Wes

We've made a bid for Hellas Verona goalkeeper Pierluigi Gollini. 5m euros. Token highlight youtube video. Source 1 Source 2

A second Twitter translation of the website report agrees that it says the appeal was rejected and that everyone is surprised.

Dalmatinskiportal.hr reporting that his work permit has been rejected after appeal.

Prediction: Richards at RB with the captaincy. Think that would say a lot. Think it'll be unchanged from Leicester everywhere else.

The main question I got from reading the transcript is what precisely did Paul Faulkner even do for 4 years? Asleep at the wheel would be my guess.

I imagine he'll keep with Bunn whilst he's playing well. No need to remove him, let the new guy settle in a bit at least - we've seen how important that can be. Plus that would give a good message to the rest of the squad I would think.

Quite happy to spend that amount of money on a goalkeeper. Ive always been of the opinion it's a good idea to spend rather large on a keeper. They have low wages in comparison to other positions and they are rarely transferred to. Arguably they are the best position you can "invest in" within a squad. Not discounting the fact a striker would be liked, but investing in a keeper right now when we know Guzan and Bunn are not medium or long term answers is fine by me.

West Ham are buying Byram, allowing Jenkinson to return to Arsenal, giving them the Right Back cover they want before allowing Debuchy to go anywhere.

Guzan Hutton Richards Clark Amavi Veretout Sanchez Gana Gil Gestede Ayew

The way I see it is this: Yes you may be disenfranchised with the current owner. You could be completely aghast at the decisions of Fox and those under him (although personally I would remind them that Faulkner was nothing to write home about at all). The fact however is this: we have adopted a continental model where some of the recruitment responsibilities, such as "the final say" in some regards, and this is not going to change under this owner. Lerner is actively looking to sell. He has already changed the hierarchy once by bringing in Fox and he is not going to do it again anytime soon. The only way the board is changing is if Lerner lowers his asking price for the club, a new owner comes in and puts his people in there instead. We have absolutely no power over that so it's a waste of energy complaining about it. With no new owner coming in right now (and it wont be until the end of the season at the very earliest) we now have to choose a manager who suits this setup of a football club and quite honestly that means bringing someone who has coached on the continent more than on these Isles because in relative terms it's a new concept to us. The manager must fit with both short term and long term goals in mind: Short Term We have to incorporate the large number of French signings we made during the summer in to our squad better. They would need to speak French and English. The manager has to be more tactically astute than his predecessor. Experience of Premier League and its requirements. Ideally as a manager. Long Term Return the youth academy in to a production line to supplement the incoming transfers. More youth products in first team means larger chunks of budget can be spent on less players to fill holes, meaning better quality of purchase. Be comfortable working under a director of football, somewhere where the manager is not the only end point with regards recruitment, but has a say. Bring stability over a long period of time. Someone closer to starting out their career rather than ending it. Remi Garde fits a lot of these critera. Is there an Arsenal boys club happening behind the scenes? Almost definitely, but that doesn't mean it's a bad decision. He was successful at Lyon on a modest budget in a club with high expectations. He has played in the Premier League so at least knows the speed of the game over here and can speak both languages needed right now. In the long term various articles praised him for bringing through youth products to replace the First Team members his owner forced him to sell. Is it going to be him? Sounds like there's a lot of background staff hoops to jump through yet. However he's a pretty impressive looking candidate to me, especially in the short term and he has the qualities to potentially be good going forward to boot. Could Moyes and Rodgers do a job here? Probably, although I think they would find it harder in the short term than even Garde in terms of getting the French speaking players in to the fold more (plus it'll cost even more money to shell out for Moyes and Rodgers would probably want a break before returning to management). Final word - I would be more optimistic with Garde as the manager heading in to January than I was with Sherwood. Isn't that precisely what we need right now?

Lucien Favre would be my first choice. Murat Yakin my second. Quite clearly we're going to need someone with experience in the continental model. Both those two are highly regarded and currently out of work.

I think this weekend we'll see the formation Sherwood has wanted to play since the beginning of the summer, in my thinking: ------------------------------ Guzan ------------------------------ Bacuna --------- Richards ----- Clark ----------- Amavi ------------ Gana ----- Westwood ----- Veretout -------- --------- Gil -------------------------------------- Grealish--- -------------------------- Gestede ------------------------------

We're getting a technically gifted, quick Central Defender for a year at the cost of £1m with an option to buy (be interesting to find out for how much. He was in the Euro Under-21 Final and Liverpool paid £7m for him as an 18 year old. And for those saying we don't need another Central Defender. How many Central Defensive injuries have we had the last few years? It always seems like you don't need another Central Defender until one suffers an injury...

Would Berbatov have to be signed today? He's a free agent so shouldn't he be able to be signed any time? I'm not sure when the registration of the 25 is.

Well good luck to Palace with that. Oulare to Watford for £5m would be a deal I'd like to hijack.

Played half as long as Bacuna, had 29 passes to Leandros 33. He makes things tick along. The right wing position today had a freer role than most because Hutton was having the run of the right flank. With such freedom Gil is almost always going to be more effective due to their comparative skills. If he was fit enough for 90 minutes I imagine he would've been given the start. We'll see what happens after the international break.

There's enough people here being overly negative so I'll just lay out the positives: Second team goal was a proper team goal and a thing of beauty. Sinclair in form. Gana is an absolute engine. Amavi is class. When Gil is capable of playing 90 minutes we'll be in much better shape as a squad. We're getting away more shots.

The right substitution.

Gil for Bacuna would be timely now. Game is stretched so his dribbling would be an asset.

Deflection.

Sanchez Showboat!

Five things about this goal (from this half of the clip): Gana's perfectly Weighted passin front of Amavi. Amavi's first touch and then inch perfect low cross. Sinclair hussling to get in to the box. Gestede taking a position at the far post meaning Sinclair just has to beat one Central Defender. You can see Kaboul point at Sinclair but then back off because he knows he has to cover Gestede. Sinclair times his run perfectly to meet the cross.

Just to highlight a positive for Gestede because he was getting bashed a lot this half: If he doesn't take up his positioning at the far post for the second goal Sinclair has a much harder time trying to get that in. Eradicated the problem we had when Gabby and Ayew both went for the near post recently.

This is what we said before he signed. He is prone to taking risks defensively, the first evidence of that whilst playing for us was at the end of the Palace game, but that's a risk I'll happily take for all the other facets he brings to the game. He'll only improve upon his decision making in the future.