STM

It was 30 rising to 40 for Bruno, the same with Botman. I suspect 40 is our ceiling for players for the time being and you can see why with some of the fees knocking around for worse players.

His stats are really good, providing you aren't just looking at goals. Some are talking as if we are trying to sign a 28 year old campaigner. He's fucking 20 man.

I think gdm is right in a sense. JP wouldn't solve our goal problem, in the event Wilson got injured but we might be a better team. I think we have to accept that for this summer we aren't signing an Isak or whatever because we've spent alot of our budget on other areas (which was necessary).

I'd like to help answer this if I could? Firstly, you are right, goals are important but they don't have to be scored by one player. It's much more important to play well as a team and find goals from different areas. I'd argue that a player like JP would be better than both Wood AND Wilson in this regard. His whole game from what I've seen and read, is about playing between the lines, holding onto the ball and bringing others into play. Secondly, we can't always sign ready made players, especially in the striker department. You have to have some scope for buying potential and while that doesn't help us for the here and now, it will help us further up the road. I've also got a theory that says we are deliberately not going all out on a striker this summer, for two reasons. One, we've got two ageing forwards who we can't get off the books this summer (Wilson we don't want to, Wood we've just signed) but next summer we will almost certainly let Wood leave and the other reason is money. We've clearly not got alot left in this kitty because we've spent 150m since January. My guess is thar next summer we will go all out for someone like Isak, by which point we will be in a much smoother place in terms of incoming money. Anyway, if this theory is correct, signing a young player with potential makes sense, instead of potentially signing another dud like Chris Wood.

Would be a solid signing. He's a player with huge potential. Eddie Howe is a fantastic coach and even if he only manages to get another 25% out of the lad he will likely hold most of his value in the transfer market. Whatever fee we pay will be heavily incentivised, based on performance and future achievements too. For the lad himself, it will be great for him to play alongside fellow Brazilians, who will make him feel immediately at home. I wouldn't be surprised if those little details don't bring him up a level.Fingers crossed we can get him in for Tranmere. With Joao Pedro, Anderson, Willock and Botman we can finally see some potential stars of the future. Some won't make it, as is life but hopefully one or two can become big players for us in the future.

I don't see much indication that we will sign him anyway.

Knowing our luck hes off to Wolves.

Just give me Pulisic, I promise I will be a good boy from now on.

The second one, but I'd move Miggy back into a central 3. Just for his graft.

The Wood debate has been done to death. I think we all know that he's last resort up front. We don't need to slag him off when he plays nor do we need to overly defend him when he's poor. Let's hope that when he does play, the team as a whole can perform.

There is zero evidence that Ramos is better than Pedro. Goals in Portugal count for nothing. That's not saying he isn't, just that the data isn't there. Both players would be signed for potential. We shouldn't be expecting them to come in and score 20 goals. It's clear we want a young, technical, link up player, who can bring more to the game than just goals.

5th minute he talks about Dave Brailsford, who we also got to talk to our players in pre season.

For context, in the last 17 days of January we signed Bruno, Burn and Targett. I'm guessing that they aren't wanting to go early in case someone becomes available that they didn't think they could get.

Where did he say this?

No, I think Pedro, like Ramos would be seen as link up man in the middle. A RW search is separate. In fact the reason we are targeting this lad is possibly so we can retain some funds for a loan fee.

Second coming off Chris Wood though? It's perfectly normal that if someone makes this remark they will get called out. Underwhelming, OK, I don't agree but OK. When someone says "they are shite", without thought, without reason, without explaining their viewpoint, they are going to look ill-informed and reactionary. If I viewpoint is brought with some evidence, some calmness and put across in a correct manner, it will be recieved alot better.

Free speech dictates that while you are allowed to be overly negative, other posters are allowed to be condescending. You can't have it both ways.

It suggests we are juggling between a few options. I reckon it wasn't a "bid" but more us sounding out another potential players price.

Personally I find overly negative hyperbole more offensive.

Always liked you Flip.

If the argument is that you would prefer some proven, who can guarantee goals, thats fair enough. We are clearly targeting a "type" of forward though; versatile, raw, technical but not without experience. FWIW, our selection of targets is now data driven.

He's 20 years old.

I'll admit I haven't seen loads of him but when I saw the link my first thought was "he's meant to be quite good", then I come in here and he's Chris Wood mark 2. Funny really because Chris Wood is a 30 year old New Zealander, who's got a decent scoring record in the PL and is seen as a traditional centre forward, hold up the ball, get on the end of crosses, that type and Pedro is a 20 year old fleet footed technical type, more in the mould of Ayoze Perez? I mean I'm all for writing off a promising young Brazilian who actually got alot of experience and alot of promise but I'm not sure why?

It's become virtually impossible to guess what's going on. Something will happen and I'm just here for the ride.

Far from dissuading me, the Brighton game confirmed to me that we have made great progress. Brighton would have beaten 2/3 sides in the league on Saturday, including West ham and Man Utd. Sure we rode our luck in the second half but we are a solid outfit. Our issue, of course, comes from our output in the final third. Hopefully we can get one or two players in to give us 15/20 more goals this year and turn a couple of potential draws into wins and loses into draws.