HarvSFC

He's doing it again! Comes into the team, plays well, gets a new contract and then rests on it for a year.

I didn't know he had that in him. Does he not know that playing for us doesn't get you into the Japan squad?

That's what Archer's capable of. He's shown it rarely here, but I must say I can't recall him getting a proper run in the side. More of that please.

What do we reckon will stop Stewart from stepping out on the pitch this evening? No Fernandes, so is the inevitable happening?

I don't think Graeme Bailey is the best source around. Rak-Sakyi also wouldn't be top of my list. As noted by others his loan at Sheffield United last season wasn't exactly Nathan Tella level. Fellows, Sima or an outfield shout for a loan for Esse would be ahead in my list, although Esse did get a run out at the weekend.

Wherever they came from, they were all quite well rated players, coming into their peak years. Tadic and Pelle had been signed off successful seasons in Holland for reputable clubs in Twente and Feyenoord. Forster had performed well for Celtic in the Champions League, famously keeping a clean sheet against Barcelona. Mane was a young talent with a good record in Austria. Bertrand was once rated highly enough to start a Champions League final at Chelsea. He didn't breakthrough there, but was still more than good enough for us. Alderweireld was the starting Belgium international centre-back in their "golden generation", who was very good for Ajax, but couldn't quite break into the Atletico Madrid side due to their very strong defence. Either side of this window you had Wanyama, who was again very highly rated at Celtic and performed in the Champions League. Osvaldo, who was rated and good, but his mentality let him down. Pochettino managed him before, so took the risk. Then Van Dijk, who again was performing highly for Celtic domestically and in Europe, very rated across Europe. Nowadays it seems we sign players with barely 10 senior appearances, or players that are good to have around the dressing room. We had Kelvin Davis for that back then, but he had earned it after a successful playing career here and we had moved on from him. But, we didn't seek out players because they had good jokes.

Maybe Ramsdale is actually cursed. Another relegation on the cards.

Erikson?

Why couldn't we loan a first choice to replace Ramsdale? Didn't have to be a permanent signing. Patted our backs on the £4m loan fee received for Ramsdale, but not going to use any of it to help fill his place in the squad for a year. If we replace Dibling and Fernandes with players already at the club we'd all be disappointed. This is a similar situation, albeit we didn't get £30m+ for Ramsdale.

I'd rather we brought back Shane Long. Half a year of planning for this.

Why should we just accept not replacing Ramsdale? One of our better players last season. Obviously we're not going to get a like for like replacement, but we can get a top end Championship quality keeper. Would be like selling Dibling and Fernandes this week and replacing them with Fraser and Sesay in the side and then signing backups to those two. I know Ramsdale hasn't left permanently as of now, but there's nothing stopping us from filling his position in with a first choice loan, rather than a third choice. Ramsdale to Bazunu is a big drop off. The fact we're using one of the loan spots on a third choice goalkeeper is just a waste.

Somehow we're managing to downgrade on Lumley if true? That's impressive. Keeping an eye on how other clubs are acting in the transfer market and today Stoke signed True Grant, 19 year old goalkeeper, England Under-19 international from Manchester City. He's obviously not going to be their first choice with Johansson there, but he is one for the future and one they hope can grow into becoming their number one. It's what we should have done with Bazunu, have him play backup to a reliable pair of hands in his initial years here, rather than throwing him right into the deep end in the Premier League. If we're going for a backup goalkeeper I'd much rather we signed a young youth international goalkeeper with the long term hope they can become number one, pushing McCarthy down to third choice, rather than George Long, who we hope never steps out onto the pitch. Although, preferably we'd use one of our many loan spots to get a good goalkeeper for this level in for the season with Bazunu as backup. Isn't McCarthy a great man to have around the squad, isn't that position already filled? Signing shite squad players who don't improve the first eleven and never will is why we're in this mess and why we have such a bloated squad. Maitland-Niles, Bree, Caleta-Car, Lumley, Holgate and Rothwell. And last summer was particularly bad - Fraser, Taylor, Lallana and Cornet. All these names that when signed you thought, well that's underwhelming. They're not going to improve the eleven, they're just there to fill the squad. And then when they played the level drops considerably. Compare that to Sunderland, whose idea of signing experience is a 32 year old Granit Xhaka from Bayer Leverkusen, who was also a key player in winning the Bundesliga a year before. They also didn't wait until the last week of the window to sign him. For the last three summer windows those at the club have bemoaned and used the excuse that the squad size is too big and it's affecting our movement in the transfer market, but proceeded to continue to fill it up with crap players and extend the contracts of our most average. 2012-13 we had Kelvin Davis and a young prospect in Paulo Gazzaniga. Neither were good enough, so we levelled up and signed Artur Boruc. We didn't just settle and think, we've got two goalkeepers already, we're looking for a third choice. Bring back that way the club operated. We've been stuck with mediocre goalkeepers for years and the one year we had a good one, the rest of the team was at an all time low.

