Holmesy

At least there's plenty of time left in the window to fill the glaring gaps in the squad and get players bedded in during pre-season. Should hit the ground running nicely

I've seen nothing in Hoijland that suggests he's going to be anything other than bang average. That would be seriously underwhelming

Ok, beyond shorthaul European flights

You can't count Willock as a full midfielder. Firstly, he's not good enough, and secondly he's barely available due to his terrible injury record. I think you can only really say Tonali, Joelinton, Bruno and Miley are our reliable options. On paper, yes, we have 5 CMs but only 3 are of the requisite quality and 4 of them are robust enough to play a full season

So Nickson does have a passport afterall?! Who knew?!

I would love to see him playing in Saudi because Liverpool wouldn't stump up the cash.

I get that, but it basically leaves us with 4.5 CMs, including one who is only 19 years old, and with a gruelling CL campaign coming up. If one of Bruno, Joelinton or Tonali goes down for a while, we're up shit creek

Why not both? One to replace Willock, the other to replace Longstaff. Obviously Willock is still here but he'll miss at least half of the season with a catalogue of injuries

Sounds like a perfect Willock replacement.

The fact he can spot and find those passes in a poor Leicester side, against tight teams like Man City suggests he's quality. Give him decent movement and quality players around him, and I think we'd see a serious player.

what have you got?

Well Wilson did the sum total of fuck all, so it's not a high bar. But Osula took players on, ran at them and past them, set up a goal I believe, and scored in the cup. Wilson lumbered around like a past-it has-been and showed absolutely nothing that warranted his inclusion. Granted he was usually isolated when he came on, but still.

He showed far more in 5 appearances than Wilson showed all season, and he still warmed the bench

brap, brap, brap, baller. Brap, brap, brap bag ting

Yeah, but they don't have an Eddie Howe in the dugout

Yeah, he looks perfect. His decision making and eye for a pass are spot on - if we're planning on opening teams up with our pace on the break, he'd be ideal based on that video

Not a chance! We're at least a week and a half away - our medicals and media work take about 3 days. Plus Andy has to get his abacus out to do some difficult sums

More like the cartel get together to discuss who has the funds to derail our deal. Chelsea step up and make him the 400th member of their squad

100%. Do some proper work you slacker!

That should be a fairly easy deal to do, surely. Competition from Leeds, release clause and presumably wouldn't cost the earth. I'd even be confident in Andy sealing that one

well that's three key positions filled. Just another 3 to go

Osula another 4 months down the developmental line, Isak possibly still here and starting to be re-integrated into the first team (Liverpool haven't come up with nearly enough money, and if they don't in the next 3 weeks, Isak stays). Jackson and Wissa potential mitigate Isak's lack of involvement in the short/medium term. Just speculating but i suspect our long-term Isak replacement wouldn't be either of those two. Doesn't mean we wouldn't sign them though

Of all the players who have ever pulled this shit, at this club or others, Isak is the one who has surprised/disappointed me the most. He seems so grounded, so intelligent and a really decent lad. I guess he's showing his true colours now. Such a shame but it's a big lesson learned

We were too heavily reliant on Isak last season. When he was firing, we were firing but when he was out of the team or unable to get into games, we struggled. Bringing in 2-3 players capable of scoring double figures should, in theory, make us a better team all round. Of course, keeping Isak and bringing in a couple of players who could take the whole burden off him would have been preferable but that seems increasingly unlikely. Who knows, we might look back on him leaving and see it as a blessing rather than a kick in the tits, if it enables us to build a deeper, more flexible squad

stop considering stuff FFS! Just fucking do something.