HarvSFC

I think Edozie is one of those players who we're now trying to move away from. Technically gifted, but lacks physicality. He did have a good run in the Championship before he was crunched, but then never really came back and didn't exactly boast great stats in the Belgian league last season. One of those who could do well at his new club in France, but I think his time here is done. Still disappointed we lost Amo-Ameyaw to Strasbourg, but Shields has at least helped us back by taking Mara and Edozie now.

And there was James Trafford right next to them for £15m.

But, a minority of posters confidently told us all that Ramsdale wasn't rated at Premier League level, and he's going to a Champions League club? If Ramsdale is going out on loan, then surely we're going to go into the loan market for his replacement as well? The loan probably stops us from signing a permanent replacement. However, it doesn't stop us from getting a one year loan ourselves. We can't go into another season with Bazunu and McCarthy. We tried it last season, at Premier League level hilariously with the hope that McCarthy could keep the position until Bazunu returned from his injury, we quickly found out it didn't work and we panic signed Ramsdale for big money and uncharacteristically high wages from SR. If we do the same, we're going to need another panic signing, or give up on the autos. But, the hope is that Spors has a long list of goalkeeper targets, as this Ramsdale news hasn't come out of the blue and I imagine he's one of the ones Still has mentioned has been open about leaving. The Stephens new contract was a red mark on the new decision makers this summer, surely they have a contingency plan for Ramsdale's departure. Incoming new McCarthy two year contract, or Bazunu gets one.

Yeah, we've never had a good defence involving Jan Bednarek in it, not even in the Championship two years ago. He's been the best of the centre-backs for some of it, but it has been a very low bar. Of course, he has had a redemption after the Villa interview and refusing to play in our biggest game of the season against City in the cup because Poland were playing a week later. However, Bednarek has been taking up a squad place at this club for years now and we could do a lot better. I don't think he'll get much game time after the first month at Porto.

A small sample size and it is still only pre-season, but searching for positives this summer and at least Quarshie and Downs now have shown glimpses of talent on the pitch. After a number of years of signing 3 or 4 duds for every 1 good player, maybe the Spors scouting regime is better at identifying talent.

Damn was just about to come on and say how grim a display it was and how there wasn't a single positive going forward. But, we make one quick forward pass at the end and Downs scores it from an angle first time. Shows he has something and we need to sort the service out behind him, because he had nothing else to work with after coming on. We didn't get many clues from the pre-season squad, but today was quite telling with the lack of minutes for some with two weeks before the season's start. No run out for Bazunu, or McCarthy again, although they're keepers, so probably slightly different there. Sugawara didn't get on the pitch and played very little in midweek, so probably not going to get many minutes once the season starts, which is good because he is more of a defensive nightmare than Stephens. Neither Smallbone, nor Aribo got on the pitch today either. Two of our most lethargic players in the squad, so possibly not endearing themselves to Still. Sesay was picked ahead of them. Kayi Sanda also an unused sub, needs a loan to League One. You'd hope these players who aren't getting minutes will start to actively seek moves elsewhere, rather than seeing out their well paid contracts.

Still waiting for these high pressing, high intensity tactics. But, I've been waiting for them since Juric promised them, so who knows. I know a lot is said of the records of our forwards in the Championship, but Adam Armstrong also struggled and we struggled when Che Adams wasn't up top as the hold up player. I think it's showing again, as none of the forwards at the moment can hold the ball up and are just running down blind alleys continuously. Bring Downs on at half time, I want to see what he can do. Onto the positives, Quarshie is looking good. Charles looks good. Add Downes and by some miracle we keep THB and Ramsdale, and our defence is looking fine for next season. Just going forward. We need that attacking midfielder Solak promised before the window and before the sale of Sulemana.

"TransferRoom is taking football’s transfer market into the digital age and making football transfers easy." "When selling a player you want to appeal to as many potential buyers as possible." Can we get anything from Ankersen. Get on the phone to his brother, because we're still finding football transfers hard. We just want to find one potential buyer for our deadwood.

Newcastle announced their Singapore squad this morning before all the Isak news came out. Their official line for him was "Alexander Isak misses out with a minor thigh injury". Now and since, it has been quite well reported why Isak isn't going on the trip. Just to add to the theories for ours.

Rates Koeman as his best manager, Pellegrino as his worst. They were one year apart here. How Les Reed and co got it so wrong after 2016 is impressive in itself.

Not the most encouraging display. Saw a lot of what we saw last season, many passengers in the team when we don't have the ball. Castellon worked hard the full 90 minutes and when we had the ball our players had no time with it, were being swarmed and being forced into making errors and misplaced passes. When they had the ball, our players would stand off, gave them time to do what they wanted to do and dictate and they also attacked direct and with pace, which we didn't really do. Can't play like today against Wrexham.

Build-up play has been nice. Shea Charles definitely been my favourite player to watch so far this pre-season, just looks so comfortable in the middle. Add Downes next to him and Fernandes in the Fraser position today and it's looking exciting. Bazunu's also had a good half, pulling off three or four good saves. The front four is just where it's lacking for me. They're all quite similar in that they all have the same weaknesses which stops them from causing consistent problems to the opposition. They're lacking in pace and technical ability. This has meant that Bazunu has worked a lot harder than their goalkeeper has. Hopefully Robinson and Edozie can add a bit more dynamism to our attacks in the second half and Stewart can provide the hold up play that Archer just can't. One other positive is that we're also mixing it up from goal kicks. Should have always been the case. The overly predictable, and every team knowing we were going to play it short every time has gone.