Dean Thornton wasn't a disciple of playing out from the back in 2019, as seen from the below Tweet. Although, he has had to find work at Millwall this season and stayed on after Martin's sacking. I think it is only Gill that's followed him up there. But, yeah, I always wondered why the coaches never told Martin what he was doing wasn't working, especially in the Premier League. What were they talking about, because nothing was changing from week to week. I apply the same question to Jack Stephens. Captain and the centre-back, so in the most volatile position in a Martin team. It's always talked about how he's such a great leader, but he never had the difficult conversation with Martin to say the tactics weren't working for him, nor the team.

"When you can feel some of the lads' energy is not all there, because they feel like their future is somewhere else, it's difficult." 8 of the Rangers starting 11 today were signed this summer. Are some of them looking for moves already? The other three being Jack Butland, goalkeeper so not much influence on a noncommittal display, John Souttar, who captained the side, so should be committed and Nicolas Raskin, who may well be thinking about elsewhere, but I doubt one player had that much of an impact on the other players lacking energy. "We're making it hard for ourselves, conceding poor goals is so disappointing," he said. "We turn the ball over a lot without having conviction in our actions. "When we have a difficult moment, the response is not good enough. We need to stick to the plan always. But I loved the intent in the second half." How many times did we hear this exact response here. His press conferences are as predictable as his playing style.

Not in the know, but I don't think there's some big conspiracy with Spertsyan, I believe he's just made the decision to stay there and sign a new contract this summer, rather than some unknown contract extension last summer. The Armenie football Twitter knows some things, but not everything, as Spertsyan has signed for us and the deal's been off about 8 different times this summer. The only stuff we've heard from Spertsyan himself was the on the pitch interview where he said "It's too early to talk about a departure. I will go to Krasnodar and talk to the president. We'll see what decision we make together." Sounded like he was open to staying and the talks with the president and the decision they've made together is a wage increase and a contract extension. We got the agent quotes, and they seemed quite positive in our direction, but again the agent could have just been working in the media to make us sound like a good proposition, while negotiating a higher wage for his client. Shame, as he did seem like a good player, despite never having heard of him before all this. Finn Azaz should be a good fall back option. (But, I did also think BBD was a good fall back option after Delap).

A negative result against Portsmouth would definitely be the final straw for many with SR. Would be worse than anything that happened last season, and last season was pretty horrific. We've had Bournemouth and Brighton leapfrog us on the south coast. Not great, but we can live with that. But, can't let that lot down the road lord over us after all these years. A big week for the decision makers at the club. Make or break, and with the Dibling money there isn't any excuses. Let's hope we finally strike gold.

I'm probably repeating what's already been said, but I'm just hoping that we haven't closed off on getting another striker in. We've got Downs in as a project, but we can't put all the pressure on him to fire us to promotion, he needs to learn and grow in the position, as he's far from the finished article at the moment. Stewart's crocked and I'm not actually sure he's that good. In fairness we haven't seen enough of him, but all he's got at this level is a very good, but little run in a Sunderland team. Again, not one you can rely on for promotion because of his availability. Archer's shown glimpses of good finishing, but so had Mara. Not consistent enough for a promotion chasing team in his current state. And lastly Armstrong, his best work here has come from out wide, rather than in the central position, where he's always looked like a struggling and lost figure at this level, as he did two years ago. I think one would need to go, and we're probably not going to get any sales for the latter three, but I wouldn't be against loaning out Stewart, or Armstrong to a team outside of this division. Maybe Rangers on loan could be a possibility. Either would be closer to home and they're Martin men. Then we could either explore the loan or permanent option for the best available replacement with the Dibling money. I just don't think our current options are good enough for where we want to be, despite their record at this level, it just isn't happening for them here now for whatever reason. We're carrying them in the team, rather than them bringing quality to the side. Either way, this is a massive week for those at the club and SR have to give us something to get behind after the disaster of last season. So far this summer hasn't been the most convincing, but it never has been under this ownership and they still have time to get it right. But, the next thing they need to learn for next summer is not to leave their transfers so late every year, as it massively disrupts the start of the season. I know a lot of deals do happen in the last few weeks of the window, but other clubs still manage to bring in more than two young players who haven't actually improved the first eleven (Without counting Roerslev as he must have only had one training session before today) three games into the season. Roerslev's one in the right direction and hopefully players ready for the here and now is where we go this week. They had many months to prepare for this summer and you'd have hoped outgoings, which seems to be the current excuse were being negotiated before the window opened.

