ChinlessWonder

Well, I lasted about 60 secs of the double Redknapp disaster on sky’s ridiculous deadline day wankfest. I’ll go and do something else for a couple of hours and come back on here to check at 11...

I'd agree with all of that other than putting more urgency on the idea of the LW/ST option. A lot is riding on Traore at the moment as a combination of speed and quality is still desperately required wide attack. We've done well in many other areas but i won't be completely confident until this is properly addressed and i'm not sure we'll get anything like the best out of our new £30 centre forward as it stands. Would be a pity.

The bidding is at £12.00

£10.00 yes I'll up the bid to £12.00 though, happy to buy him for that and have him come round my house and lick my arsehole clean every morning for the rest of his natural life.

You never know we might see a bit more activity but they’ll probably sign another goalkeeper, centre forward or attacking midfielder and continue to play 4-3-3 with two orthodox wingers.

Best 11/18 with everyone fit; Martinez, Cash, Targett, Konsa, Mings, Luiz, McGinn, Barkley, Grealish, Traore, Watkins. Heaton, Elmohammey, Hause, Nakamba, Hourahane, Trezeguet, Wesley. Players ok as back up; Steer, Guilbert, Engels, Ramsey (who could nick a place on the bench before long), Davis. Possibly Taylor So that's 23/24 The bench is full of players that can do a job but no real game changers, and then when you consider the probability of injuries i certainly think we could still do with another attacking player, probably someone who can play in any of the three positions being best but otherwise probably left side. Rashica still would be the best option but i think Benrahma or King are more likely but i'd take either of them at this point, they would be an improvement on El Ghazi, Jota, Davis and Trez for sure. I also think that if we could offload Taylor and get someone to compete better with Targett that would be a bonus.

That's just so bad that you can only laugh. **** SKY jokers.

'He is of Nigerian descent through his father and bears his mother's maiden name instead of his father's name' Same as Paul McGrath i think. There's a good omen if ever there was one :-)

I hope that it's a way of getting around the financial fair play side of things and that we have something in place to sign him permanently in a year. If he does as well as everyone seems to be expecting it'll be a right bastard to hand him back over and try to sign someone else to keep up the standards. And i'm also hoping that we have funds for another deal, specifically another winger before the deadline.

Excellent. I didn't realise it was that little flange that he **** over until now :-)

Yes, if we don't bring in any more wingers/attackers i don't see how Watkins could possibly go the whole season without playing some games or parts of games on the left, even though i'm quite sure they have signed him primarily as a central striker.

Yeah, i think we do need to upgrade quite a few players but agree it's unlikely to all happen i one window. I do have a feeling something will hapeen on the CB though, not that i dislike Engels myself. Great username btw :-)

I think it's already been a 7/10 window with the signings we've made, but if that's it i'd be slightly disappointed as for me we really need to get a left winger in. Sign Rashica or Sarr and it's a 9/10 window, and if it ends up being Benrahma it's an 8/10 window. I think we needed it to be at least an 8/10 window after last season. Loftus Cheek on loan neither here nor there, i wouldn't complain if we did but i'm not arsed if we don't. If we do i hope it's with an option to buy and we offload Nakamba and Lansbury as i agree with Smith that we shouldn't be stockpiling players. Better competition for Targett would be good but i'd hope we'd offload Taylor first. For me we can also offload Jota now and if we do get a left winger in we can offload El Ghazi. I can see us bringing in a CB and offloading Engels, that one's been rumbling a bit even before the lockdown when the word was that he wasn't getting along to well with Deano.

I like him a lot and he already looks like he could easily play as much as the likes of Hourahane and Nakamba this season.

Whilst he's been far from a complete failure overall in his two years (he was part of the promotion team and scored in the play-off final), at premier league level he's cack and if we're going to improve, selling and upgrading El Ghazi is one of the most obvious moves to make.

World class for me would be someone who has stood out at the very highest level and on more than one occasion. For example someone who's had a great world cup, preferrably got to the very latest stages and then the following year done a similar thing for their club in the Champions League. Also someone who's played for the top English/Spanish/Italian/German team over several years of them being at the very top and the player in question being one of the key reasons for their success. A player can of course be world class for a period of their career and then less so at the start or end. Players in the PL i can think of at the moment; Aguero, Silva (or perhaps until the last year or two), De Bruyne, Alexander-Arnold, Van Diyk, Salah, Alisson. You'd also include Kane for me, a bit less successful club level than those but did well in the WC and Champs League and his overall goalscoring record is phenominal. Barcelona had many in that team from 10 years ago, Messi, Iniesta, Xavi, Puyol, Alves for sure and a few others that could be argued for as well. I think Drogba was world class for a period. England class is different though because it depends how good the England team is at the time. There are a lot of England players over the last 10 years or more that would have got no where near the England team in 1990.

Neither. Rashica, Origi or Benrahma. And then no one else unless we offload first.

It’s not CM though is it, it’s the central role in a 4-2-3-1. As far as I can remember that’s mainly where he’s played over the past 3 years or more. AEG has been on the left for the most part over the last 2 years. Unfortunately. He sits centrally spraying the ball to the (hopefully) new quick wingers and he slides the front man through. Jack’s best features are slide rule passes, drawing players in making room for others (or winning free kicks in dangerous areas) and shooting from distance.

Martinez, Cash, Targett, Konsa, Mings, McGinn, Dougie, Grealish, Bertie, Ollie, Trezeguet. 1-1

He's not the level of Drinkwater obviously but i'm not sure he's a model proffesional. I'd sooner play McGinn personally, but if we were to offload 2 out of Lansbury, Hourahane and Nakamba and get him on a permanent deal i wouldn't complain. Otherwise really not arsed, concentrate on a left winger.

I'm in the 'no' camp too. If for no other reason than he'd play in the position i want to see Grealish in, attacking midfield. We need to sign a left winger and play Grealish attacking mid, not an attacking mid and play Grealish left wing. I also don't like loaning players, so apart from this i'd also sooner see Jacob Ramsey get game time than Loftus Cheek on loan only to go back there with a bit more experience. Frankly, I hope these Chelsea loan rumours are all a load of bollocks.

No i saw it, and i saw the save. Never in doubt :-) Seriously though, they didn't have another chance i don't think? It was pretty much us with the ball all the way through, a combination of our lack of pace in attack and their parking the bus making it difficult to break them down. On the whole, i was more concerned about our attack than our defence and that was the point i was trying to make, i guess that's why all of the transfer links and stories still relate to attacking players. I must admit i still would like to see a really good defensive midfielder in the squad as i would be concerned if McGinn or Luiz were out for a spell. Offload Lansbury to make room in the squad if necessary. Nakamba isn't bad but an upgrade would be welcome.

The good thing was that we never looked in trouble or like losing the game although the red card contributed to that. Defence looked very good, Cash and particularly Martínez two great debuts. The negative side would be the usual pedestrian attacking game but I realise that we’ve started to do something about this and I’m hoping we continue to do so. Three pronged attack needs much more pace than we had tonight.

Man of the match for the one top quality moment from the team today, the penalty save.

He’s not going to play to his potential until we get pace either side of him and Grealish back in behind. He’ll get **** off if he has to feed off scraps. Every time the ball went wide everything slowed down and it gave Sheffield time to organise themselves in the middle and gave him no space. They were sitting pretty deep under the circumstances and not all teams will but even so, we’re here again buying forwards and not playing to their strengths. Hopefully when Traoré can play and we buy another this will be sorted but we might as well play Watkins wide left, Grealish attacking midfield and Davis up front until we can get pace on the flanks.