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Exactly. People often laud Man City for walking away if they deem the valuation to be excessive.

1. Sip morning coffee 2. Turn latest Brighton programme to the back page 3. Closes eyes and place finger down randomly 4. Ask Siri to generate a number between 25m and 125m 5. Press the Tony Bloom speed dial button 6. Log off.

I think there's a lot of anxiety bred from what's happened in the previous three windows. In reality, getting to July 1 this time without a signing and missing out on the odd target is hardly anything to stress over. Again this assumes Trafford isn't waiting in the wings.

When you say long been abandoned, you mean for the two seasons we've not been allowed to spend money? The last time we spent money, we signed Tonali, who was a young foreign star and he wasn't even cheap either.

Can't have a go at the club for not overpaying. Overpay for Joao Pedro would then mean that we have less money, or no money, for the other important positions in the side. On top of that it won't be as simple as if we agreed a fee weeks ago we would have got him. Chelsea would have been kept informed on any deal and would have probably just come in earlier and we would have been in this exact same boat but a few weeks earlier. As others have mentioned, this is PSR, and with PSR as it is we will probably never be able to fully compete and establish at the top on a consistent basis. Or at the very least we have to do everything perfectly to do so. It is a shame because it sucks the joy out of football a bit.

I agree tbh, was being slightly facetious, but I really do think we are a little OTT with our criticism and how much we clamour for any sort of rumour

Agree with the first part of that

I guess it’s significantly easier to get players that would improve us when we were sitting 19th in the league or had just finished 11th, than it is when we’ve secured CL football 2 years out of the last 3

Wants to be in Larndon too!

Can’t say I’m going to lose much sleep over this one. Questionable temperament to start with and also showing he’d be happy to sit on the bench on inflated wages, move on. We just need to accept that nobody in the premier league wants to do business with us, they are clearly using us to drive up prices. We need to take some risks and widen our net.

Seems obvious that clubs we want to to buy off are alerting other teams,Our bid for Pedro might have gone in a few weeks ago. If we bid £100 mill for him chelsea were gonna have a phonecall anyway

Seems the choice is; move quickly and secure less-coveted targets (worse players), or gamble on 'wasting time' by trying to sign better players. Mind you, when you've got professional gazumpers like Chelsea and Man City lurking around, you wonder if we'd miss out on top targets whether they're in the Premier League or Timbuktu.

Villa are owned in 1/3s by Edens, Sawiri and one other firm. For one of those owners to purchase the women’s team from Villa, then it’ll need to for enough money. Its a bit like Reuben’s buying our women’s team, but would need to pay enough that PIF feel it’s worth.

Sell

If he ends up at Chelsea, he’s been intending to go to Chelsea all along.

Do you really believe this? It's not like bargain polaroid TV's on black Friday in Asda. Christ.

Shola to come out of retirement

Can someone explain ? Is that like me deciding how much to transfer from one account to the other, they are both my accounts but I'm being performative about it ?

Very excited about him playing out from the back for us. Will add another dimension to our attack!

Oh James.

Clearly we didn't lose out on him last time, we decided to sign Isak instead.

When they have a full 11 of wingers to choose from

I think Madueke is available but we’ve moved on. I’m all in on Dibling even if it is silly money and the same as Pedro. I think anywhere up to £55m is fair for Dibling personally and I do think he’s in a similar category to a Lewis Hall or Tino in that a lot of clubs wouldn’t take the risk on him yet

Bruno was to upgrade on Shelvey. Botman, Lascelles. Isak, Gayle. Now we're trying to upgrade on significantly better players meaning the pool is a lot smaller, meanwhile our own targets have changed beyond survival/consolidation, again reducing the pool of players who can help achieve our new targets. Then you've got the inflation of prices which has changed even in just the last three years, plus the risks of PSR are far more established and emphasise the need to invest with as much guarantee as possible. = Targeting PL players in the first instance.