DJ Barry Hammond

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.

Given he has a year left on his contract - it’s possible that it would be cheaper to get Jordon to buy out his contract than to pay the reported transfer fee. Here’s hoping he fails the medical!

If they are you can bet they’re paying well over the market price for it.

Think I’d rather us pay Zaha’s tax bill.

Agreed, I don’t see how you change from the first 11 - there’s a game against Tranmere on the following Tuesday to do squad rotation.

I wonder what the collective club thinking is on this one at this moment. I think there’s been some hope that we might have landed another target (probably Asprilla) over this transfer - otherwise we would surely have got this done early this week to allow for a couple of training sessions / chance to settle into the squad ahead of travelling to Fulham. But Asprilla looks out of our reach now - so do we try and get this over the line before the registration deadline on Friday? I am sure there are some reservations on this transfer within the club, especially in giving a considerable fee to a direct rival - and that there will be voices advocating a further ‘wait and see’ approach whilst the situations for other targets resolve themselves in the final week of the window - namely, Reiss Nelson, possibly Zaha (I think Gala want him out to sign Depay - so he may get more of a push to resolve his situation next week). I guess ultimately we’ll find out over the next few hours what the club is thinking - but my hope is we hold fire and continue to hold out for other targets in the knowledge that if this is a last resort signing, we should be able to conclude it quickly come deadline day.

Cooper’s press conference is at 1:30 right?

That was an issue / excuse that was muted very early on - and I think the club addressed some aspects of that (like making the players return their food trays rather than being fully waited on). The club also identified issue around player leadership - which was a primary factor in us signing Coady.

You don’t get any xG from someone clearing off the line before you can nod it in.

Amazing how many people’s suggested teams completely ignores the readily available and inevitable “player scores against former side” factor.

Peak producer led content. “What can we ask Wout about? I know, hair styles!” 😏 And what exactly has been going on with that iPad?

With Ipswich, you have to remember that their promoted squad (and first 11) still contained a lot of players from their League One promotion. This in turn means they had more areas with scope for improvement - making it a lot easier to conclude on a signing. If you look at the 8 they have signed - do any of these instantly displace any of our starting 11?

Those comments are surely based on the first half - where every player on the pitch should get a ‘pass’. They were too deep to be in anyway effective with the ball, playing right into Spurs attacking and full press game.

Reid was involved in a lot of our positive play. He combined in that lovely move and was in the box and attracted defenders for our goal.

Their Conference League qualifier kicks off against Lens tomorrow - so nothing is happening on this one for a while yet now.

I don’t know if this is all Rudders. Lets face it, if everyone at the club wanted to do this transfer, it would have been a very easy one to do. We bid £4 million - so going to £6 is hardly a stretch - and you’d assume player terms would be easy to agree after that - so why hasn’t it been done yet given how long we’ be been linked to him after? Might there be an ongoing attempt to stall this deal - a bit like what happened with Sensi last January?