Teale's 'tache

Is that straight from Big Sam's autobiography?

It's all fun and games until they pass on half the cost by charging us £40m for Tuanzebe...

I thought Terry did all of these things? Humbly of course...

My thoughts on our most recent transfer links. Moreno: Good athlete, Good age, Good price! Headless chicken going forward and a liability at the back, he's not improved under Klopp in the last few years and for the money he'd be asking I just don't think it's worth it. Sturridge: The man is made of poppadoms. I don't see the point in him taking up a place in the squad when he will play so rarely, no room to develop and little in the way of sell on money even if it went well, another no. Waste of wage budget as well. Rongier: He looks more promising, right age, room to develop, decent chance of his value increasing. Looks a good player and versatile. My only concern not really knowing the guy is his position. Seems to be better and played more as an attacking central midfielder, which is the area of the first team we don't need to improve(Grealish), but can also be decent box to box, again we are covered there(McGinn), but has played defensive midfield and done okay. I'd like to know which of those positions he prefers. If it's defensive midfield then yes. Otherwise the kind of money they will be asking would be better spent on the positions we need. Jota: He seems like a good squad option and makes sense considering the price. Ethridge: Looks a good keeper, not sure this is an area we are most desperate to change right now, but if we were I'd be hoping for someone with better distribution as this is key to the way we play, in that respect I don't see him as much of an upgrade on what we already have. Mixed feelings. Tavernier: As with goalkeeper I don't think right back is an area we are most desperate to change right now. We have Guibert and an adequate and reliable replacement in Elmo. Milner: Yes, but never going to happen. Cahill: He's now too slow and never been good enough on the ball to play the way we want, plus the wages would be obscene, nope. It think there's a lot of agents out there trying to drum up interest in their players and using our name to do so, I think a lot of the links so far have been because of that rather than genuine interest. Also, papers love to add two and two and get five when it comes to these things, we've been linked with plenty of former players because narrative, lot's of Smiths old players because it's an easy link, and Moreno because we so desperately need a left back and he's free. Our team seem to do their business on the down low so we likely won't hear too much until a transfer is close, but we seriously have some work to do!

I remember how it felt like selling Grealish was the only thing we could do and even that wouldn't of got us out of the brown stuff, mainly because it seemed like anyone could of pulled our pants down and got him on the dirt cheap. Levy really messed up there...

We need a center back... Praise him!

I agree a case by case basis is entirely right. If there's somebody that ticks all of the boxes and would actually be able to play and improve the team (i.e. Milner) then I think we would look at them as a possibility. I just don't think there's many of them out there. Our policy is now to buy younger hungrier players which have a re-sale value and to then develop them. Over 30's have no re-sale value and are far less likely to develop any further. So our strategy is clearly going to be looking at younger players going forward.

I think the thing about the word 'experienced' in a footballing context is that it's often used to mean 'being professional' or 'being a good leader'. I think we have good leaders on the pitch(Grealish, McGinn, Mings hopefully) , in the squad(Elmo, Chester) and on the bench (Terry). I feel we have good professionals around the squad in Elmo, Taylor, again Terry. As long as the group as a whole has somebody leading them and showing them how to do things right, I think we are fine. I'd be surprised if we sign anyone over the age of 27/28 from the quotes on transfer policy coming out of the club. If there is a player with the right attributes to play our system, who is available and above that age then they will be considered I'm sure, but I don't think we'll be going out of our way to find them. I would hope we won't sign somebody over 30 on big wages just to be a cheerleader, I think that's against what the new strategy is trying to achieve.

Dean Saunders lives in a magical dreamland where what he thinks and actual fact intertwine seamlessly. In short, he doesn't know anything about this transfer, he's made it up to forward the point he wants to make about Villa being bigger than Chelsea. Which is a controversial opinion and will surely have the Chelsea fans ringing in, this is exactly what TalkSprout pay him to do. Loved him as a player, loathe him as a pundit.

