Rich

Oozes class. Need a few more like him.

Some shift today from this lad, mind. Not a perfect performance, and should’ve scored, but he finally seems to be recovering some sharpness.

Down to a 4, for me.

We might as well just not discuss anything then. I said "he'll have had" not "he's had". He's already been given £25M to spend on Chris Wood, we've brought in Trippier, and there will undoubtedly be more significant deals to be done in the next week and a half. If we don't make any more signings at all, then he clearly won't have had "enough backing". However, if we spend £100M+ and still go down after 27 games of him as manager, I don't think he should be kept on. All pointless, though, apologies.

I have never been more than a 6 on the old Relegationometer, and that's just recent, so doesn't apply here. With that in mind, you're ignoring the remaining 10 days of the window and 18 games we've got left to play.

Decent point, completely ruined by that wank at the end.

Dubravka Trippier Schar Lascelles Dummett Lewis Fraser Joelinton Shelvey Saint-Maximum Wood pls Schar in the position where he played his best stuff, Trippier given more license to attack, Lewis brought in for some extra pace and Dummett moved inside to his best position. Lascelles is also most comfortable in the middle of a three these days, IMO. Don't care which one of Shelvey or Longstaff gets dropped, but we cannot persist with this three in midfield shite until we've got more quality available there. Get Fraser and ASM much closer to Wood than they were in the last game.

He’d have to go if we went down like. Seems a decent bloke but he’ll have had enough time and backing in the market to turn it around. Don’t think he could have any arguments.

Can’t believe I’ve just seen a proposed XI without Joelinton. Dear me.

Steve Nickson

Tremendous.

It’s in the thread title

This is the content I want to see.

dUbraVka and dArlOw are da same

Howay then, it feels like it's time for another recap of where things are at: Centre-back Clearly still working on both a right-sided CB and a left-sided CB, with Diego Carlos of Sevilla the clear first choice at RCB (Gleison Bremer of Torino and James Tarkowski of Burnley still being consistently linked as alternates, with Nikola Milenkovic of Fiorentina as a recent rumour of interest). With the Sven Botman (Lille) deal seemingly dead in the water, it appears that Benoit Badiashile of Monaco is the second choice at LCB (rumours of revived interest in Nico Schlotterbeck of Freiburg and a new link to Attila Szalai of Fenerbahce in the last couple of days, while Lloyd Kelly of Bournemouth continues to be mentioned). Marcos Senesi (Feyenoord) is yet another name here. Left-back Having missed out on Lucas Digne (Everton) and with the rumours around Nicolas Tagliafico (Ajax) subsiding, Mitchell Bakker of Bayer Leverkusen is the new name in the frame here, following a good few stories about Robin Gosens (Atalanta) previously. Centre Midfield Still nothing of any real substance here, frustratingly. Hopefully, we're just doing a better job of keeping things quiet. Jason Knight of Derby has been mentioned recently, while the noise around Amadou Haidara (Leipzig) has died down. Wide Midfield Linked to Ousmane Dembele (Barcelona) again, sketchy report of a bid for Eden Hazard (Real Madrid) from Spain, and an ongoing rumour around Todd Cantwell (Norwich). Hard to know how much substance there is to all of this, probably more than any other position. Attacking Midfield Jesse Lingard (Man Utd) is back as a tangible link as of today, while we've been credited with an interest in Christian Eriksen (free agent) in the last couple of days. It hasn't seemed a priority position, but the Lingard link won't go away. Striker Probably easier to note who we haven't been linked with at this stage, but Duvan Zapata (Atalanta) appears to be the current front-runner, after the noise around Hugo Ekitike (Reims) settled quite a bit. Alassane Plea (Gladbach) mentioned yesterday by a decent source, but seems to be getting hawked around, while Stephy Mavididi (Montpellier) has been continually mooted in a few places and the links to Darwin Nunez (Benfica) have returned in the last day or so. If at least one link in each of the above sections is true, we're feasibly in the market for 6-7 more signings. No clue whether we're working with a set budget or just trying to go all-out to avoid relegation, though, so it's difficult to say if the deals being done are dependent on the others. Of the above, it seems RCB, LCB, and ST are being pushed the hardest at the moment. We'd all like to see CM joining that mix, and maybe LB/LWB, while attacking midfielders/wingers are seemingly more "nice to have" rather than being viewed as being absolutely fundamental.

Aye, I'm following it intensely, but I realise it's completely out of my control. There's still plenty of time left in the window and it's clear that we are working tirelessly. There's easily £100M+ still to spend, too, which will eventually translate to 3-4 players coming in that are significantly better than what we have.

Eh? He's been perfectly reasonable.

Class. Up with this sort of thing. Surprised we haven't seen more of it yet, tbh.

I feel alive again

Think it’s about time we got something tangible.

Seems to be a consensus in the press that Carlos is pushing for it because of the finances, and it's inching closer. Can't imagine you'd be swapping a title challenge in Seville for a relegation battle in Newcastle for anything other than money, to be fair!

Two in this week, I reckon, at a minimum. Hoping to be pleasantly surprised by the quality.