Nine

Hopefully we see more of the outgoings start to happen now, Gayle, Clark and Hendrick will all have championship takers but we’ll still be paying half of their wage. I know they want loans with obligations but I can’t see that happening for more then a few of our players.

Crossing politics over with football is fucking aids, you can live life without intertwining one with the other. Sport should be an escape from wasting energy over things things that you have no personal control over, not the opposite.

Has to balanced out with sensible, realistic signings though. You don’t just spend on players to make a ‘statement’ unless they are what the manager wants, Targett and Burn improved us immensely in Jan and they were low fee signings that proved to be right choice. Thankfully our owners seem to have adopted the right approach and arnt just throwing money around like Everton did, I’d rather the manager got who and what he wants for reasonable money that lines up with the point we are at financially than do the former. The squad needs steady growth over a couple of seasons, wage structure will slowly advance with that as we get new sponsorships in place that will allow to push our FFP limit further and further and then and only then we will see the big, marquee signings happen.

I think you will be disappointed then, imo we will likely spend on a RW, striker will probably be a loan and no guarantee we sign a CM at all but I think it’s possible if the right deal is there. The only real instant difference making quality will be the RW though, less so in the striker (2nd/3rd choice) and CM.

I can’t tell when you are trolling but it’s amusing anyway like

No way we sign 4 more players from here this summer, even with a loan in there. 2 or 3 at most now depending on outgoings and registration issues imo.

They wont be keen to loan to us anyway and thats without the links that Lampard has to that club, sadly Everton have a massive advantage with this deal

Since its Chelsea they will surely prefer to deal with fat frank than us, shame as I'd like to see Broja here

Diaby would be my pick out of the RWs we are linked with, still can’t quite convince myself that it might happen yet.

Yedlin

Not a chance

Sorry Had no idea about him

This is what I've been saying, I know everyone wants Paqueta but I personally think a quality DM would see us much more effective against the top 7 or 8 sides in the league. Our midfield isnt robust or industrious enough without a DM with destroyer attributes in certain games, we saw this vs City, Liverpool and Spurs.

Romano follows this guy

That would be amazing but is far, far off being realistic

Ideal =/= realistic I suppose, I'd be okay with it

I think I'd be okay with Howes judgement on where he sees Lingard fitting into this side

So he was meant to be ASMs replacement in Jan then? Howe wasnt going to play at him CM.

What would be ideal then?

He can and has played at RW, we wernt trying to sign him in January to replace ASM on left.

In an ideal world - Broja on loan with option to buy, Lingard in on a reasonable wage (<100k, with good bonuses) and then we could spend on a CM.

I have thought that while CM is a lower level of priority than RW and ST I’m sure that we will bring one in, one injury and a suspension to 2 of either Bruno, Joe or Willock and we are struggling to put together a midfield 3 let alone a capable one.

Crazy for a newly promoted team, their next highest earner is on £30k. Good way to unsettle players that fought to get promoted.

Of course, putting yourself out there is going to attract the positive and the negative.. its just that usually the negative comes from people who are projecting their own issues on some random person on the internet.