Nine

Darlow or more likely Dubs imo, Manq, Fede and Murphy are my guesses

Howe mentioned lately how we actually do have a little depth up top as ASM can play centrally to, although I personally think he’s absolutely dogshit playing through the middle (Cambridge) it seems like Howe may try and utilise him in more than just his LW position.

Suprised Belotti hasn’t been snapped up yet, will have offers already and must be waiting it out for the biggest contract he can get unless he has his heart set on somewhere

Was half expecting Mitro to steam in and declare no card tricks on his watch

No one ever wants to take him and if they do it’s a loan with you paying like 80% of his wage

Pepe link has to be bollocks tbh, wages alone should throw that off. Just news outlets trying to capitalise on a slow news day for us. Don’t fall for it lads.

That performance is what stands out for me which is why I think of him as the worst Admittedly I never saw Fumaca play

What? That’s not Cacapa

I’m not saying let’s be grateful that will (should) avoid a relegation threat, I’m saying let’s be grateful that we are at the building block stage of attempting something special. When you say that you think we could do better, would you have said that had we not gone on that run? Take a look at our current squad, there’s probably 6/7/8 players in there that you look at and think ‘bottom 6 of the prem, top half of championship’ level quality. We have only just started to get rid of the core of the side that got us promoted under Rafa 5 years ago. This is very much the stepping stone stage, the players we have signed so far Targett, Pope, Burn, Wood etc are these names you look at if you are trying to leapfrog the teams in 7/8/9th? These are players you sign to fix a squad that has been neglected for years, this is the current strategy. We arnt talking about Bissouma, Raphinha and Osimhen here.. we just arnt able to dip our toes in that pool yet. Bruno and Botman are the top end of what we can expect imo, young European players with big potential from sides that will take 30/40m for them. The aim is clearly to build a respectable mid/top half team and use that as a launchpad to build on and push on to the next level. We are taking the stairs, not the elevator.

Personally, as a first full season under new ownership and a first summer window at actually attempting to build a real squad 10th to me seems a pretty solid start that I’d be happy with. It’s a pretty good launchpad to move on with, as long as we are in there with the West Ham/Villa/Leicester group I think we’ve done a good job. What’s more important to me than league position is seeing how the fast the club/squad can progress over a full season. We are going to be in the stepping stone stage for at least 3/4 years imo, building a good squad of players that we can then add real elite quality to that will see us hopefully push on from there. I’m just excited to see how we can evolve over a full 38 games from the end of this window.

Tbf I think we’d be getting way ahead of ourselves if we were disappointed with a mid table finish next season, a top 10 finish would be a very good result. Just 6 months ago we hadn’t won a game in the league and were certs to go down, much of that squad is still here. Yes we went on a freak run but don’t let that fool you into being the norm now, you will only end up disappointed.

We heard the same thing in Jan, nothing new here

For a deal that could be worth around £30m it’s not unusual for an agent to fly out for preliminary talks

It’s best for his development to go and play every game somewhere else even if we can make use of him for cup games and some sub appearances. He’s shown he’s to good for league 1 so they will be looking at a much higher standard than that.

Looks a similar build and style to Ekitike

Harrison does move the club forward, look at his return in the PL compared to Murphy and Almiron. Our transfer record under this ownership suggests the strategy is to move forward in stages and improve position by position and the squad as a whole rather than jumping in for a £60m Diaby or whoever and be left with Murphy as his backup. Instead it’ll be Harrison, then another reasonable winger probably 3 or 4 windows down the line to give us new winger/Harrison.

Must be the summer holidays

I to would love that, but unfortunately that’s all the Paqueta boys can fathom. It’s really going to break hearts if he goes elsewhere. All for a few links in January and some insta posts by Bruno, it’s kind of embarrassing at this point.

I literally don’t know how to explain again for you in a way that you will actually understand. The argument wasn’t ‘we haven’t signed a CM’ it was ‘sign Paqueta to drop Shelvey’ which my response was ‘any CM we sign will drop Shelvey because it leaves Bruno to start in his natural position given our stronger midfield with a new CM’. Holy fuck.

We are to light in CM not to sign one, what is so hard for some people to get is it doesn’t matter who that CM is (within reason) it will mean Bruno can start most matches in his natural position. CM and RW are the most likely signings now I think, ST third.

Nah you just can’t wrap your head around the fact that Bruno’s a no.6 and Shelvey wouldn’t start over him there anyway Like we are gonna re vamp the squad during a summer window signing a new CM just to still push Bruno up and start Shelvey. Amazing. We NeEd PaQuEtA sO ShElVeY DoEsNT sTaRt

There’s a reason that he’s still here after the Ashley/Bruce era, had any decent side come in with a reasonable bid they would have got him. I don’t see that he’s suited to being a part of a top side, but does he work for the likes of us right now? Of course.

We need him so Shelvey doesn’t play though right?

Same.. he’s become just the answer to everything. Need a striker or RW? Paqueta. Let’s play him out of his natural position just to have him.

If we only sign 2 more to the end of the window and they arnt £30m+ players then a big bonus from that will be to temper some fans expectations. It’s always more, more, more, now, now, now.. any other club would be the same as with a lot of fans it’s just natural human emotion taking control so I’m not saying it’s specific to us.