TRon

Like I said, maybe we were still looking at Guehi with dream eyes back then.

It's fine if we really like him and we think he wants to come here. I'm sure a deal can be worked out. A lot of ifs though.

We'll have been busy preparing another campaign to get Guehi.

It's the Newcastle tax happening right in front of our eyes.

Only if Howe likes him, which should bump the fee up by another £10m.

I agree with this mostly. Mitchell did turn out to be a prick, and it's likely he upset a few people at the club including the playing squad if you believe what you read. But we did need an alternative strategy to the small group of select players which Howe prefers. In that his approach was needed, although maybe he took it to the extreme. Howe still has the best part of 4 weeks to get some players through the door so hopefully we'll turn this around, but we've wasted a load of time chasing pipe dreams this summer.

Shame we didn't think about that before deciding on a pie in the sky small pool of players to choose from.

Do you think we are losing out on players because our negotiations have not been up to scratch? I don't think so. I just think cartel clubs have more pull than us currently and we are not going to win if we go toe to toe with them.

We still have time to fill out the squad, the best part of four weeks left yet. We just need to stop chasing pipe dream players and go for the more attainable promising bracket like we used to a couple of years ago. Villa, Brighton and others will be tying them up while we are trying to go toe to toe with the cartel and getting pied in the face time after time.

I put that down to our single focus on a small group of players....which as it turns out is out of our reach.

We've suffered from the leadership effectively leaving suddenly, but the deals have been put together for players, good packages as well. But we can't force players to sign for us when cartel clubs are in for the same players. Maybe we are chasing the wrong players without a decent back up plan. That's on our recruitment policy, not the owners.

It's not even that, we have put together good deals for these players, they are just choosing bigger clubs instead. We have been pursuing the wrong players too relentlessly.

I see Evann Guessand is probably headed for Villa now, maybe we thought he would be too much of a risk but he was put forward as an exciting prospect as a striker who I thought looked interesting. I would be a bit pissed if he does well while we spent all summer chasing targets that were out of our reach.

He found a dead ciccada wedged in his boxers.

Keep forgetting we were in for Delap as well. Seems like almost an afterthought now.

We don't have to. If enough people protest against the ownership they could probably be persuaded to sell up and maybe buy one of the cartel clubs. They only bought in here because Amanda Staveley had a big hand in it IMO.

I think you underestimate the attraction a young player has to having the biggest names on his CV. The chance to sign for one of the biggest clubs in the world doesn't come around too often, not many young players will look that far ahead and think, "you know what, maybe I'll revisit once I've been coached by Eddie Howe a bit."

I'm deleting my account if there is.

Maybe we should apply to join the Saudi Pro League, probably the only place we'll be allowed to spend our money.

Froggy doesn't even sound that convinced about the signing, he was slagging him off a week ago, telling us Rasmus was the better bet.

Aye you've said it a few times. You can cheer yourself up watching Ekitike at Liverpool or Pedro at Chelsea though.

I wouldn't worry about it, it's turned out to be shite the last few times he's been linked.

Everyone is going nuts on here but inside the dressing room there will have been relationships built. If Isak's move to Liverpool falls through, every chance he'll shrug his shoulders and just get on with it for another season once the furore dies down. That's what usually happens in these scenarios.

It's good for us as well tbh. We wasted two weeks chasing this fucker when we could have been pursuing other options. At least now we can get closure and move on.

Man U will have a hell of a front 3 if they get Sesko. But you could argue they had a great front 3 previously and haven't managed to make it work.