Holmesy

Yeah, likewise. He's a thoroughly likeable guy but when Eddie plays him at LB, I dislike both of them

Yeah, you have to admire him for it in a way. Someone was always going to miss out - we can't take four #10's and have a balanced squad. Dropping Hall in favour of Spence is a proper head-scratcher though, and probably the one decision that's difficult to find any justification for (all bias aside). Maguire, ok. Trent - can't defend so ok. Foden and Palmer - harsh but Morgan and Bellingham are both class. Picking a load of players either coming back from injury or made of glass could be the thing that comes back to bite him most though.

Has he even been playing?

Nico O'Reilly is just as attacking as Hall but is more of a goal threat so you can't complain too much about him being first choice. Who's left though if Hall and Shaw aren't going? Spence?

And some of it has been exceptional but when it came to trying to make that step up, to compete with the cartel, we lost. And we lost because of geography, status and because it's a rigged game. If we're going to compete in a rigged game, we have to be smarter than the people making the rules and the clubs benefitting from them. We need every advantage we can get, in every single department throughout the club.

Probably me - i was in a rush. The point I was trying to make is Bournemouth have signed some exceptional young talent from around Europe that have been deemed good enough to play for the absolute top clubs. If the elite clubs want your players, it means you have elite players. And I want us to have elite players, especially if we sign them for not very much money. We're not Bournemouth or Brighton - we can pay higher wages, have one of the best stadiums in the league, have one of the best sets of fans in the world and when Eddie and Andy aren't left in sole our transfer dealings, we can usually offer European football. So we'd keep those elite young players for longer and when we did ship them, it would be for massive profits, at which point we'd bring through the next one. The other difference is where Bournemouth and Brighton have to supplement those players with low to middling journeymen because of their wage limits, we don't. We would be adding them to a better stable of players already here. Semenyo, Huijsen and Rayan combined cost less than Anthony Elanga, who we'd now be lucky to get £25m for. And if you think that's an unfair example, swap Elanga for Gordon.

This is such a load of nonsense. Brighton to a degree but Bournemouth have signed players like Rayan, Huijsen (went to Real Madrid), Semenyo (went to City), Zabarnyi (went to PSG), 3 of which would/should walk into our first team right now. They have one of the smallest commercial revenues in the PL and punch well above their weight. Whereas we spent £250m and look like shit. Don't think any of our signings will be moving to elite clubs in Europe. Top clubs in the championship maybe.

Cockney bloke spouting shit wouldn't be the biggest surprise in the world tbf

Eddie would've offered him a 2 year extension. Ross said no

Was just thinking exactly the same. Not fit often enough, great defensively but I think he's the most replaceable of our purples. If we can find someone with better attacking instincts as well, I don't think we'll miss him

Well, if you have any insight, spill the beans. I'm still trying to work it out

Not sure what you're trying to highlight with this pal. The first comment (second on your list) was made in September last year before this shitshow of a season played out. Wissa looked like a decent signing, Elanga looked like a decent signing, Woltemade had obvious class, Ramsey I hadn't seen much of and Thiaw was an unknown quantity. 6 months later (3rd comment on your list), it was apparent that the players who looked good on paper looked shite/average in reality, or Eddie didn't know how to get the best out of them.

He is but he’s had a poor game today by his standards.

Realistically, £52m on dross, £30m overpaid on Ramsey and Wissa. But none of the signings have improved us, so it’s not exactly an outlandish comment

Thiaw has proven to be a good signing and Ramsey has shown glimpses, but I don’t think there’s ever a world where he will be worth what we paid for him.

Unless he’s agreed to blood more youngsters after the crunch meeting. No point in the DoF identifying and buying young talent if they never have a chance of making the first team.

If he has a good world cup (assuming he goes) the price only goes one way. They'd be sensible to buy him now. Or more, we'd be sensible to sell him now

I think we're likely to see the opposite - Wolte moved on and Wissa retained. We'll lose significant money but I imagine the player will be hankering for a move after the way he's been treated this season. More resale value too.

I think it could work in our favour - if he has a good world cup, he gets some confidence back and it'll be great for his fitness. There's the obvious fatigue issue but he should be fresher than most

That was the main reason for the question - Is he a Sandro replacement or something different. Sounds like the former. But is he tall more importantly?

I don't know anything about the Championship - who is he, where does he play, is he different to what we already have?

Saw him kick a ball to one of his teammates in that video - he'll do for me! Forgotten what that was like. Cool as a cucumber as well.

I'm betting on a shit, tight game. We go one up, look ragged, continue to give the ball away, go in leading at half time, inspirational teamtalk from Eddie, they come out having made changes, we don't react, subs on 60 minutes, concede on roughly 80 minutes and cling on for a 1-1 draw. Got evens on Bet365 as a Betbuilder.

I think our character checks are rigorous enough that we can be confident he's not a dickhead or a mercenary - bad injury at a bad time, underperforming team, weight of expectation, new teammates etc. He gets in positions none of our other strikers do, but he just has a habit of ballooning his shots. And i'm more confident of him coming god than the others - he's an Eddie type of striker. That said, I totally agree with you. We can't be hoying huge money at players coming towards the end of their careers. It was a daft move that I hope we never repeat.