Although I agree with a lot of this I think Premier League experience isn't as essential as many think. Bournemouth, Huddersfield, Brighton and Wolves all came up with very little to no Premier League experience and all stayed up. I think it can help, but it's more important to have quality. It's not like we don't have any already anyway, Elmo, Taylor, Chester and Grealish all have Premier League experience, we just let a load more go that had it too. Milner I would take because he still has the quality and is in good shape but lets be honest, he's going to be at Liverpool next year. Cahill is now too slow and has never been good enough on the ball to play the way we want to play, Personally, I think it would be a mistake to sign him.

I would assume we are looking at all markets, players coming from France just have a better rate of success in the Premier League than from other Leagues and you can also usually pick up those players cheaper than you would Serie A players for example, so we might have a little more of our focus on that market. I'm sure we have guys in all major Leagues and some minor, all looking for the next Kante...

I agree, you also need to factor in quality of shot/chance. Teams down the bottom with worse defences will allow more presentable chances and under less pressure than those towards the top with better defences. However, there are so many other variables you could factor in like shot distance, players stronger/weaker foot, etc. It really comes down to the quality of chance/shot saved. I think something like XG saved might be a better way to make comparisons... if there is such a thing. Even then I don't think it gives a good overall impression of a goalkeeper, simply their shot stopping ability which as we know is only part of being a good keeper nowadays. Personally if we are looking for a new number 1 keeper, I'd think we'd be looking for someone with better distribution than Ethridge because that's what Smith wants from his keeper to suit the system. In that regard I don't see him as an upgrade to Steer.

Looking at this list I'm trying to figure out how we stayed in the Premier League so long....

Pakistan, you just have no idea what they are going to do on any given day, How are you supposed to prepare for them?!

He'd have to win a drinking contest to the death with Jack first...

I forgot that Leicester are a bit of a bogey team...

Sadly, I wouldn't be surprised if the two aren't mutually exclusive...

I think it says more about their agents than it does about our transfer strategy...

That would be an incredibly risky move on Chelsea's part, they'd be much happier and it would be much easier for them not having an option to buy at all in that situation. Clubs only agree to this kind of deal if they want the player off their books, hence it wasn't in Tammy's deal last year, they are still looking at him.

It's a bit early yet, need to see what business is done first, but I think Stoke could be up there, they have the squad and I quite like Nathan Jones

They play in completely different positions to be fair, this guy creates, they are finishers. It isn't supposed to be. I don't know if you noticed but we can barely put a team out as it stands, we need squad players as well as first team players, Jota plays in multiple positions and will very much be for cover as much as anything.

A players value is always seen differently by buying and selling clubs. In this instance it's our first choice keeper, he's homegrown which adds value, how much would it cost to replace him? Do we want to sell him? Is it worth the upheaval of integrating yet another new face in to the squad in such an important position? Once all of these factors have been taken in to account you have our magic number. Personally, I think Steer is worth about £6m-£7m. I don't think anyone is likely to offer us that, but that's his value to us right now I think.

Could be something in the medicals needs a second look, maybe we are waiting until we officially become a Premier League team which is sometime next week I think, as above swap deals can be tricky and need a bit of extra negotiating, or their fax machine could be on the blink and they can't afford a new one...

It's a good job agents don't create imaginary links in order to try and get their players a better contract, if that happened how would we be able to believe anything?!

From reading the article @wilko154 posted it seems that a points deduction is off the table, and any reports otherwise are just poorly researched, can't say I'm surprised by that. However we were further away from complying that I thought if his figures are correct. I would assume our back up plan to find that extra £30m would of been selling one/both of McGinn and Grealish. The whole selling the stadium thing to me seems like a way of allowing us to spend a little more than we otherwise would be allowed to next season, and I can see how that was the plan had we gained promotion or not. Not sure how I feel about it all to be honest, lets just hope we are sensible going forward, keep ourselves in the Premier League and get ourselves in a financial position where we don't need to be looking for ways to bend the rules.