adams, Mara, Ballard, Onuachu and Armstrong who can play there - and then we sign Piroe who also wants to play first choice. We almost certainly needed one to go before we can add another, just basic squad management.

Sounds like Genk are playing silly buggers with everyone - Leeds considering withdrawing Paintsil offer Leeds United considering withdrawing their offer for Genk forward Joseph Paintsil. The Championship side feel they have made a good and fair offer, but believe Genk have "moved the goalposts" on their valuation. Genk wanted to do a swap deal with Southampton involving their striker Paul Onuachu but could not come to an agreement.

I guess that's why they're loans, a free gamble as such. If it works out, great, if it doesn't, cheerio and we've not lost out financially. That's how I'll look at it anyway. I personally think Fraser is desperate to prove people wrong. Both of these guys have clean slates in my eyes, judging them solely on how they perform for us at this level and not what went on before.

Sounds like he's in contention for tomorrow as well - another good attacking option.

As I said, he fell away after he started to get noise in his final year at Bournemouth. Lost some crucial years because of how he was affected by that noise in my eyes. He needs to get his head back down and start playing again, because if we can get the pre-2019/2018 Fraser then we're laughing.

Jeez, catching up on this thread today I expected to see St Mary's burnt to the ground and everyone sold - doesn't seem to be the case though. One thing we got wrong last year was a lack of experience, just loads of kids who hadn't played senior football. At our level the only way we are going to sign players with top level experience is to take a punt on someone who has fallen down the pecking order as a PL club - let's not forget, we're no longer a PL club. Fraser seemed to fall away when he got a bit carried away by all the noise, he was linked with quite a few decent clubs at one point. He was a nightmare to play against from what I remember - and that was in the PL. Holgate is another guy with genuine top level experience, I find it hard to judge anyone at Everton over the last few years as I'm sure even Messi would have looked shit there - so it's not a fair environment to judge a player, comes here with a clean slate in my eyes and someone who performed well at WBA and England U21's as a younger player - and I see that there is noise that Woods is happening, getting both is the best of both worlds really - some experience, and then a highly rated younger player. So, I'm not seeing where the negativity is coming from. If what people are panicking about happens, then fair enough, but what's the point in fretting about it and dreaming up scenarios that might not even happen. The only genuine news I can see are all about incomings.

He doesn't need to be a fan of Southampton to realise that his best chance of investment return is for us to be a Top Flight team. If he wants to lose money by the bucket load, he can stay in this league. It's in his business interests for this club to be at the highest level for 1) marketing opportunities, 2) sponsorship opportunities and 3) better access to young talent in order to get those sell-on-fee's. None of that happens in the Championship.

Really warped logic to be honest. Good businessmen know that the fortune comes from being in the PL - the model of buy the best young talent and sell for a profit only really works in the PL. If we hang around in the Championship for too long then their investment is up in smoke and they'll be losing money every week with no talent to recoup on, as good young players won't want to join an also-ran in the Championship.

As long as he's adequately replaced then so be it, but if he's not then major questions will have to be asked - as they'd have dropped a striker bollock on the 2nd deadline day in a row.

Makes me wonder why they are even bothering to waste Udinese's time, they want £40m for Beto. Probably just club propaganda to appease their toxic fanbase.

You looked a decent side in my eyes, a real threat on the break with pace. You'll cause more teams problems this year no doubts. You were night and day when compared to Sheffield Wednesday for example.

So a week to go - only 3 or 4 working days if you don't count the weekend or bank holiday. Still lots to be decided in my eyes. Outs - Lyanco? Moussa? Adams? ABK? Aribo? Sulemana? Onouachu? McCarthy? KWP? Tella? In's - RB - If KWP is sold. CB - if one of the CB's is sold CM - Need one of those whatever Attacker - If 2 of Moussa/Sulemana/Tella are sold, we need 2 additional attackers. ST - If Adams and Onouachu leave. As a squad, I think if we keep what is here today and add an additional CM then we're pretty much covered. That doesn't sound too daunting. But....if we get late bids for some of the questionable ones above then we better have our ducks lined up, as we will need replacements sharpish.

£10m for Aribo, for real? £2m tops I'd have thought, but a loan is the most realistic option. No way we make a profit on him if we sell him, almost certainly a loss.

Someone needs to put them down and start again, they're in a right old mess. Apparently they were only offering £5m up front of Che, the remaining 8-10m was spread over a few years (that shows how utterly skint they are). They wanted Gnonto as well, but as Leeds wanted actual money, they couldn't get him.

''I'm not disputing that he can score at this level'' ''He's just a shit finisher, been stinking our front line out for years'' Hmm, yeah.

In that case I reckon we had Lumley, ABK, Bree, Mara, Aribo, Lyanco, Perraud, Moussa involved from our first team squad. Simeu is injured, so he wouldn't have been picked. Hopefully Ballard nicked a couple of goals.

Eric Black has stolen all our money.

Recent foreign imports haven't been great for us, not the big fee ones anyway. I think we've had more success with the likes of Ings, Romeu, VVD than we did with the likes of Lemina, Hoedt, Vestergaard, Carillo....etc etc, list goes on. Even our promotion years we had a strong core of English lads and guys picked up from the English leagues - Jos, Fonte, Hammond, Cork, Fox, Lambo, Lallana, Butterfield, Chaplow etc. The 'sexy' foreign signings like Tadanari Lee, Steve De Ridder and even Papa to an extent didn't really work out. (I loved Papa, but he was a bit limited!)

Looking at the Brentford 11, they were pretty strong - so that's a decent result for us all considered. I'd be interested to know who played/scored for us. Brentford: Strakosha; Roerslev, Ajer, Zanka, Bech; Onyeka, Yarmoliuk, Damsgaard; Olakigbe, Lewis-Potter; Brierley

By all accounts we are about to sign Johan Hove from Groningen. I also think there is an element of fans being more excited by foreign names. If we were interested in Nathania Woodstinio from Hertha Berlin I'm sure people would be lapping it up. There are a lot of ways to waste money, but signing players who the manager knows, trusts and fit the style we are employing seems a fairly sound tactic to me. If we complement that with some additions from left field then all the better.

Even if they did consider loaning him out, there are at least another 17 PL clubs, at least 17 La Liga clubs he'd go to before we are even in the equation.

Fair enough if that's the case. Still don't think we should be selling him mind.

Fair enough, read that wrong in that case. I reckon there will be a mutual decision to be made though, I can't see any club paying a transfer fee for him.