Still crazy how JWP hasn't scored a free-kick since leaving us two years ago. Thought he had the record sewn up when he made the move. When he isn't scoring them he isn't contributing a lot else.

I think we'd have all taken Dibling as the big sale to reinvest in the squad this summer and if it gives us a better chance of keeping Fernandes. There's still a lot of question marks over Dibling following his end of season form, better players have not met their potential, etc. Or better yet, he becomes a superstar and gets sold on, and this time we don't trade the sell on for Everton's version of Tommy Forecast. Plus his contract situation, which Dibling had no intention of signing an extension to didn't help from our side. Pure profit, so helps with PSR. Sold for more than Sunderland got for Jobe Bellingham this summer and we've seen their spending power this summer. Key thing is now we don't waste the money as we have done so much of in recent history. Use this for Still to get his required squad and win promotion. Up the Saints.

The old recruiters used to love a left-back. We signed two last summer in Taylor and Wellington when we already had Manning, Larios and Meghoma (left on deadline day) at the club. All five signed in the last three years as well. Maybe the new ones love a right-back and we're going to sign Kabore as well? 😂 Doubt it will happen now, but I was a fan of the Kabore link. Fits the profile of being athletic, good going forward and has the potential to grow with us and become a Premier League right-back, as he didn't look too bad at Luton a few years back. But, maybe he was too expensive, and we're trying to avoid too many loans this window.

Love a signing out of the blue. Can't say I had heard too much about him despite all his Brentford appearances, but he is thought of highly there, which is a good sign: https://griffinpark.org/forums/threads/mads-roerslev-southampton.143061/#post-4838469 Sounds like a good character and attitude, which Still has highlighted all summer. Also has two years Championship experience, something else Still highlighted as wanting. After signing Quarshie and Downs I did fear SR were reverting back to signing a team of untried youngsters having also moved away from the possession based ethos, but this sounds on paper exactly like the type of signing we need and the type of signing that has given us success in the past. A highly thought of squad player from a higher placed club. Also, the right-back spot was a problem position in the team. Neither Sugawara or Bree are promotion winning right-backs, so it's good that we've looked to strengthen, rather than plodding along with them. A sense of the ruthless streak we've all been asking for, as Sugawara was fairly open about wanting to stay earlier in the summer.

Said the other day we should sell Juan to Goztepe for £20m to help with PSR. Won't be £20m, but hopefully it's above his market value, as other linked clubs do.

Things are getting interesting now. Azaz would be a good signing. Top player in the league, still quite young, improves the team. Kabore would be a good signing too, very athletic, think he did well at Luton in the Premier League, but hasn't been able to kick on since then. We were linked with him before he went to Marseille in the Joe Shields summer window. With Sugawara and Bree, he also improves us.

Sunderland and Leeds on three points from one game. Just a reminder that it took Russell Martin 10 games to get to that.

I think Danilo's the dodgy one this year. £20m after 8 league appearances last season. A few over inflated prices between Nottingham Forest and John Textor owned clubs. Textor also tried to get Cherki to go to Forest this summer instead of Manchester City. A couple of Botafogo players went to Forest as well, similar to the Anderson/Vlachodimas deal as of course sales go straight into the accounts, while transfers in are spread out over the contract. They've managed to find a loophole to the PSR setup, like most clubs have (sales of women teams), and if we have the financial power to do so, it would be something we need to do next time we go up. Sell Juan to Goztepe for £20m, as an example. On the topic of Forest, I did see this on Twitter earlier: "Sunderland have spent £158m on signings this summer. They've smashed Nottingham Forest's record £142m spend as a newly-promoted team." While today they've reportedly bid around £30m for Abdul Fatawu from Leicester. They're certainly going for it, similar sized club to us, only sold Jobe Bellingham as their major sale. It's the spending power we need and SR have previously demonstrated they have the money, just not the talent spotters.