Stadt

It should be inconceivable Wilson-Brown or Cartwright would finish above us but I'm starting to get uncomfortable

Good job we won’t panic or keep players we’d rather sell because we’re really light in long term problem positions. But Yoshida on a 5 year deal will be good because we can’t play any U21s otherwise we’ll just lose 4-0 every game because our players are young and they haven’t had sufficient years on the planet so they just default to losing inexplicably

One more attacking midfielder bro I swear

It’s all so f ucking tiresome. If we lose Braybrooke as well this is the closest I’ve felt to just binning watching Leicester off. Watching Skipp and Reid not getting us promoted is just joyless

We’ve had one good DM since 2017, we’ve always been shit without Ndidi. We need a player that can win the ball back and adds some steel to our midfield as Skipp isn’t it, Choudhury is the closest thing but he’s a limited footballer.

Our last proper DM was signed in 2017…

Only if they had somebody with 700+ career appearances in the team to babysit them, it'd be reckless to let young players play otherwise

Our 3 highest potential academy players have all done their ACLs, what rotten luck

Good character though who cares if he’s on £400,000 a week it’s not our money can’t just play three u21s too many and reckless we’ve got to get promoted so a 6 year deal makes sense life expectancy is 82 so got a long way to go yet need some experience

Great signing, those who are doubting it? Who would you sign instead? I’m pleased we‘ve got a good player for 3 years. Just got to get behind the club now and unequivocally back everything they do and self-lobotomise

I was being flippant

He's just doing this for clicks

I never said that - it was in response to the idea of him not starting. I'm so fed up of this thread. I'm no positing in it anymore

If he can't get a game when we're at our lowest ever level when can he expect to play? He was Cardiff's best player at the back end of 24/25

Ffs, one of the few good things that happened locally

Well conjecture is the point - it's a fans forum. We don't know the specifics on wages, we do know we historically overpay

If I'm Alves and I don't start first game of the season I'm handing in a transfer request - that's the cub saying we are never going to believe in you as a first team player.

How do you know they're not being paid too much>? Are you their agent? Are you involved in the contract negations? If you haven't noticed the modus operandi at the club experiencing its worst ever period has been to overpay players. Our wage bill in 24/25 was about £150m. before that was confirmed you probably said 'of course we wouldn't pay Skipp so much, of course Okoli wouldn't be on a big wedge, how do you know we're paying Ayew and Reid too much?' We can look at patterns, we can look at estimates, we can come to a logical concussion that players dropping down a division aren't doing it for the love of the game.

We're going to end up with 2 senior pros starting for every genuinely young player. Alves, Braybrooke and whichever RB (can't rule out Coulibay though ) are the only likely nailed on starters at 21 and 22, then 19?. You'd think MacFarlane probably gets the nod but Thomas is just inevitable. McCarthy 36 RB ? Okoli/Faes 25/28 New CB ? Thomas/MacFarlane 25/19 Skipp/Chouhudry 25/28 Braybrooke 22 Alves 21 Burns 31 Chaplin 31 Cullen 27 There is no pint in trying to build a youthful sward if you then have to buy two older players to babysit them. Nobody is against experience per se but experienced players can be 25-28, not 31 year olds on big wages with poor injury records or recent seasons.

"Forced negativity"

There are still literally thousands of players that would jump at the chance to play for us. £7.5k pw is a significant pay rise for lots of L1 players, £5k would be a payrise for almost all L2 players. Our best ever player came from the National League. Arguably our second from Ligue 2, their equivalents in ‘26 might be 2k and 5k. Just getting promoted is very short sighted, we’re still in financial trouble - we get about £9m more in TV revenue but that covers probably half of Chaplin, Burns & McCarthy’s wages (with wage rises on promotion). We haven’t start assessing transfer business on their impact on each year of their deal not just are they a good player right now. One of Chaplin, Cullen or Burns would be fine, all three is lunacy.

Sorry I’m not normally so blunt but this is bollocks. We’re in this mess because we’ve been so frivolous, we absolutely should be more choosey. The fee and wages could have gotten us a prime age winger with some resale value. Let’s say he costs 500k and he’s on 15k pw * 3 years = £5m. He’ll most likely leave on a free, in our financial position it’s completely naive.

Scans awkwardly

A total exception

Signed years ago