HarvSFC

Agree with this. I just don't know who drops out of the 11 to accommodate two up top. So, the hope is that Azaz and Archer can build up a link. Azaz playing through balls through to Archer, etc and a bit more end ball quality on the right in Fellows could also help. For Dibling's talents, he wasn't the best creator.

Hey, we got this: https://www.liverpoolfc.com/news/announcements/265720-liverpool-fc-statement They ended their interest and then signed him six months later.

Then those at the club really have moved quickly today. Fair play. Jorge Mendes' tactics for you. Why when Fonte switched to him it showed he wanted out of here and Reed wasn't the villain of that story.

Bazunu Roerslev - Harwood-Bellis - Stephens - Manning Charles - Downes (Jander could take Downes' position) Fellows - Azaz - Robinson Archer (Hopefully Azaz and Fellows can bring him into the game more than the current lot) Isn't a bad team at all. Toss up between Archer and Stewart for the striker. Stewart provides more in open play, but Archer provides more goals if given a chance. Then you've got Fraser, Stewart, Armstrong, Downs and Matsuki as attacking depth and we all know about the plethora of centre-backs. Bree and Taylor also fine backup options for this level.

Well after waking up sad following all the Fernandes news, the club have at least responded well and given us some optimism going forward despite losing our best player. This has definitely been a fun morning. We were promised some excitement this window and it has arrived.

I had a faint hope of Fellows after the Alfie House Tweet, but it didn't sound convincing. Sounded like one we were hopeful of and were going to negotiate and "try for" until the last few hours of deadline day. So, this has all moved very quickly. Good price, good player.

So, it sounds like before the deadline we're getting Azaz, Jander and an unconfirmed player (likely to be Guilavogui) in the next 48 hours and working on a deal for Fellows over the next few days.

So, is this guy going to be our 2025 Schneiderlin? Hopefully without the poor first year in the Championship.

Looked on the West Brom forum for any Fellows talk and they've got a 13 page thread on Russell Martin: https://wbaunofficial.org.uk/showthread.php?tid=38192&page=13

I'm sad about this one, a lot more so than the Dibling one. Fernandes had a longer contract, we held a lot of the power. He also has a very good attitude, as I pointed out before the Wrexham game. His head never dropped last year like Dibling's did and there's just over a year between them and Fernandes was always available for our games so far this season, barring the cup game this week. I also didn't think a club would meet our £50m price tag, and they haven't, but like with Dibling we've gone in with a counter offer and the price has come down. £38m initial fee isn't great. I just thought that we sold Dibling to raise some funds to build Still's squad as we were struggling in the market without that income and it would help us to keep Fernandes. But, I must also agree with others that the Fernandes we've seen this season hasn't been the same one we saw in the Premier League, or playing for the Portugal Under-21s this summer, so maybe he was holding back. With that said, after the sales of Dibling and Fernandes, alongside Sulemana's fairly big sale, Amo-Ameyaw, Bednarek, Onuachu, Ramsdale's loan fee, Emsden-James to United, Juan and some loans out, while also expecting Smallbone, Edozie and Aribo to go before the deadline. We absolutely need another big signing alongside Azaz. Or, we're going to absolutely walk the net spend trophy. Never heard of this Jander guy, will have to look at YouTube.

The best of us get knocked out of the cup by Grimsby.

Imagine one of them is Guilavogui.

We're no longer on the list of clubs for Kabore. Wasn't much chance after the Roerslev signing. Bree will do as a backup.

Very happy with this one. Signing the best of League One and the Championship has helped us each time we've been down here.

It did work in 2019. Angus Gunn was our league goalkeeper, Alex McCarthy was our cup goalkeeper. So, fortunately we went to Fratton Park with McCarthy. They went all out at the start of the match too and McCarthy had to make a few smart saves, which I wouldn't have banked on Gunn saving. Just over a month later, after the Leicester match McCarthy took Gunn's place in the league team.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_national_football_team#Recent_call-ups Somebody let the Japan manager know he called up Tanaka when he was with Leeds last season. There's also some Blackburn and Bristol City players in there. Plus, are they now going to drop Kyogo as he's playing for Birmingham?

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.