Nine

To see his best is to play him as a #6 imo, depends on the players in front of him as well of course. I think that’s why Howe deployed him further up so far, just didn’t have enough quality ahead of him in the squad last season to put him in his natural position so instead we got more out of him as part of the front 2. Like others have said he’s talking about champions league and what not, let’s just enjoy him while he’s here.

There goes a good cheap RB option on FM next season, was easy to get him for £7/8m

Ahh ok, I’d thought it was 5 years that they had said.

Understandably this sort of thing had got fans assuming we would spend silly money, proof is the pudding though and by the end of this window we’ll have a real idea of how far the spending will go in the short-mid term. Ownership has done a really good job so far picking up the mess that Ashley left, obviously the bar is set low as everyone was just happy to be rid of Ashley but they have done great PR work getting the fans onside and selling more shirts than we have done since the Bobby years probably. Comments like challenge in 5 years might have been a bit short sighted though.

I’d say they are of equal priority, also harsh on Wood he will be playing a part this season

Disagree, 1 injury and 1 suspension and we can’t even put a CM on the bench.

Anyones kids go to school with Eddies then? Sounds like we might have a few little itks knocking about

Seems like it

We’ll my sisters uncles mothers cousins Saudi Arabian oil princes mackem stepmother reckons they bought us just to run us into the ground as a pisstake

Think we will get this one done, would be really happy with it personally

Yeah that’s what I’m getting at, sounds like Ritchie wants to go back down south

Didn’t Howe say lately that he hopes Ritchie will stay? Or did I imagine that

Targett>Lewis>Dummet

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