VillaFaninLondon

Bent was 2 years older than Watkins roughly (26 nearly 27): https://www.theguardian.com/football/2011/jan/18/darren-bent-aston-villa-sunderland I've said all along Watkins is a gamble but if it pays off Smith will get a great deal of credit. If it doesn't he's in big, big trouble because that is a huge fee.

Agreed.

Bent was a proven PL goalscorer and England player though.

Bloomin hell, £28m rising to £33m. We are mad

If we wait all summer and end up with one of them (plus a top quality winger) it will have been worth the anxious wait. If we don't it will have been an uninspiring window at best.

But actually I do find the dismissal of King quite amusing, much as I did with the Wilson link. Seemed to be very few against Watkins though despite the fact that he is as much as if not more than a risk than King or Wilson. Unless we're getting Edouard, Tammy, Belotti, someone of that calibre, then King would be a reasonable signing. Think we need another forward on top but it's a start at least.

He has. He works together with Mackenzie (Head of Recruitment) to find targets, but Lange will most likely be responsible for sourcing from overseas and he doesn't appear to be finding anything. He was a like for like replacement for Suso and has the same job title. So not quite sure what that comment was all about.

£5m is insulting, they can eff off. Shouldn't sell anyway, Elmo should go instead.

Totally agree. Suso took the flak for our poor season but did find us a few good uns and was operating in a very difficult situation given we had just been promoted and had to buy a lot of players. Lange is in a better position to find us players but doesn't seem to be doing anything. On King, he's better than what we have but I agree it's a bit of an average signing. Depends who else we bring on top of him.

Yeah no one really knows how Watkins will take to the Prem if we sign him. We have to remember that such amazing strikers like Rudy Gestede and Ross McCormack once scored 20 goals at that level. I don't think Watkins looks anything like those types of player but it's whether he can make that step up. Dwight Gayle for example has a really good attitude, he's one of those players that is lethal in the Championship but completely ineffective in the PL. Watkins could be the same. Then you've got players like Batshuayi whose career has gone downhill but was once one of the most promising strikers in Europe. I personally think he could be revived if he gets game time and confidence and if we don't go for him he'll end up doing that somewhere else. But our opinions are all different.

I think with Wilson we were actually prepared to outbid Newcastle, but he seemingly didn't want to come here and we don't seem to be capable of paying high wages, either for FFP reasons or our own apprehensions around that given it impacted us badly when we went down a few years ago. The issue is, we have to start paying wages for quality sooner or later or we'll get left behind. It does all seem very odd why we're taking so long with it all. Now it seems we're going in serious on Martinez, the Arsenal GK, who I rate highly but just adds to my confusion. Why pay £20m on a GK, and £14m on a RB, when we are in more desperate need of a striker and winger who can score goals and create chances respectively? Maybe the club has it all under control and we're all crying over spilt milk. Or maybe not. Time will tell.

That would be the ideal situation mate. Doesn't look likely at this stage but you never know. People seem to keep denying that we were ever in for Wilson even though it's been well documented, but we must have known he was on a pretty big wage and still tried to sign him so you'd think someone like Deulofeu would be on the radar too.

It's all well and good joking but it won't be a funny matter when we're performing like arse next season because we haven't strengthened the team sufficiently.

I understand it's a difficult time right now, of course I do. It's affected the whole market as there is far less activity than there would be usually. But ultimately if they don't improve the team they have to think of the risk factors of that. We were very fortunate to survive last season, if we don't strengthen and go back down again their finances will suffer a lot more. Economies go into recession a lot, and businesses go into freefall. It's part and parcel of the world we live in (and with this virus it really is an unprecedented time) but it can't be used as an excuse for us standing still which you absolutely cannot do at this level. And despite the effects of COVID, even sides like Newcastle with Mike Ashley are putting money in their pocket to improve their side so it just feels like excuses to me.

He'd be a great signing. Him and Jack in the same team would be an exciting proposition. But all I hear on here is we won't pay decent wages, which Deulofeu would certainly expect.

OK, sounds like we have to go back to the Belgian league then because proven PL players won't be on a measly wage let's be honest.

You don't know this is the case, this is just hearsay.

But that doesn't make sense when we spent so much last summer AFTER promotion and Smith was promised sufficient funds this summer to strengthen the side.

You're certainly calmer than I am about this and obviously I hope you're right I'm still disappointed that 3 or 4 players aren't on board with the season less than 2 weeks away. It's like they looked at last summer and decided to ride it out this summer in the hope of landing better quality targets, but it just feels like it hasn't worked. The problem last summer wasn't getting the players in quickly (which is always a good thing) but identifying the wrong players in certain positions and having to sign a lot of players which was always going to be tough. And actually, we did get a few right: Mings, Heaton, Konsa, Luiz all look to have increased in value and are now key players. I still think Wesley has hope but he was unlucky with his injury. And even Trez helped keep us up with his goals, even if he is a terrible footballer. I think we'll be in trouble if all our signings are from the Championship too. Let's wait and see what happens but it is worrying.

Either our owners aren't as minted as people say they are or something fishy's going on behind the scenes.

It's clearly not just the manager I know that, but I think having managers like Bielsa and Ancelotti gives clubs that greater pull. I don't imagine Rodriguez would ever have gone to Everton without Ancelotti being there, even if he is on the decline. No offence but players being drawn to us from the Championship is very different to players being drawn to Leeds who play for the Spain and Germany national teams. Those players would almost certainly have better options than Leeds but decided to go there in spite of that and I think Bielsa played a big part. Cash might have seen us a better bet than Fulham or someone of that ilk, but that isn't saying too much and I don't think the manager influenced that. Some of his former Brentford players you have a point, but the most talented player there is Benrahma and we don't seem to be on his radar as far as I can see. Personally I think if Leeds fancy Buendia they will struggle because they've already spent most of their budget as far as I can tell. Buendia will cost around £20m I'd say and Leeds don't have a bottomless pit. I like Buendia but Sarr or Deulofeu would be best options for us imo as they're quick and we badly lack pace in our current side.

I'm happy with 10 more points than last season - anywhere between 45 and 50 would be a good season in my view. And I still believe there are 5/6 decent players in our team and adding 2/3 more of a similar quality will be enough to get to that benchmark of 45+ points. The thing is with our current squad I see us struggling to get to 40. And that is panic mode.

I think we might have to now. I wouldn't be at all upset if we got Tammy and a couple of other quality players in off some of the top 6, even if it was just for a year. It gives us a bit more time and hopefully next summer we'll be operating in a better market with less hassle over FFP and wage structure. We'd probably have to pay a large fee for players of that calibre but it would be worth it if parent club can contribute partially to their wages too.

Fair point.

It's possible he does but there's no proof for this. We've signed a player who shone in the Championship, not one who has shone at PL level, so we have to wait and see if he makes us stronger. Guilbert played 4 very solid seasons in Ligue 1 before he joined us and is not actually a bad player, I think if we hadn't gone up in 18/19 he would have been excellent for us in the Champ. Even if Cash does improve us somewhat, it's not enough for us to suddenly make big improvements on last season. We'll still almost certainly be fighting it out near the bottom and who wants that again.