Simon bristol

I wouldn’t be surprised if king had an interest too?!

Yes, looking forward to seeing them together, such a shame scott left as 3 good young players like them will have been fun to watch!

Havent seen it mentioned elsewhere, but nige has confirmed in his press conference that sam is on standby for the under 21s,, this is great news, and a real tribute to sams progress!! Hopefully he gets the call up!!

While technically a loan, this is clearly a permanent signing in all but name. Theres no way we pay a 700k loan fee for anyone without it being an effectively permanent transfer, the loan im sure is for some kind of accounting arrangement

Thats really interesting,, ive never heard of this before!?

Brentford and brighton have been fantastic with their signings, but even now with Johnson and ashton long gone i still wouldnt trust half of our signings, though hopefully knight and gardner hickman will come in and be stars. Our best players with a few honourable exceptions over the last 5 years or so have been academy players, we signed 2 non uk keepers in the last year and they played 1 game between them and certainly cant/ couldnt compete with max for a starting spot, but we still had to pay them!

We obviously signed him and started him as a centre back and have now accepted hes not really up to it there and we are obliged to try him in midfield. We know james is the preferred starter there, and so is knight, and gardener hickman wont be coming in to sit on the bench, even if hes currently covering right back, which presumably will be mccrories spot once hes fit… I don’t think anyone can really argue what a good signing naismith has been for us at this point, and his wages couldnt be better spent?

Cornick and mehmeti especially were signed and supposed to be creative attacking players (to be honest im not sure that cornick is creative but he cant score, isnt big and powerful so lets go with creative?) they will be on decent contracts too,, but arent doing it,,we cant just keep signing more and hope they might come good. The big transfer fee in ought to mean there are funds to cover new signings, but in the meantime these 2, and others, are taking up valuable wages and haven’t shown they are worth it. Williams is an obvious one who is taking up a wage, naismith must be on a lot but isnt even a guaranteed starter for us when hes fit and hasnt made much of an impact and is in his 30s now, and im not sure wells and weimann will be getting new contracts either and will be on good money,, though i dont think those 2 are where our problems are?!

Cant agree,, every transfer is a risk, especially given our record, but signings from abroad just increase the risk because we dont know how they settle… kodjia was a star, fam was decent, and so was elliasson, but weve made a number of non uk signings over the last few years and a lot of them have been hopeless, with at least one established international who wanted to leave cause he was home sick.

I think everyone knows there are ways to do it,,,, bournemouth basically ignored ffp and got themselves promoted so the fine imposed is either not levied or is of no financial impact… whether we could trust anyone to do with bristol city to actually get us promoted at any cost is another matter…

I can see exactly that,,, nige gets fed up with the transfers stance,, new manager comes in and gets 25 million to invest….

As a free agent he already hasnt played the situation very well, he should have been signed up with a full pre season under his belt. Perhaps hes not as in demand as he thought he would be!

Or if we’d signed someone better and used his wage better that player might have created more or scored more?

I cant really believe that promotion would happen no matter what we throw at it,, perhaps the weight of history is clouding my judgement!

Though possibly justified in some cases!

Who do you reckon is the highest earner nowadays dave?

As we go in to the next game with only 1 senior keeper, and 1 fit first choice centre back, and according to nige no space in our salary budget to bring anymore in, is there anyone that we can realistically move out, even on loan, to bring 1 or 2 more in? bearing in mind contract lengths plus what I presume to be a higher earner, williams and weimann would be 2 that presumably would clear up some space? im not sure how many more seasons wells is likely to be sticking around either, but with conway out there are no alternatives… any others we can move on to free up space?

Whats your view on mowatt dave? Seemed to come on strong a few years ago and was a top championship midfielder, but doesnt seem too popular with the west brom lot…. Would he be a good signing for us if wages could be agreed, or has his time been and gone now?

Oh god,, another name from the dark days when we could watch a million quid go up in smoke!

Hopefully a replacement and upgrade on williams…. Would be nice if we could get that salary off the books.

Was wondering as well what’s happening with him, for him to come in, do pre season, play some friendlies then acquire this problem,, might it be something wierder,, like when carey hurt himself with the bbq, it does seem to be something unusual going on?

This lad sounds decent,,, can he bring swift and/or wallace with him??

That maybe so, but we are no closer to getting in the top flight now than we have been in the last 40 years… people have the right to be frustrated with it.

I agree,, if we cant get any quality reinforcements in by the end of the window, i cant see pearson wanting to stick around… maybe im being a cynic and sl is deliberately not going for the signings so this actually happens?

No one thinks we are going to spend 10 million on a player, getting twine in for 3-4 ought to have been possible though. to get some championship quality in will likely cost 3/4 million these days. If the club sells scott and isnt willing to finance these types of signings we might as well give up.