GrahamC

Definitely the funniest bit is where he says “I’ve been keen to join all summer” which is somewhat at odds with his Dad trying to hawk him to various clubs in Spain, France, Germany & Turkey since then. At least with Kalas moving to a new club earlier this week too this finally ends all the speculation.

4 year contract, his Dad will be happy!

To be clear he was making the point that signing someone on deadline day without the time to do proper diligence on a signing was ridiculous. He also talked about how clubs panic & make wild offers, alluding to this with us 3 transfer windows ago. Made a lot of sense.

Poor window? Haydon Roberts on a free? Rob Dickie? Seeing as we haven’t seen McCrorie play & the West Brom lad has had barely 20 minutes I’m interested in how you are defining it as poor? Are you referring to Scott leaving? Surely no one thought he would stay?

Change the owner.

Recalled by us early from his loan at Yeovil Town today, he scored once there & has often been used as a sub. Bearing in mind this is National League South whether he’s back because the 21s don’t currently have a fit striker (Sam Pearson played up front in the last game) or if he’s going to be on the bench in future, time will tell. Think he was on the bench v Man City?

Burnley have signed about 12 players this summer after getting promoted back to the Prem. Their fans must be hating every moment, eh?

Partly because we have a chairman who for all his privilege has to be about as poor a public speaker as you can get. Literally can’t get full sentences out without stumbling over his words. What a waste of money that expensive education was. As for the chirpy Cockney CEO, I thought people from that part of the world loved the attention, so here’s your big chance, pal. Get in front of a microphone & tell us what’s going on.

Left out of their squad for the upcoming internationals, Jason Knight is included. We are at the stage I’m pleased because it means he gets 2 weeks off, we’ll definitely need him when we come back.

Hardly, he’s said clearly here that we won’t be signing anyone, so forget the “back me” bit. More like fed up with answering questions that others are the club are clearly responsible for. Chairman or CEO, take your pick.

I just think in 2 specific cases we went into the season already knowing this. Atkinson did his ACL in February, so he’s not likely to play this calendar year. Benarous has done his ACL twice, he’s currently out with a hamstring injury, the prospect of us relying on him as a significant part of the squad in the near future seems improbable. Therefore we currently have 3 others missing, one of whom is ill, this strikes me as about average (possibly even below) in terms of absentees. The goalkeeper situation is what it is, we are relying on O’Leary staying fit & 2 inexperienced deputies (though Bajic has played 9 times in the French top flight), not ideal but unlikely to change. Most on here think it odd we are trying to run on such low numbers & that we need a couple in, but now doubt it will happen. Just to finish on the U21s, Leeson hasn’t been involved this season & those who were early on have dropped out not because of playing games but because their performances at level have been so poor. @Davefevs said on another thread that the 9 subs business was a bit ridiculous anyway & I agree, provided we have a sub goalie then maybe we make a policy decision to just have 7 anyway, cover most positions with that & don’t include youngsters for the sake of it.

Plus the Holden COVID season when they were dropping like flies, think it was double figures out then.

Unless we are going to include Benarous, which as he’s only ever started 7 games for us is a bit of a stretch, we have 4 out, one of whom McCrorie is technically ill rather than out injured. I saw Leeds had 11 players missing at the start of this season, I really do think we obsess over this thinking we are some outlier when we’re certainly not.

Time will tell, as with the low numbers we have as long as he stays fit then he’s going to get plenty of opportunities somewhere in the team. My hunch at present is he’s more us hedging our bets, we are short of RB cover until McCrorie returns & he’s another possible option in midfield too, so we brought him in because we are low on numbers & he can fill several different roles. WBA supporting mate of mine thinks that he’s best utilised in midfield.

Guess so, but an 18 year old with a checkered injury history wasn’t really for this season, was it?

Surely Sykes starts? Brilliant assist for Wells’ goal at Hull & probably about our third likeliest scorer, though accept that’s a low bar at present..

Nope, apparently it actually was borrow someone from West Brom for £700k who can also fill in if needed at right back. Not sure that was exactly how it was portrayed when all the talk pre season was of trying to push to get in to the playoffs..

Would still be very surprised if he was on that much. If he is then no way he gets that in his next contract. We signed him from relegated Wigan who can’t have been high payers, from memory the other side in for him was Preston, so same thing applies. I can’t see him being on more than £15k absolute tops, he’s not a Wells or a Weimann in terms of stature in the division. Said it already but even if we did move him on we’re simply tinkering at the edges, he’s featured in every single game so far. I’d rather we kept him, I thought he was our best player v Norwich, did well at Hull & I don’t think our season will stand or fall on moving him on & then bringing one other player in.

Can I just say in the midst of a fair bit of understandable gloom at present, this thread is OTIB at its best. We are realistically all probably debating about which 2 out of 3 or 4 start at Swansea because there is a lot of Hobson’s choice here, but the arguments being put forward either way are smart & the responses civil. Top stuff.

It was really making the comparison of successful, self made billionaire (which whatever you think of his football decisions, SL absolutely 100% is) & his likely successor (Kendall, Roman, Shiv, I won’t spoil it for you) being a total **** up. @CyderInACan Watch it Reg, the best thing on TV for years, well, along with Ozark, but that’s me off at another tangent..

Basically & this has only just occurred to me, JL is a combination of Kendall Roy and Roman Roy from Succession (& if anyone hasn’t seen it, boy are you missing out), as Logan once said “you’re not serious people”. Mark Ashton was clearly Bob Mortimer’s Train Guy, now it all makes sense. I’m off for a lie down.

I got there this month (there’s exactly a week between me & Nige) so I absolutely get where you’re coming from!

You’re correct. The more important question though is at what point did the contract we offered him on reduced terms get taken off the table & that money was considered to have been already spent elsewhere? If it was when the West Brom lad arrived that means we were never planning to spend anything from the Scott sale. That’s certainly not the message I heard from SL when we were trying to flog season tickets. I’m not someone who was ever expecting the 5 or 6 signings that was being suggested by the wilder ones on here, but looking at the squad, with a goalkeeper who lost his place in the French second division last season as our back up, not enough players to fill a subs bench 2 games running already & several positions where we appear to have one genuine option, that looks like taking caution to the extreme. Said it before, thanks for the infrastructure Steve, but move on now as we are drifting under you & your clueless son.

According to Transfermarkt he’s featured there 23 times in his career (right midfield 28 & centre/defensive midfield 19) which is certainly enough to say he’s not just filling in.

Yes, we have. But this year we have got far, far more in than we’ve spent. Semenyo was £10m, then small fees for Towler, Wilson & Low. Bentley, Klose, Martin, Baker, Moore, Dasilva, Kalas & now Massengo all off the wage bill, as well. The small matter of £25m for Alex Scott. Even at high end estimates of fees paid it was £1.3m spent in January & about £4.5m prior to Gardiner-Hackman’s £700k. Not exactly like for like, is it?