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Considering we have apparently been planning this window for nearly a year, surely none of what is happening is coming as a surprise to the club.

Selling clubs absolutely start with their highest price early on and you negotiate them down from there. Especially if there is no other interest at that starting price as the window rolls on. That is standard man.

It depends on many factors but if we are sitting around waiting for prices to drop them we are a bit naive.

I don’t think we really pivot tbh, as seen with Guehi last summer.

Well you are suggestion early deals means premium. I dont agree with that. The players we are after, why does it matters if we know them or not? The point was maybe one player through the door for pre season is quite poor, which I still stand by.

Don't worry we'll let Palace have him for £40m, coz no PL experience. Then in two years when he's been brilliant we'll sign him from Palace for £80m, coz PL experience 😀

Do valuations go down the longer you wait though. Any quality player (the type we will be after) will have other suitors so is it not a case of pay up or move along?

Brighton, Chelsea, Liverpool, Man City, Man Utd and Tottenham have all strengthened in some way.

Ok

Kind of..

If you don't know what players we are after then why are there such expectations on when we should have business done by? And what are these smart deals you think we should have done? Also, how do you suggest we force other clubs to accept our valuations without any drawn out negotiations?

I never said get them on the last day though did I?

Dont see West Ham as a rival.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/566666/premier-league-clubs-by-revenue/ 23/24 Season was Breakaway 6 miles ahead, then... Newcastle 320 Villa 272 West Ham 271 Then bit of a gap again to the rest.

Bournemouths defence is getting hammered this window

I was thinking the same last night with a massive hard on

We dont know the players we are going for, and the question was not now, but pre season.

Evidently it is, for the players we're interested in.

A lot of the early deals either involved release clauses, or teams that wanted to add players before the club world cup, either because they were in it, or they were trying to get deals done ahead of other clubs that are in the competition and we're trying to do deals themselves.

We really need 5 signings, 3 for first team, 2 to bolster the bench. Anything less we will get hammered, we're looking at north of 50+ games this season right?

Its not impossible to do smart deals early in the window.

?

Diomande to Palace and Guehi to Liverpool isn’t exactly the best news is it

So basically people would prefer we pay what clubs are asking to get players in now, even if we know valuations are at their peak because it's early in the window? Or you'd prefer we pivot to options further down the list that are cheaper just so we can get them in early? Is this really the approach we should be going with?

How are our closer equivalent clubs doing, such as your Villa's and West Ham's? All the noticeable signing seems to have been by the breakaway clubs with the big money and brand lure. We don't have big money, and whilst our lure is surely much greater than those two clubs, it's probably not great enough to have quality players pushing for a move if we enquire.