Lighthouse

111-7, we're going to do this comfortably.

From 60 odd for 4, we seem to have rescued a score we now look likely to defend. Notts needing over 7.5 in their last 20, with 5 down, obviously a bowlers wicket.

You can’t just pretend they’re not strikers or not pay them, just because you don’t like them. If you’re going to argue the first four are the only strikers, then it’s four fighting for just one spot in the team, if Friday was anything to go by. However you spin it, a significant chunk of forward players will have to leave before we can really bring more in.

So we shouldn’t play the ball into space, because spaces don’t score goals?

Because our squad and wage bill are still too big to the tune of about five players, which is also top heavy with forwards. Attacking-wise we have AA, Mara, Paul, Adams, Djenny, Stu, Edozie, SAA, Tella, Aribo, Sully and Alcaraz. I make that 12 players fighting over 4 positions.

Agree, to me they look like, “if we go down, let’s come straight back up again,” transfers, more than anything else. None of them screams ‘PL player’.

I can’t see him being anything other than on the bench in any case. It’ll almost certainly be Charles and Smallbone on Saturday, I’d have thought.

None of that makes any sense. As Tella has shown, you can absolutely smash the Championship and few teams will have any interest in paying anything North of £20m for you. Then there’s the fact that all the top talent, like Lavia and ABK, isn’t going to want to play Championship football at all, when they can ply their trade at any number of bottom half Prem teams and get much more interest from higher up. Finally the idea that we’re selling to a bigger market down here is absurd, we could just as easily sell players to Everton or Spurs in the Premier League, if we were so inclined.

I wouldn't say 'phenomenal' as such but I'd agree it's probably the most plausible line of thinking, given West Ham's recent cash boost from Rice and the relatively short window we'll have to bring players in once outgoings are finalised. Hopefully we can use that same lure of up front cash to tempt other clubs, who may have financial issues, to sell their best players.

I'd guess that they're viewed as a kind of spiritual or societal figurehead, in much the same way as the Pope or Dali Lama. Stephen Fry put it best when he said they're like a real life Uncle Sam, which I'd imagine would be well received over there. Republicans probably see them as a symbol of patriotism, liberals as more of a non-political ambassador. Plus William was quite dashing when he was younger and had hair, so when you factor in the accent, most American women probably had a massive wide-on.

Six years of chronic underinvestment, mixed with occasional very poor investment, aren't going to be solved in one window. As I said on another thread, right now we're in the Gillett, Paterson, Trotman and Saganowski phase.

Why would they want to blow it out the water? They know our valuation and that Liverpool aren’t far off, if they’re serious they’ll be in similar territory. I don’t think anyone has claimed that as such. We need to reduce the wage bill obviously and it was reported by a couple of journalists that we needed a net £100m from sales this window. The point is we don’t have to sell anyone below market value which, generally speaking we haven’t.

He was talking about players like Aribo and Djenepo, not our captain. I can’t imagine for a second that we wanted rid of JWP. I don’t think JWP would ever have been remembered as a ‘true legend’, just a consistently okay player who takes excellent free kicks.

So you've got a friend who can read Twitter.

£32m including add ons does sound a bit on the low side to me, all things considered. I think he's a £40m player and we hold all the cards at the moment. I always thought he'd leave but... hmmmmmm.

At the moment our first choice defence is Manning, Stephens, Bednarek and KWP, plenty of experience there. Assuming JWP does leave we still have Stu, Djenepo and Aribo in midfield, plus AA, Tella and Che up front. This isn't a team full of kids, however some may try to paint it.

I don't know that we were actually interested in either, beyond the circle-jerk of Twitter... sorry X... wannabe ITKs. I want us to sign the best players for the way we want to play, regardless of age. I'd rather we 'overpay' for a couple more Lavias than brought in experienced Walcotts, Mois and Orsics.

I'm not sure why it puts us on the back foot. Other teams were always going to sign some good players

Christ, this was his second game and he's played out of position in what were effectively two different teams.

Bertrand, Cork and Romeu were unwanted at Chelsea when we signed them. We may have to subsidise some wages to offload them but there's a home for everyone somewhere. Lyon just signed DCC and AMN and they were as bad as anyone last year.

No, I don't think anybody other than ourselves is going to give the tiniest sh*t about a team of Championship reserves losing to a L2 team. We all remember the glory years of the Markus takeover, that didn't start with Rickie in the England team. Right now we're in the Paterson, Gillett, Trotman and Saganowski phase. It's going to take time.

I couldn't care less if he whips his walloper out and starts spinning it around in circles whilst Dead or Alive plays on the PA. I want him gone but I don't dislike him as such, how often have people accused our players of being timid shrinking violets?

I fear you may be taking emotive comments on an internet forum, during a heavy unexpected defeat, a little too literally.

I've no idea where that kind of vitriol is coming from, it's not as if he's punched someone. As with many of our players, it's not that he isn't trying, he's just crap.

Whoever we put in charge was always going to need time to sort out this horror show, especially as our massive squad effectively means we can't bring anyone in, until we've sold about ten players. Tonight is a mess but I hope Martin has learned something about a lot of our players. We're all going to need to be patient.