Ric Flair

When Thomas first came in he had a very good delivery on him, as well as being proficient on the ball. Both things deteriorated the longer he established himself with us. I don't buy he needed a loan move first or shortly after breaking through with us, he was playing a very good amount of football in the PL and I don't see how that's hampered him.

The more I look at the areas we still need to fill, the more I'm left mystified by the purchase and purchase price of Caleb Okoli. That fee buys us Albert Gronbaek who be a key starter in a position we're criminally weak in. It's not the first time we've made an unusual defensive signing from Atalanta for what appears to be an inflated fee.

That's a decent move for him. They've some good young players coming through to play alongside.

It was a bloke with hair I thought although I was the opposite side of the pitch to thr staff. Huth was there an'all but not in the dugout. Edited to say, i think it was Leon McSweeney, I've just googled him and I saw him orchestrating things.

Yeah not sure where that article has got it's numbers from!

Talking of which, there's still no news on our U21 manager. I thought it was going to be Adam Barradell but it's nit been confirmed.

I'd be all over this. Very similar to Soule, he got relegated from a top 5 European league but was their standout player. Arribas goals and assists were 22 vs Soule of 14. One is costing €20m vs €30m

Hermansen's ability with his feet will still be an asset under a manager who's focus isn't as much on playing out from the back. The fact he's so good at passing means we'll benefit from him as opposed to a keeper that just clears the ball poorly. We'll be looking to play out faster which if anything will require Hermansen's skills in doing so accurately.

Fabio Vieira on loan with an option to buy would be ideal.

I'd have absolutely loved him under Enzo in the Ndidi 8 role of winning the ball up high and attacking the box.

Astonishing.

And it would only be on profit, which they will not be getting over £50m for.

Waiting for a eandom twitter page to claim we're on the verge of signing him for one last buzz.

Leeds

Robert Skov is without a club, he played LWB / LM at Hoffenheim having previously been excellent as a RW at Copenhagen. I could see him doing that role. Likewise Ricardo Rodriguez as a LCB/LB. Both relatively cheap pick ups that give us more balance.

It's all a little confusing right now. It would be criminal to take Fatawu away from RW and I think we need a left footed LB/LWB on that side so I'm not sure what he's going to do. I like the idea of a fast transition and fluid system but that ought to be achieved with deploying players in their correct positions.

Good question, quite simply because Saelemaekers has played a lot of football and his creativity and goalscoring for the type of player we require is poor. Nelson has played less football and so the basis is that with his skill set and type of player he is that he'd be expected to provide goals and assists. There's no guarantee but he's technically very good. Saelemaekers is Albrightonesque, which there's nothing necessarily wrong with but we have Cordova-Reid to be that type of squad player. We need a player with potential to bring goals and assists.

He's not going to walk away from £100k a week for 3 years, so there'll have to be a hefty bit of offsetting in the transfer fee to make up the shortfall. Probably why it'll be a loan to start with, but could see us having to pay more in transfer fee and they'll use a chunk of that to pay him off.

We've supposedly bid decent money for Sosa and now Soule. Both different players and can't tell if one followed the other or if we want a right footed winger and a left footed attacking midfielder and still will want both. There's a real lack of left footed players in our squad, I hope the balance is corrected because things like that are exaggerated in the PL.

Yeah that's a possibility.

Yeah it doesn't state how long the contract was for, I'm not sure if at that age the max is 3 years which takes it to 2025 which is the rumoured expiry. Would be a relief if it was 5 years and he still has 3 years to go.

Quite possibly, I think we've all been thrown by the reports we're offering £25m + for Soule and have bought Okoli for quite a large fee. The latter being a classic candidate for a loan with option / obligation that we instead bought outright.

His last contract extension was back end of the summer of 2022. Braybrooke and Marcal have signed additional extensions since then.

Curious as to why this would be a loan with an obligation to buy. If it's £15m then we're essentially kicking £3m down the road a year. I know finances are tight but obligations are still a long term commitment. I can see us needing to utilise the loan market but options deals rather than obligations.

I like him