-sodapop

I agree, but also all of those signings would have been bad value if they'd come for half of what we paid. (excluding Seniorman)

Oliver Skipp Elijah Adebayo Reo Hatate Josh Doig

in excess of 20,000,000 british pounds **** me i felt as though 14m was them having our pants down a little bit, what the **** are we doing?!

Reading on the spurs forum that he also provided good cover at LB, might be valuable in our situation.

Be interesting to see how he performs, given we were linked a while back.

I agree that we need other positions more, but he's still better than anybody else we could play there. If we can get it done for a reasonable price, I'd say do it.

IMO we need at least 4, but I think we'll do 3. 1 permanent, two loans.

Soumare should be off. That'd just be 4 players for 2 positions and Hamza won't start unless there's an injury crisis.

Winks & Skipp in the pivot is good enough to stay up, but it won't be enough without somebody to link them to the attack - I'm not sure we can rely on Buonanotte to do that, and I don't fancy any of our wide players in the hole. So it's a yes from me, but we need more. Someone like Hatate is capable and would link that up nicely

not sure if i'd point to the transfer of silva for an example of when we were well run

Of the ones who would come here, only Madueke and Chukwuemeka would be worth a shout. Chilwell in a vacuum, but cannot imagine him being a smug, injured bell-end would help with the mood around the club.

We'd need 18 points to beat that with a -6 point deduction - 6 wins over a season seems absolutely out of reach (we got 9 in our last relegation season, but the quality difference between that squad and this squad is night and day), but perhaps 3-4 wins at home against the other relegation candidates and a handful of draws across the season keeps us safe of that particular ignominy.

Close thread

Probably were hoping to announce a new signing holding it

He gets the chance to play in the Prem for one season before we get relegated and he goes back to the Bundesliga side that doesn't want him. He'd be the lead man for a team in the Europa League.

lock the thread, we're cooked

alright, i take back any benefit of the doubt i've offered so far if we don't sign hlozek my finger is on the button ready to go

So'ton were linked earlier in the window, I reckon it's them.

Then their scouting/recruitment team will get raided. I wish it weren't the case but short of a Newcastle type situation where you're owned by a petrostate, I think it's impossible for a smaller club to grow past outside chance at Europe for a few consecutive seasons.

I'm not too phased with Brighton splashing the cash - they're in their equivalent of our 2016-2021; they'll miss on a couple of transfers, get raided by the big boys and be back where they started. That's just the cycle of life for anybody not in the big 6.

hopefully he's put a good word in for us

i know you're joking but for the unaware he only transferred there 3 weeks ago

I think they're just reporting old news here. I doubt we've doubled back, and no way we can afford this + Hlozek + Ayew

Absolutely; but it's a big commitment - and Germans are not super willing to put up with shit German when they could just speak English. When I lived in Japan, that was definitely different though, and even stumbling through a coffee order in Japanese made a noticeable positive difference. I'm very glad to have learned German though - fun language to speak

Was expecting a very different thread when I clicked on it, lol. I'm currently living in Berlin and have been for a few years. I've learned the language but honestly, you'd be fine without it. The city is nice enough and it's a great city if you're young and/or single, but I don't know if I'd want to start a family here. Germans are generally nice enough, but I do find their bluntness and general grumpiness a bit grating after a few years here. Worth mentioning that South Germany is very much not grumpy in that way, but there you'd definitely need to speak some German. I've found in the workplace that being loud and confident is valued more than being competent, moreso than in the UK. The "squeaky wheel gets the oil" is the only way to get help with things. I find that difficult as a combination of Britishness and my personality makes making a fuss very uncomfortable for me. I'm not white and I've had a couple of weird interactions here. While I feel that those sorts of things could happen anywhere, the few times they happened to me in the UK, people around me shut it down very quickly - that wasn't the case here, and I didn't like that. Football culture is great and you've got two cool big clubs and lots of smaller clubs to get involved with. Berlin is probably the least football mad of the big cities in Germany, but it's still huge. I can't see myself living here forever, but the last 5 years have been good and I'm in no hurry to leave.