Lighthouse

You're asking how we're a different team, if we have our best CB and two best CM available?

Personally, I still prefer the back four. I think looking better with a five today was something of a fluke in that it coincided with us bringing Robinson on, playing Archer more central and Brighton taking a few of their better players off. Whichever system we play, I still feel we're missing a bit of creativity and can't just rely on one of the kids to be our spark. If THB, Downes and Fernandes (or his replacement) were available, we're a different team.

Oscars won: Titanic - 11 Deadpool - 0

A few decent performances in there, decent pre-season game overall. Really like the look of Robinson, Edwards, Charles and Quarshie, although the latter seemed to stand off a bit too far at times IMO. Suga might be alright in a five, against weaker oposition. Baz had a solid game, as did Stephens for the most part. I think we looked more threatening with Archer central and AA in behind.

Stephens, Bazunu and Smallbone are not ‘crap’ Championship players and will play a significant part in this season, as they did two years ago when we were successfully promoted. Ramsdale would take up a disproportionate amount of our wage bill.

You say that like it’s an argument in favour of keeping Ramsdale. The fact that we could have three Championship players for his wages is literally the reason we’re loaning him out.

Linking JWP with a move back down here is about as lazy as fake ITKs get. Particularly since he started pretty much every game under Potter and even if he is suddenly frozen out, loads of PL teams will be after him.

Disagree. We’re highly unlikely to get anything near the £27m Everton have already offered (I’m not saying we should accept that) for a player with only a year left on his contract. In a worst case scenario, his head gets turned by someone like Levy and his agent gives us an ultimatum. We could end up in a scenario where he will only sign for Spurs, on the promise of a massive signing on fee, and we end up with turnips as a transfer fee. Basically what happened with Hojbjerg.

What is it you think that's 'too clever' about any of that? We're never signing established PL players, we're always going to have to take a gamble on someone.

A lot of people say a lot of things. A reasonable number of departures was always going to be the first priority and that's what we've done.

With such a bloated squad, there were always likely to be a lot of outgoings before we were able to recruit. Hopefully we’re now in a position where we might be able to bring a couple more players in. Luckily, in a way, we already have a decent Championship standard squad from last season, so we shouldn’t need much by way of recruitment. We haven’t tried to be cleverer than anyone, we’ve just recruited poorly.

A shame they couldn't keep the retro theme going by charging nineties prices for them.

You can’t just ignore finances because you want to. We have a bloated squad with some very high earners in it, some of them are going to have to go and the likes of Ramsdale and Fernandes will be more likely to attract suitors than ABK or Aribo. Whether we bring another keeper or not, and it looks like we’re certainly in the market, a player like Ramsdale was always likely to leave. We may well have had a gentleman’s agreement when he signed that we’d look for a deal elsewhere if we did go down, I can’t see him wanting to stay in the Championship.

Nope, they just didn't want to buy him because he was largely crap for them, so they didn't activate the agreed fee clause.

What do you mean, why? That’s literally the reason, his wages are amongst the highest at the club and will severely restrict our capacity to recruit.

I don't know why you'd think that. He'll still be a decent enough PL keeper with two years left on his contract. There'll be plenty of interest, not least from the three clubs who do get promoted, and no reason for us to accept buttons.

And we ended up one whole point worse off than we did in 2012, which we'd probably have had if we hadn't rotated the squad against Stoke.

I'd wager his value will go up playing a season of PL and CL football, rather than playing for us in the Champ. He'll still have two years on his deal at the end of the season, which is a reasonably healthy position from which to negotiate. Getting his wages off the books is a no-brainer financially and the loan fee could probably cover two decent Championship players, on loan from somewhere else. Whether or not we'd sign another keeper, I don't know. Like it or not, the club don't view Bazunu with anywhere near the disdain being exhibited on this message board. Ramsdale out, Bazunu in goal and a couple of decent loans in other positions, all for a net financial gain makes an awful lot of sense to the accountants.

Agreed, I do hate it when people post about fantasy signings nobody else has heard of.

I highly doubt most of the lioness squad would get into a men’s National League side, it’s a non-starter. Anyone saying one of them could get a PL game is either delusional or trying to be edgy/controversial for attention and clicks.

Nope, we're all done with the horse puns. Anvilla can f**k off, with their £20m.

TBH I normally have a tug over stuff which is so niche and obscure that it doesn’t actually register as porn. So far I haven’t had to put any personal details in order to watch Delia Smith basting a four bird roast.

Is that a website for piste conditions in Verbier? Seriously though, it appears to quote a doctor, who has no involvement with Dibling, saying that a minor ankle injury is unlikely to derail any potential transfer. No actual news or facts in it at all.

What makes you think we haven’t? If we got £15m+ for Sully, I doubt we’re donating one of our best players to Oxfam.