steve_69

Yeah, it's starting to become a bit concerning now. I get that we don't want to be spunking massive sums of money on players we don't think are worth it but we knew there was a good chance we'd be going up for weeks before it was confirmed, you'd think we'd have done a little bit of leg work. There's still plenty of time left in the window but we're not exactly showing any urgency to get shit done and Rafa made it clear he wanted to get players in as early as possible so they could be involved in pre-season. Same shit, different day sadly

We should definitely start monitoring him Are you crazy m8? We've gotta first think about considering to monitor him. Apologies, i've lost track of all the stages. Can we get an official timeline together please for all the stages between thinking/considering/monitoring all the way through to get it over the line It's tricky though because there are interim stages like considering monitoring and thinking about considering. There's also tracking as well, where does that fit in? It's a very complex process

We should definitely start monitoring him Are you crazy m8? We've gotta first think about considering to monitor him. Apologies, i've lost track of all the stages.

We should definitely start monitoring him

According to a Leeds supporting mate of mine, Vurnon is on the verge of signing for them.

It is a more physical league. Players don't get the protection from referees that they do in the Premier League. That could be because the standard of officiating is shit or because the refs just don't pander to players hitting the deck at the slightest touch. Either way, it is more physical. That said, any player who has the ability to perform in the Premier League should, in theory, be able to do even better in the Championship. Doesn't always work like that though.

As has been said before, Rafa likes to keep a compact squad. At that time Krul was coming back from injury, Saivet was probably suffering a crisis of confidence and De Jong was coming back from long-term injuries. It made more sense to loan them out so they could regain fitness/confidence than it did to keep them around, because we had to hit the ground running in the Championship. It mightn't be a case of Rafa not rating them, more that he felt other players were likely to be first-team ready imminently. Now that they're back he can take a second look at them in a full pre-season and decide if they warrant being part of his squad. I'm just speculating though, he might just think they're all s***.

I know he looks like a scruffy geriatric. That's about it

Although I hate the sentence 'he could be like new signing', mainly because it's had such negative connotations for us in the past, I do think Siem could be just that. IF he can stay fit he could be a real asset for us this season. Perez is really patchy as a number 10 and Shelvey & Ritchie are our only sources of creativity. I hope he comes good and proves himself finally.

Considering our backup options are Mitro, Riviere, Armstrong and possibly Perez, I'd make Hernandez the absolute priority.

I don't know much about any of these players but it sounds like a list of exactly what we need and at decent prices. Fuck scouting, let FFT do the hard work: https://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/8-la-liga-bargains-whod-make-smart-premier-league-signings?page=0%2C1

Would be my number one target for this window, I think we should go all out. £12m is a great price for Hernandez, especially with all the ridiculous money being thrown about

It's not just that they've added: Ebenezer Afriyie Acquah (born 5 January 1992), simply known as Afriyie Acquah (/æˈfrɪˈjiː/ /æˈxwɑː/ a-FRI-YEE a-KHWAH), is a Ghanaian professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for the Premier League club Newcastle (who are 1 league higher than Sunderland as Bournemouth took the mackems down) and the Ghana national team.[

Matt. Does the guy even post on here? Fuck me, i need to get out of this office!

Who did you say? Obviously you took the opportunity to tell Rafa to ditch Colback permanently, right....?

Potentially I could see Ashley selling 50% of the club, handing over the running of the club to the new party but insisting that his advertising remains. He'll just view it as another investment providing him with a dividend from that point forward. He doesn't seem to have any interest in the day-to-day running of a football club and he knows his business model for NUFC hasn't worked. He's never going to bankroll us to the level we need because he's tight as fuck so hand it over to someone who will but retain part ownership.

I'd love Mitro to come good but there's too much going against him now - he's got a massive 50p head, he can't jump more than a few inches off the ground and he doesn't fit into Rafa's system. I can't see any other outcome than him plying his trade somewhere else.

It's about time he landed one of them, he's been in the running for every managerial job since 2014. Really hope he turns out to be shit after all that

Definitely worth a punt for that price.

Nail on head. We need to unearth the new Jose Enrique.

She gets to live with one of this century's greatest men FFS. Surely that's enough for any woman. Selfish cow!

Is he any better than what we already have? Obviously he's better than Sels but Krul? Darlow? Blob?

Fair enough. I'm happy to say I haven't seen Ru Paul's Drag Race and have no plans to do so, but each to their own

Prolific Premier League striker and France international. Yeah, that'd be shit like

There was those exact same doubts about Clark last season. I know the old 'In Rafa we trust' gets a bit tedious, but he's probably as good a manager as any to give the benefit of the doubt. See, Tron gets it