Nine

I reckon they will offer him a decent goal bonus/staying up bonus to get the most of him

Zapata looks made for the prem

Chancel Couldn’t Mbemba his age

He was on for 10 mins

Big, big upgrade on Murphy/Fraser

I’m not saying they should have made contacts 3 years ago and expect the situation to be the same now. I’m saying they should have kept prepared for the takeover to go through and stayed up to date with which potential employees could be available to come in within a month or two of the takeover being completed. If this is not the case then it’s poor.

Id expect them to have had contacts that could speed up a manager or a dof appointment should the time come, these people should be professional enough to be prepared in that sense.

Of course they don’t, nor do managers or players. Is it unreasonable to assume they had a shortlist of dofs written up and had contact with before they came in?

When I say underprepared I am mainly pointing to the fact they did not secure a dof around the same time that they brought in the manager, dof should have been in weeks after at the most imo. What we are seeing now is just the trickle down effect of lacking structure around transfers/finances/scouting at the top.

To be fair PIF came into the club with a lot of noise about winning trophies, even stated they aimed to win the league within 10 seasons or something. Obviously the current shit show is of Ashley’s making and he’s the man responsible for our current plight but it’s not healthy just to say ‘Oh if even if they don’t sign anyone else it’s not our current owners fault’ because it absolutely is and they themselves will know that. They laid down alot of expectation and came into this window under prepared, there was the Emery shitshow, then the dof issue which both ultimately led to the issues we are seeing now with signing our major targets. I am not trying to be overly critical of the owners as it was a difficult situation to come in to however to say that have fumbled deals that might have gone smoothly under more experienced people is a fair comment imo. If we end up signing targets that were our 7th/8th/9th choices and we go down it would fall on the heads of our ownership because we did come into this window unprepared regardless of the state Ashley left us in. ‘It’s not fifa or fm’ as some people say but it’s also not as complicated as building Rome in a week.. we are 20 days into a 31 day window and to expect 4/5 major signings in key areas secured would not have been asking the world especially with the key games we had this month. I will admit it has me slightly concerned at the moment.

1 CM + at least 1 CB I think

Naturally there will always be some who take the very patient approach and feel that they would be being harsh to judge the owners from their first transfer window, but of course no matter how patient some are it will always go full circle in the end. Especially if we are losing week in/week out and heading down.

Keep seeing people say 'its not fifa, its not football manager' in response to any criticism aimed towards this windows dealings so far, really lazy way of disregarding what is actually a pretty reasonable concern

Personally I think he is pretty badly suited for a back 4, there’s a reason Rafa liked playing him for a back 5. Hes good on the ball (or was before this season) and looks good when he drives forward, but as an out and out defender he is poor for a back 4 I think. He needs the cover of another 2 CBs to perform at his highest standard.

Going to drag on til Jan 31st this one

Alright, unfollowed

Is this lad full of shit? Only followed him recently

That would be alright until whenever Lewis is fit

Who remembers those pics that would come out during the summer of him looking like he was about 15 stone Bring him home if even just for a few cameos.

I wonder if Howe will go to a back 5 with him now as Schar isnt suited well enough to a 4, I'd prefer to see Schar dropped and stay in a 4 as we dont have a left wing back for a back 5 right now. Dummett doesnt offer enough going forward and Ritchie is a disaster defensively so for now a back 4 would be best I think. If we sign a decent left wing back I'd expect a back 5 is what we'd see most weeks.

Looks like he wont be boarding the plane to Valencia with the rest of the Sevilla squad, if he had he probably wouldnt have been able to be registered in time for Leeds

Unfortunately I think it will be Schar that is benched if we are to stick with a back 4