DJ Barry Hammond

Guaranteed to score against Palace too. Just need to sign at least one player from all of our other relegation rivals now (Fulham and Saints already taken care of).

Bhah **** it @moore_94 - you got the big one 😔

For balance 'There's now no real excuse for us as players' - Coady on training ground https://www.bbc.com/sport/articles/c0dgjkr1jm1o "It's an incredible place, an absolutely incredible place," Coady told BBC Radio 5 Live's Monday Night Club. "Since the first day I got here, what the lads have been like, what the people have been like, it's full of fantastic people. "The place itself is absolutely unbelievable and it's a pleasure to come to work every day. "The whole complex is unbelievable. There's now no real excuse for us as players. "There's nothing we can look at and say: 'We've not got this, or not got that.' We can train, and train to our maximum, every single day because of everything that is here. "Players stay here throughout the week to make sure we train right, we recover right, we eat right, we do everything right. "It's important we use that to the best of our abilities and make sure we keep improving every day."

I like how we’re so confident our initial £15 million bid will get rejected, we’ve added an immediate second bid of £20 million alongside it. That’s masterful, mind**** style negotiation.

You do realise we’ve already seen that isolated higher pressing 8 from Ndidi in pre-season - and it did not work.

They’re not going for that - they’ve offered him new terms, they don’t want him to leave.

I’m hearing “only wants Saudi”.

They’re taking their sweet ass time about this - here’s hoping it’s because the social’s team have decided to up their reveal video game.

We paid £7.5 million for Coady who’s hardly played - and yet, I’d argue he’s been value for that fee based on what he’s brought to the club off the pitch. I’m certain a key aspect that appealed to the club with Ayew is that he’s a leader. When we were at our most successful in recent years, we had former captains all across the pitch.

Wrong side?

From the more recent reports, I think Zaha’s tax issue is down to the number of days he’s spent in the UK whilst at Gala, impacting on his residency status - suggesting he has a tax issue whether he moves or not.

As much as I would love us to get him, I just don’t see us having the required pull factor to get this transfer over the line.

He gets on with Pickford and Dyche though doesn’t he.

One that’s sadly got away from us 😢

Ah yes, that famous sporting news website “sportmedia1” with an exclusive story with absolutely no detail to it whatsoever and more pop-up’s than re-inflated bubble wrap. This is clearly a very solid, tier 1, source that we should all believe in.

You say that, but Sporting seem no further on this either. Panathinaikos were clear, definitely no deal until their Euro’s situation is sorted - and that’s still to be sorted. That said - I don’t think we can complete this inside this window.

But that was the following season, after we had signed a number of experienced pro’s - and with the remainder of the squad having experienced a season in the Premiership. Two of our other key additions that season - Okazaki and Fuchs - had played at Bundesliga level for many seasons and were vastly experienced outside of the Premier League.

2 out of the 4 played regularly enough (Albrighton and Simpson) - and Huth arguably was the signing that helped turn the season around. Obviously Esteban had plenty of experience behind him too, even if it wasn’t gained in the Premier League - and even Ulloa, at 28 when we signed him, had plenty of seasons of football behind him including two seasons in the Championship. The point being - our signing strategy was largely centred towards seasoned pro’s. The younger guys we signed that season - Tom Lawrence, Jack Barmby, Nick Powell and Andrej Kramaric, never worked out for us.

It’s nice to be on the one scoring for a change, I’m normally the one setting them-up 😉

You refer to the wrong season - those transfers were made for our second season in the top flight. Our first season back in the Prem, we certainly leaned on experience pro’s as we signed the likes of Albrighton, Upson, Simpson and Schwarzer - and of course Huth was signed on loan from January. We also signed a certain legendary Argentinian… as well as Ulloa.

Where and who was he internally probing?

That is the only, very likely, problem! 😂

WAIT… I’ve found a worse deal!

I was mainly referring to the fee breakdown on this deal. The two others in question are probably David Fofana and Nelson.

Does this make it any better… probably not.