HarvSFC

On a separate tangent, I know myself and many have some questions regarding our purchasing of youth this window. But, these players are all costing around the £15m mark, barring Aribo, who had a release clause in his contract. That's still a good amount of money. If we wanted to sign proven players, who still have question marks on if they can adapt over here, that's going to cost around £25m-£30m these days and we've been stung in that market already with the likes of Boufal, Lemina, Hoedt, Elyounoussi and Vestergaard, who would all probably be priced around £10m more today, than what we paid for them just a few years ago. We'd need to sell to be able to afford the players in that market and there's no point in selling JWP or KWP or Salisu this summer, as we'd have a massive hole in our team to fill. Unlike in 2014-15 when we still had Schneiderlin, Fonte, Wanyama, Clyne and S. Davis here to compensate for the sales. See Leeds as an example, they've put £30m down on an American attacker with 4 goals in the Austrian league last season and £22m on an attacker from the Dutch league. Essentially, the more experienced player market is too much these days, especially for a striker with Broja being priced at £30m+ and half the league also looking for a striker. Lets hope we've been smart and it all works out, while we watch the same clubs (Everton) make the same mistakes every year. As I said, we've gone for the more experienced players and it hasn't worked out. We were shopping at the cheaper end of that market, hoping they'd come good and I think they were more of a risk than us shopping at the higher end of the youth market.

Never heard of him, like I hadn't heard of Broja last summer. So, I reckon he's going to be the next Thierry Henry.

Interesting that Meghoma's a LB. Only a year between himself and Small. Both highly rated youngsters, fighting for the same position, will be interesting to see how they develop.

Indeed. They were able to find Broja last summer, who was relatively unknown at the time, despite being an international and hitting double figures in Holland. He was still just a youngster from Chelsea. Since Crocker's return we've had far more hits than misses in our recruitment and you've just got to have faith that they'll get the right player in to replace him, especially with the extra resources we have this summer.

What are their positions?

Leicester negotiated a £50m buyback with City when they signed Iheanacho, which has now expired.

Yeah, Bournemouth are moving surprisingly slow with three weeks until the season's start. Especially, considering they went all or nothing in January, on deadline day to get here. With an inexperienced manager in Parker, also, they're a solid bet for relegation. Fulham are also moving slowly and a lot slower than usual. Maybe it's a new strategy, but Andreas Pereira is painfully average. Forest are doing what you'd hope your team would be doing after winning promotion. But, they've also had a lot of loanees to replace, so who knows. They look on paper to be the best equipped of the promoted lot, though and have the best manager of the promoted three.

Clear difference is that we're signing Bazunu, Lavia, Bella-Kotchap and Aribo for good money and they've generally been well regarded at their clubs. Some being internationals already. Rather than picking up Forecast, Pulis, Molyneux and Ryan Smith for free. Schneiderlin was our relatively big money signing then and he didn't too badly in the end. If we were picking up discarded youngsters at a cut down price, it would be like the Poortvliet/Wotte season.

It's fortunate that he picks up knocks in training in the summer, during the off season, rather than during the season, which would prevent him from playing within a match, instead of missing a pre-season friendly.

Picks up a knock every summer! (Fortunately)

That's got to be an error on Lancashire, right?

What do we reckon then, are we going into the season with KWP and Small as our LBs and Perraud is available like a few other squad players this summer, or is he actually injured, like JWP was last summer?

The one time a club has been disappointed in not having Matt Paterson.

Alexander Buttner and Quincy Promes - Two bullets dodged. Inigo Calderon during the League One days.

Palace's pre-season tour squad. No Johnstone, Tomkins, Guehi, Olise, Eze, Hughes, Doucoure, Schlupp, McArthur, Zaha or Benteke. One can only assume they have a few unvaccinated players. Hopefully disrupts their start.

You’d imagine/hope that with the signing of Lavia that we won’t be looking for another midfielder when the only name in that position being linked is Harry Winks. A modern day Darron Gibson/Tom Cleverley/Jay Spearing whose stock will dramatically fall once out of a big six club.

