Kimbo

No I don’t think Elliott gets in our first team or suits the way we play. I’m not sure I would sell to Liverpool at all given the way they’ve orchestrated this. I would rather send him on loan somewhere like Turkey for a loan fee, then sell him for around £100m abroad next summer.

Problem is no one has put in a bid worth considering yet, and to sell him below market value just because he’s being a big baby sets a terrible precedent. We can’t just get rid.

I think his finishing and discipline need work, I’m not going to claim he’s a perfect player. I trust Howe to improve players weak points though. Despite that, his goalscoring record is pretty good for someone not on pens. I think his pace, pressing, workrate, and link up play will suit us well. Chelsea under Maresca have a slower style of play than us and I think his form has suffered because of it. That’s just my opinion, I don’t think we’ll sign him anyway.

Obviously that’s not what I’m saying. Wood moved to a club that suited his style of play, I believe the same would apply to Jackson coming here. I hope I find out if I’m right.

And we were happy to get rid of Wood.

Chelsea get rid of players that go on to be successful elsewhere all the time, I’m not too worried about that.

As much as I don’t approve of players going on strike, I’m more concerned with self-interest. Van Dijk behaved terribly to get his move to Liverpool, I doubt anyone would say his character has had a negative effect on them. It’s up to clubs to shut it down and make it clear the tactic won’t work for them. I’m in favour of clubs (including Brentford) taking a hardline with players that do it. If they don’t take a hardline then in the long run that’s their loss.

It could be a 1 in 2 record if he was on pens.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this is another agent-driven tease.

They’re desperate to push their dead league wherever they can.

I feel like Wissa has very little leverage. He’s on a relatively low wage so he’s not a big drain on resources, and if he’s still there in September he’ll have little choice but to sign a new contract for a pay rise and knuckle down. At that point only Brentford will be in a position to give him the retirement fund. Brentford also don’t need the transfer fee, especially with relegation being a threat. If I was them I would just hang tight.

I’d sign Mitrovic just for this game.

I would like to see a statement from the club explaining its position, we let Isak and his agent dictate the media narrative all the time.

He comes across like a child, I can’t even be arsed feeling angry. My position before was that I would loan him out this season and take whatever I could from abroad next summer, that hasn’t changed. Get him out of the league.

Yeah we let all the alternatives get snapped up, now we’re at the mercy of Brentford. We’ve played it poorly even if it works out ok in the end.

Preferably in the next 13 days.

Who are you expecting us to sign?

There’s Jackson. Everyone else that has been linked has been taken or is unavailable. We’re not signing Vardy though even if people think he could do a job, so no one needs to stress.

I don’t think anyone thinks it would be enough. We’re just scrambling around trying to work out who is still an option. We need someone but there’s no one out there.

It’s very similar, the difference is Liverpool don’t even need Isak.

It’s possible we’ve already sabotaged it. We pursued Isak replacements that were probably never a real option like Sesko, and sat watching all the possible Wissa alternatives get taken. Who do you sign at this point?

I actually saw he’s been linked to Brentford as a Wissa replacement. That shows how barren their options are as well.

It looks like we settled on Wissa as a Wilson replacement in mid-July and in that time we haven’t pursued an alternative, we’ve just sat waiting for Brentford to change their stance. Now we’re in late August and there’s fuck all available. My suspicion is his agent has led us by the nose, we’ve swallowed a story about Brentford agreeing to sell him and ignored what the club are actually saying. That’s the story of the transfer window, us being played by agents. Sesko was an obvious one, he was never going to sign for us but our interest was a useful tool.

We’re pretty fucked on the striker front. I’d really rather not sign Vardy, but who else do you sign?

I think we might be tbh. There’s no one available other than Jackson, who we don’t seem interested in.