louistoon

Yeah, this is what I've been saying about people like Hanley. Doesn't apply to Rivière though for example, who is just s***. I can see the end of this transfer window being pretty manic. Hopefully we can get rid of a couple of them then, although it may be too late to get anyone in at that stage. Our wage bill can't be that horrendous, almost all of our premier league waged players have left either last summer or this one. Our wage bill then wasn't exactly out of control by PL standards and the TV money has increased substantially since then. Lejune, Manquillo and Merino can't be on that much. If we got relegated next season with 35 players on the books though i could see that being an issue. Still think we'll sign three more though.

If you're in group D you should have received a PM with the league code, and a second with a doodle poll for the date of the draft. As it stands the draft will be Tuesday at 7PM. 5 people still need to respond and four still need to sign up for the league. I'll close the poll tomorrow evening. As we're still waiting on a couple of people if there's anyone without a league who wants to join we may be able to add others, if they haven't signed up by the weekend.

When you include the Gibson and Thauvin deals our net spend is something like £12 million. We need to sign three more players It's been a mental market, and we do have a massive squad so i have sympathy there, but we need to buy more players. If the issue is simply the risk in spending £14 million on Perez due to his pedigree, then I would be ok with that. We don't need more expensive wastemen in the squad.

what about this, we want Correa and Athletico want Costa but can't sign him till January, so Chelsea want to sell him to someone else. We offer to loan Costa till January, taking him off Chelsea's books and keeping them happy, he goes to Madrid in Jan and they sell us Correa then. Never happen like but it would be a nice dream ... also if it did happen we'd have to sell Mitrovic sharpish or someone would end up dead/ in prison.

15th as it stands.

Everyone in Group D should have received a PM with the league code. Draft is provisionally set for 3PM on Sunday. If anyone can't make this let me know as it can be changed.

Think that would be about 60 million so can't see it myself Correa and Perez would be my first choice, just because I think they could cover more positions, based on their transfermarket profiles (never seen any of them play really). Them, one more CM and a GK and that's us done, although I doubt we have the cash for it. Get Perez in a Merino type deal and maybe it would be workable

about 45million was spent pre-season. Ashley's main issue is suspect/clinically insane managerial appointments.

Seen this a lot, i do struggle to understand why people think it will be any different next year. The owner is still Mike Ashley. How much did he spend the season we went down? Before the money went batshit crazy. 65-70 million

Ruder just been reading on here then?

Was very skeptical but I'm coming around to it, since Arsenal fans seem sorry to let him go. Looking at transfermarketd he seems to have been played up front, as a number 10, and on both wings in his career, so really he's the ideal profile of what we need.

Remember when we signed Mirandinha and Look North did a piece about how nobody knew how his name was pronounced. I was like 'Just ask him what his f***ing name is' Never trusted the news since. Bit of an overreaction?

Really skeptical of perez he's 27 and only had one good season in his career, What about Heaton from Burnley in goal? had a great season last season and is the right age. Although you could make exactly the same arguments as above about him, would weaken a rival team.

QFT

Aye. It's why the whole 'other clubs haven't made many transfers' argument doesn't wash. We're in a different situation to other clubs. Was it ever realistic that we would sign nine players? I'd be incredibly surprised if we don't end up with at least 7 new faces not including the youth and Atsu. We already have 4 and there's a month left. We need to get rid of some players though.

Not completely disagreeing with you, but Burnley have sold their star player and bought no one decent, Stoke have sold Aranautavic and barely bought anyone. I'm pretty sure even without signings our first XI is better than Burnley without Keane. If we can get three more good quality players we're in a good position. Brighton have basically replaced Stockdale and that's it. Huddlesfield have bought a couple of players but the only one I would have is Mounie, or Ince as backup and i'll reserve judgement on Mounie until/if we get a striker.

True. Don't think Shelvey has been used off the striker in pre season at all yet. Guess we'll see. I think he'll probably be playing a little deeper than a traditional number 10, but with more licence to get forward than he had without the cover of a second defensive minded midfielder last season. if we do end up with this formation. Probably necessary to be honest, Rafa is a defensively minded coach and our defence will need the extra protection in a lot of games this season.

I'm in Happy to be admin

We don't really have the players for that formation at the moment, plus i still reckon we'll be playing the 4231 in some of our more winnable home games. Who knows I guess we'll find out in a couple of weeks.

exactly as tempting as it is to blame the board for everything, we start spunking 15-25 million on average players and we can't buy all of the players we need for next season. Mistakes were definitely made at the start, but it's been like the sky has been falling in on here. Still a lot more work to do though.

Probably McCarthy or Samaris to partner him? Both are more seasoned. Then subs will be Hayden, and at this point ... Colback ... really wish we could get someone in to replace Colback as a back up. The idea of him being involved in any capacity is very upsetting. We have De Jong and Diame as well. If we have 3 defensive midfielders in the squad next season, we could play one of these in the centre. Really can't see us buying two more central midfielders we still need a striker, left back and goalkeeper, and a number 10 would still be nice to keep our options open.

Must be what the Samerias/McCarthy rumours are about. Signings only make sense if we're dropping the 4231, and going for a 41221 or somethings similar, hence no need for a number 10, at least in most games. We'll probably revert to 4231 at home to some of the lesser teams in the league with De Jong playing the number 10 role.

Agree. A striker has to be the number one priority now, and we should be prepared to spend the majority of our budget on one if that's what it takes. What we really need is a good quality player who can play up front or as a number 10, and then a young striker for further competition/rotation. Gayle has earned his chance this season, and last season demonstrated how rubbish Diame is as a number 10. Get someone for the hole who can also play up front and we get a good quality starter as well as backup for Gayle encase he gets injured. I seriously doubt we could afford a player of the required quality for both positions. ... although thinking about it, since we're still being linked to defensive midfielders maybe rafa's planning to go 41221 next season away from home and against the big teams.

I wouldn't, he needs space to operate in to spray passes about and has pretty much nothing required to be a very good number 10. We absolutely need a no 10 more than anything else IMO considering what system Rafa will use, none of what we currently are anywhere near good enough and a quality one will change things more than any other signing could. a 4231 falls flat on it's face without one, it's absolutely vital that is sorted before the end of August. Indeed shelvey is just not a number 10. a number 10 needs to be linking midfield to attack and making runs, getting into space. Shelvey has a great passing range it would be a massive waste.