He did. Wolves very nearly signed him last summer.

I'd definitely side with this. If we have to make one big sale this summer, although you could argue that Sulemana surprisingly became our big sale this window, then it'd be Dibling of the big three. I think he's the least suited to a Still team of the three and while his ceiling is probably the highest of them, his form from Martin's sacking was the lowest and I'd say there are still question marks over him fulfilling that potential. So, if we could get a good fee for him, allowing us a bit more financial strength in keeping the other two, then I think it'd suit. But, then last time we sold Livramento, Ward-Prowse, Lavia and then Tella. Getting good fees for all, but didn't allow us to keep any.

I just can't see how you can defend Martin after the inept setup he took us into the Premier League with last season. We had a lack of quality, but we could have at least put up a fight, if he put any effort into fitness training.

Omari Hutchinson's release clause at Ipswich expired today. It would be good if we had a cut off date soon on Ramsdale's.

I thought we may have been able to use Ankersen's brother's transfer get together thing to offload a few of our unwanted. But, doesn't look like we can even add that to the small list of benefits of having Ankersen attached.

Isn't it impressive that when searching Manchester City for goalkeepers, we identified Gunn and Bazunu, but missed Trafford.

Of course there's different reasons for why Trafford was picked, high potential being one. But, he was also picked ahead of Ramsdale after impressing at a Championship side who were winning every week, while Ramsdale was playing well in the Premier League, but picking the ball out of the net and losing every week. Burnley also retained Trafford for the Championship and rejected bids from Newcastle for him last summer.

City and United were allowed to do it last season. But, it's another case of one rule for the big clubs and another rule for the rest.

Stephens started 17 of the 46 Championship games that season + 3 play-off starts. We won 10 of those + 2 in the play offs. 4 draws + 1 play off draw. 3 losses. In the 17 league games, we conceded 24 and kept three clean sheets. Two clean sheets in the play-offs, conceding 1.

Obviously, we have to try and put last season to the back of our minds as quickly as possible going into a new season with promotion as our aim. But, last season was so awful, I don't think any player other than the two who don't deserve to be lumbered with the rest of the shite in Ramsdale and Fernandes deserved to be offered a new contract this summer. We didn't just get relegated, we very nearly equalled the worst Premier League points tally of all time. A record that never looked like being beaten until us last season, it's so bad. While, not only that, but this group of players won just two league matches in a 38 game season. I just think the players need to prove themselves at the club again this season after the last before we start securing their future here. A harsher message needed to be relayed to them. Two consecutive Premier League seasons this squad has gone down without a fight and the good players are leaving at the ends of their contracts, while the mediocrity is being retained.

I was disappointed to read this news earlier. I had hoped these charitable contracts for players who like being here (because we're their best offer), but aren't really improving the starting eleven had ended. I had especially hoped that the Stephens lovefest within the club had left with Martin. We're constantly being told that the squad is too big and that we need to sell before we buy. We even have an abundance of centre-backs - THB, Quarshire, Wood, Edwards and Sanda without including Stephens. Yet, we seem to be intent on persevering with these players and renewing their contracts each year. Last summer we gave McCarthy and Armstrong new contracts and two games in McCarthy was deemed not good enough and the same happened to Armstrong in January. No lessons being learned there. I also don't buy the argument that he's a fantastic leader. We all were able to witness him let the team down again and again last season with his needless red cards, he was a liability in the team, and he was supposed to be the leader on the pitch. And while we don't get to witness much off the pitch, standards weren't exactly high last season. Fitness was poor and you didn't have a clue what they were doing in training because the same thing happened on the pitch every week. He captained a team to 12 points. Nobody's putting that on their CV. He was a centre-back in a Martin team getting destroyed every week. The perfect person to stand up and say, "you know what, this isn't working, we just aren't at the required level to play this way in this division." Instead, they were more interested in singing each other's praises. Ultimately, all we as fans want to see is for the club be progressive again. But, this just feels like holding onto more of the failures of recent times and the recent times have been abysmal, barring the one play-off season.

For the first time in a while it feels as though the manager can also be an asset in getting us results. Even going into the first day. Wrexham are on a high of consecutive promotions, have momentum, were well financed in League One to cope with this level and will be further well financed this summer. However, they have a bit of an old school manager in Phil Parkinson, who hasn't fared too well at this level previously at more established sides. Parkinson has his way of playing, and you'd hope Still does his homework and works out a way to counter Parkinson's tactics. It isn't just a case of the players either turn up, or they don't. Like it felt at times under Martin. If the players didn't turn up, they just got routinely beat, like against Sunderland, Leicester twice and many times last season. Under Martin you always knew how the team were going to play. There weren't any adaptions. We still tried to pass it around our own areas and played us into trouble, hence why we got thrashed in those games. Hasenhuttl was the same, if the players didn't turn up then they got smashed, see the two 9-0s. The hope for next season is that if the players aren't having good games, then Still can switch it up and adapt in game, change the momentum and get them playing well.

Should've known better than to believe that Belgian man regarding Edozie. According to his reports two years back we sold Lavia about 10 times before he eventually ended up at Chelsea. If Edozie does stay, fine. But, I don't think he fits the physical profile we're looking for this summer. Of course not every player has to be an athletic monster. But, I think Edozie very much goes in the other extreme, of looking fairly weak and fragile and could easily get knocked off the ball in the league above. Needs to hit the weights.