thejoker

Collymore was with Jack's Dad at the semi-final...

Another one through the door. I’m loving NSWE’s commitment to the youth team.

I guess it must be coming from his agent. Whether it is genuine interest in joining or, or they are just using us for a better contract, I guess we’ll find out in the coming weeks.

Quite a clever move on our part to go for him now. With the new contract still not signed at Arsenal, this will put massive pressure on them to give him a huge contract. He only broke into the team around Christmas time and he’s a youth player so he’s probably only on around £10k per week (give or take). We’ve probably spoken to his agent and said we’ll give him a 5 year contract on 80k (ish) per week. Arsenal will now need to match our offer to him or risk him running down his contract. Then they have the problem of other players wanting the same deal (Saka, etc). They’re not known for splashing the cash these days, and with the pandemic, I wouldn’t rule this one out just yet...

I think that was because Caen didn’t really want to sell and the loan back for the remainder of the season (we signed him in January) was the only way to get them to agree to the deal.

Matt Maher is reliable.

He works for TalkSport. He doesn’t know anything.

Unless there is a release clause in his contract then I can’t see this one happening. Signed a new 5 year deal last year, would cost £50m I think. Can’t see it happening.

It’s actually Kerr Smith. Someone for the academy I guess.

It’s just not happening...Smith should be under big pressure now. But if we were going to replace Smith it would have been when we finished 17th, not 11th or 12th.

This is one thing that really bugs me. We always seem happy to accept defeat, we’re far too easy to play against.

This is so sloppy again today. You really have to start questioning what we are doing in training all week. We look like a bunch of strangers.

I agree with this. Purely on the basis that some of the football and results were incredible in the first half of the season, I’d give Smith next season with another 2/3 new signings to see what he can do. I think everyone would have been more than satisfied with 10th at the start of the season. Squad depth is a real issue, but we’ll get there. Lange will have had a full 12 months when the summer window opens, and we’ve been safe since around Christmas time. So there are no excuses for a lack of planning time. Let’s see what the summer brings.

Seems like we might be coming to a crossroads as a club. Is a bottom half finish good enough after a) such a good start, b) the amount of money we’ve spent since promotion? We keep hearing about how ambitious the owners are. Will they be happy with this? Ultimately we are still a one man team. Would Smith have even got us promoted without Grealish? I think the answer is no.

If this is the best that he can serve up without Grealish, then if the owners have genuine top 6 ambitions then I doubt he’ll be here long term.

He offers us nothing at the moment, I’d rather give game time to one of our youngsters.

Why he keeps bringing Barkley on I will never know. So poor again all round. We’ve spent the best part of £200m since promotion and we’re still awful without Grealish. We’ve made big strides since last season, but the last month has been nowhere near good enough.

This is the first time in 4 years that we already know (in February) which division we’ll be playing in next season. The extra 3 months planning that we’ll get should serve us well in the summer. I expect we’ll be in for another exciting summer now we’ve established ourselves again.

If we want to progress we need more than one decent striker. Putting Watkins on the wing is a way of getting them both into the team. I didn’t say I would do it, it is maybe what Smith might do (if we’re even interested in Tammy in the first place).

Don't forget that Watkins played on the wing up until 18 months ago. I'm sure we could fit Watkins and Abraham into the team together.

I’m quite surprised that we’ve never heard from him. No sit-down interview, nothing (unless I completely missed it). I guess actions speak louder than words.

We’re in a great position this window. We don’t actually need anybody in January - so we can’t be held to ransom. If one of the targets becomes available then we do it, if not we wait until the summer.

I think 4-0 flattered Southampton massively at the time. They scored 3 worldies and pretty much scored with every shot they had. We weren’t great, especially 1st half but on chances created we should have taken a point at least.