Memphis

I always appreciate the way Eddie Howe handles press conferences. He's very well-spoken and comes across as a controlled, intelligent person. I thought he walked a tightrope today with regard to being honest while not passing the blame or casting aspersions on the recruitment personnel. His demeanor spoke to his disappointment and frustration, but he certainly seemed determined to continue and put things right. He has a chance now to do his thing "on the grass", as Eales put it, and try to squeeze out results from a largely unchanged squad. Clearly as a club we fucked this window royally. I don't know whether to blame Eddie Howe, Paul Mitchell, Yasir al-Rumayyan, or the PSR changes. It doesn't matter to me. This was a failure on all parties to communicate and to effectively pursue the help we so desperately needed. It can't happen again. But none of that has anything to do with the job Howe has done for the club over the last two years. It's silly and counterproductive to assert otherwise. It's been a fantastic run and long may it continue, in spite of this shambles of a window.

You can't begrudge the Palace fan. Quality gif work. No issues here. This has officially been the biggest waste of time in recent memory. Maybe the unending Dirk Kuyt Monitoring comes close but I don't think we ever even made an offer. Irrespective of how you feel about the club, the owners, or PSR, we fucked this up big big big time. I don't know who to blame.and ultimately in this case it doesn't matter. We fucked up.

SURPRISE!!! We're comfortable with Krafth starting at CB!

There's no way we are in the ballpark on wages for players going to Saudi. Transfer fees are fine but I'd imagine the wages would blow up our structure.

That's a question that could be posed to him. Among many others. Obviously he can choose to answer - or not - and I'm sure he would be discreet. But he needs to be the one facing the questions about the activity, or lack thereof, in the window. Ultimately he is the final decisionmaker and it's unfair to Howe to make him be the only one to try to explain the club's rationale.

He is well within his remit to do as he chooses with transfer policy. What I would ask is that after the window is closed, he sit down for a media session with journalists and face questioning. Don't send Eddie Howe out to do the mandated media appearance and force him to answer questions on things he ultimately doesn't control. I don't think that's too much to ask.

As Geddy Lee once sang, "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice."

This is one of the dumbest sagas I can remember. Have we actually been pleading with them all this time? All the info seems to be coming from Palace so who knows what we've actually done? But regardless, just walk away. We've all wasted tremendous amounts of time on this bullshit. I do hope there is a Plan B or C or Z or whatever we're on at this point that involves actually signing someone.

Just remember whatever happens, make sure to spin it to reinforce your preconceived notions.

I can feel it. Today's the day.

Two wins and a draw from three games, two away from home, and we've yet to put together more than 20 minutes of good play. I *think* that bodes very well for us but shit it's hard to watch in the meantime.

Fucking Temu Grealish

For sure that diminishes our ability to play out from the back. But unfortunately Forest know that too - and we haven't really made any adjustments to compensate.

We're missing link play apart from Tonali. Back four struggle to move it up the pitch, we're going back far too often when under pressure. Tonali is class at anticipating the next pass long before he receives the ball. Then we're struggling to link the midfield and the forwards - Barnes and Almiron have offered very, very little and Isak looks uninspiring to say the least. We miss Willock's running and his ability to move the ball up the pitch, we don't have enough carriers right now.

I'm inclined to give Hall a little break because he's still young and is playing with a pretty shit defensive group, but he has been a vulnerability.

I don't want to bang on about it but Tonali is just routinely firing first-time balls right where they need to go, he completes passes for fun that 95% of other players wouldn't even try

Tonali man

Lewis Hall looks a different player when Burn/Krafth are the CBs. To be fair, he's been given some poor passes, but he does look shaky tonight. Our distribution from the back with this group is pretty poor.

Alan Smith needs to watch more WWE. It was a clothesline, not a chokeslam. Get it right.

Tonali just oozes class.

I'm seeing a lot of Simikan't in this thread and not enough Simikan

I have to say this seems to have happened. His interview is really quite something.

Probably better suited for the general transfer thread but I can't see us signing a RW now. I wish we would but I don't think it's as critical as CB. My larger point is that these financial restrictions make things really difficult for us to sign the types of players who can materially change our level - and I think people are severely underestimating that fact.

This is all very dramatic and I don't really understand the mindset - especially with several days still left in the window. June should have made it abundantly clear that we cannot screw around with our finances. So I have no problem with an eminently qualified group of decisionmakers taking the stance that we are working with a very small pool of potential talents - and trying to do business at a very specific price point. Trying to improve significantly under those restrictions is an exceptionally challenging proposition. It feels like some of our fans think these guys are idiots and have all of a sudden forgotten how to operate in the business they've all succeeded greatly in. I do not understand it.