Off the top of my head: Carrillo - Southampton £20m Wesley - Aston Villa £22m Haller - West Ham £45m - Ajax £22m (An unwanted player at this time) Dan James - Leeds £25m Joelinton - Newcastle £40m Rodrigo - Leeds £27m Chris Wood - Newcastle £25m Richarlison - Tottenham £60m (Scores a handful more a season than Adams) Ollie Watkins - Aston Villa £33m Christian Benteke - Crystal Palace £32m Neal Maupay - Brighton £20m Moise Kean - Everton £27m Slimani - Leicester £28m Daka - Leicester £23m Rhian Brewster - Sheffield United £23m Dominic Solanke - Bournemouth £19m Ollie McBurnie - Sheffield United £20m Fabio Silva - Wolves £35m And £20m is supposed to be a good price for Adams... 👍

Selling Adams would cause too much turnover in the striker positions, in the same way that we've kept Elyounoussi because we can't let all the 10s, barring S. Armstrong go at once. We already need to replace Broja and Long with the 5 subs rule, needing to replace Adams too would be a big ask for any scouting department. Plus, with the recent links to Dembele, I think Adams and Dembele would be a pretty good partnership. Dembele's all round game isn't there, but he is a finisher, a poacher. Adams' finishing isn't all there, but he is a supplier and can play others' into the positions that he misses from. Plus £20m... Steven Bergwijn went to Ajax for £28m and he was an average squad player in his three years at Tottenham.

With the first team, can see him in the latest training video.

Which would make sense, as we ourselves picked him up on the cheap as he had a low release clause at Vallodid, it's what his negotiators look for. I said in the Aribo thread, that these players who we're picking up on the cheap because of their contract situations will do the same here, so it's another element of selling the player at the right time and getting the best price.

From this summer, if Romano, or Ornstein say we're in for a player, we're in for that player. Then you have the local journos who can feed us with the not so headline news, but still very welcomed such as yesterday's example of shutting down the ever reliable Football Insider after 20 minutes of them claiming Armstrong was available on loan. Blackmore's included amongst the local group, while also being able to tell us when an announcement is going to happen. Blackmore doesn't say who we're targeting specifically, like Romano, or Ornstein do, but he's the trusted source on the finer details and what is happening at the club. Then you have Alex Crook...

Not a ground breaking observation, but from watching today's training video, KWP is playing left-back in the training match, while Valery is playing right-back. I suspect it will Kabore and Livramento as our right-backs for next season and then KWP and Perraud for the left-back spot. Small to go out on loan and Valery to leave in whatever capacity will take him away. Of course KWP will also play the occasional game at right-back while Livramento is out. Will be interesting to see what the long-term plan is for Kabore. I'm sure neither himself or Livramento will want to play backup to the other, if the possibility to sign Kabore on a permanent deal materialises and if he impresses. (I actually prefer KWP as a right-back, although he isn't much of a downgrade as a left-back either).

I’ve never labelled Bazunu as a great signing, because he isn’t. Great signings are established internationals at the peak of their career. Players we don’t sign. Bazunu is an exciting signing because he’s relatively unknown, rated by Ireland, Man City and Portsmouth fans (and staff). Williams would be an underwhelming signing at £17m, because he’s already answered all the questions Bazunu’s going to face next season. If we could pick up Williams in the same way we did Bertrand, that would be good, but at £17m, that’s too big an outlay for what you’re getting. Man City offered Bazunu a new contract and wanted to keep him, put a buyback clause on him. Whereas Liverpool wanted Williams to leave, as they had already replaced him with the Scottish full-back.

The difference being is that Williams has proven he isn’t a £17m player, especially in a weaker team as Wales are, where he is the weak defensively. It does feel like bad value when you consider we signed both KWP and Livramento for the cost of Williams. However, looking at our transfers, I do wonder if we would have been in for both Brewster and Solanke if we had this model at the time of them both becoming available. Both were highly rated youngsters, as ours are this summer. Brewster came off a good Championship season and Solanke was scoring for fun in the England youth setup. Both cost £20m and both were shockingly bad and out of depth in their first seasons. Brewster still is, while Solanke has only done it at Championship level. So, there isn’t an exact science and that’s the gamble. It’s possible ours could turn out the same way, but it is also high risk, and hopefully high reward.

Puts to bed those ridiculous JWP to West Ham rumours.