Finnegan

I mean, almost the entire squad can and should be improved. We're left with extremely few players who are genuinely excellent for a club in our position. I'm not saying Cifuentes thinks Ayew is Messi reborn. I just think he'll see him as good enough and that a striker, winger and box to box midfielder are more important.

Absolute bagsman Jordan Ayew always here just in case.

As much as the thought is horrific, I genuinely wouldn't be surprised if we don't actually bring in an attacking midfielder because we think Ayew is good enough at 10. JJ, Carranza and Rak-Sakyi on loans by 7pm wouldn't shock me. Option / conditional obligations on the first two, probably not with Rak-Sakyi.

I'm sorry but as much as I like JJ, he isn't KDH. I think there's things he does better, think he's stronger and probably more hard working. Probably a bit more reliable passing the ball. But he's absolutely not going to suddenly provide 20 goal contributions in a season for the first time ever because we will it. They're white boys with a bit of hussle and they play in midfield but that's pretty much the beginning and end of the comparison.

I'm in the school of people that cringes every time we buy a striker that can't run the 100m in Olympic qualifying time. I love a bit of mobility up top. Even I think Carranza looks a decent enough move relative to our current position. Certainly better than I was expecting. I joked but I honestly did think we might offer Bamford like a four year deal. Carranza looks like someone you have to actually create chances for, which is obviously concerning, but he also seems to put a shift in, is strong with decent balance and is an alright technical finisher? Seems fine. Looks Piroeesque.

It's not a good deal, but it's just also not a significantly worse deal than everyone was about to accept. And it looks to me like we were always going to wait to dead line day to do a bit of business anyway? There seems to be a handful of genuinely credible rumours this year which makes a bit of a change for us? Think we'll see at least two come in today, maybe three.

Obligation they'll have to agree terms. An option really is just that, it's an agreement between clubs over a future price. There's no guarantee Bilal would agree to it and definitely no reason he'd let Stuttgart buy him just to sell him the same day which would be a contractual and legal mess. If its an option only there's no reason to stop, say, Chelsea offering to buy him next summer and is driving up their price.

Yeah I wouldn't describe him as a regular goal threat. I like him and I've seen a fair bit of him but it's energy and work rate I like the most. It's what we really lack in our midfield. It's like if you actually put a competent football brain in Hamza.

If there's a loan fee that covers his amortisation (which there almost has to be) then it'll explain the lower agreed transfer fee. Also, frankly, I don't mind it being a loan if we still get to bring some people in today? If its only a buy option, it's theoretically possible that he smashes it this year, attracts interest from bigger clubs than Stuttgart, turns them down and we sell him for 40 odd to someone.

We're currently playing Skipp and Soumare in the middle.

I find it funny when people ask this at the best of times but he literally scored against us?

It pains me to tag this anything other than Nixon Tier. But, in fairness, he obviously knows someone at Palace. He was right about Ayew from very early on.

Leicester & Pisa is the new Leicester, West Ham & Everton

Genuinely tragic how many of you seem to be genuinely rejoicing in a 17 year old not looking like Messi being thrown in to a first team that's obviously struggling. Christ. Yeah he wasn't world class. That's fine though, right?

I have always been and will always be in favour of technology being used in football, I'll always think VAR is a good idea. It is. But I don't think it's actually possible for the execution of it to be any worse than the Premier League. Not just VAR itself but the rules that go with, the constant tweaking of offside and handball rules making them progressively worse all the time. Just an absolute ****ing mess.

The assist is a bad example of a bit of play to beat him with to be fair, he created the goal not with the pass but the read, the interception, the driving run and the all round energy to make that happen. It was his best moment of the game even if the pass was a bit poor. We do need a more controlling, quality influence in there though and I don't think he's the level we need to be starting regularly for us there.

Ehhhh, 1.5? He doesn't really weigh in with transfer rumours with much regularity unless he's fairly confident. And he's only said we're "interested" anyway.

Big lad with limited technical ability and mobility that scores a decent amount of headers against teams that can't defend in a poor league. I'm sure we've seen this movie before. Watching Erabi's goals is interesting. A LOT of them are free headers from five yards out that I can't imagine him getting often in the Championship.

He's exactly what we need, so it won't happen. We need presence, energy and a bit of X factor in the midfield. Hamer and quality forward would see us jump immediately from being playoff also-rans to genuine title contenders. Just think he's out of our budget and he probably needs to be pushing for top flight football at this point in his career. If he can't get it in the Prem, he should be looking at Spain, Germany and Italy. He's too good to be ****ing around in the Championship again. Hamer and Solomon on loans and a marquee striker. Can you imagine.

All of this shit about Birmingham having to learn their way in the Championship as if they hadn't been in it for like a million years before they dipped in to league one for a sec

Love Don Goodman gotta remind everyone we shouldn't win somehow

RICKY Lovely by Monga too

It's the main reason I spend every game calling Ayew shit. I'm hoping he bags to troll me.

In my defence, I'm still quite baby faced. If I stood next to Begovic I could probably convince people's he's me da