DJ Barry Hammond

Chelsea win today - impressively too (at least that’s my prediction).

Given Cooper’s managed him at England youth level and our midfield looked a bit powder puff - this could be one of our main targets.

An indication Panathinaikos will be coming into some money soon?

You’re talking about a player that’s yet to make a professional appearance. The best way to ruin a young talent is to heap too much on them too early. You have to nurture talent, put them in situations you feel they can cope with, ones that don’t require much thinking; ones that build confidence - and being involved in the first team setup and getting 10/15 minutes here and there across pre-season will be have been a massive boost to him. We’re tipped for relegation - so you can’t shove the lad into the starting 11 now and add the teams expectation of beating relegation onto his shoulders - the focus he needs is to just play and play without fear, so that will be selected minutes off the bench to start with. The signing of Buonanotte shouldn’t be seen as a negative either. It’s a temporary move so if Alves shows he is capable of taking on more later in the season, he will get more and more minutes; but in the meantime Facundo will give Alves a direct comparison in training of the sort of levels he needs to reach.

If you’ve got two sitting like Winks and Skipp that does give Vestergaard more cover - so maybe works - plus we might be pegged back in our own half more in which case space in behind us is less of an issue. The other thing I think is important is to not just focus on the starting 11 you look at what we have. Look at Ipswich yesterday - did great for 45 minutes, but then the effort started to tell and their changes weakened them further still. You’re guaranteed to need to make changes in midfield, upfront and wide areas after the hour mark in order to keep up the level of intensity needed - making what you have outside of a starting 11 in those key positions just as important.

I wouldn’t say that - he’s clearly involved with the first team, but you don’t just chuck a kid with limited first team experience into a side. You grow his involvement bit by bit, give him scenarios where he doesn’t have to think too much, he just goes on and plays his game. Alves - assuming he stays fit - will get increasing amounts of game time as the season goes on.

Well that’s why we’re dumping £10 million on Ayew! But seriously - I think the reality of the fee will be a lot different and that maybe we’ve paid a premium in total possible fee in order to stager the upfront cost. Maybe say, £5 million up front, a further £7 million across the length of his contract, then appearance, avoiding relegation bonuses, plus a sell on clause.

Sporting have been looking at him for ages (as have we it seems), so they clearly feel they can play the two together… but it’s also probably a bit of succession planning too. One way or another, this transfer will be resolved soon it seems - Sporting have just sold Fernandes to Southampton.

Given Ornstein is a London based football correspondent, you can guarantee the headline fee has come from the Spurs camp. The £20 million amount is also listed as the ‘total amount’ - so i suspect there might be a bit of totting up everything in that fee reveal. I imagine there’s quite a bit of structure to the deal with the upfront amount being a lot less - but at the cost of more in terms of fee for appearances, fee for avoiding relegation etc.

You can’t expect Winks and Ndidi to play full 90’s every game like we did last season - we will need at least one if not two midfielders to come on at the 60-75 minute mark every game.

The thing with inverting is you do need controlled possession to set it up and one of is weaknesses is it’s vulnerability in transition. I don’t expect us to have anywhere near the levels possession we had last year, plus we will playing teams that will be better at applying an aggressive press and pose a greater threat in transition - so I’m not convinced inverting our full back is the tactical answer this season. We will need to be defensive solid first and foremost and whatever player rotations we look to use needs to be effective on quick transitions. Mean, I think if Enzo was still with us even he would have evolved the way we played this year, perhaps by shortening the distance players travel in rotations in order to establish a stronger defensive base? You can already see at Chelsea that he’s actually got variety in his methods; for example against Inter, he pushed Gusto (right back) higher to join with Fernandez (playing a much less aggressive 8 role) to create a diamond midfield structure (Lavia holding, KDH in a 10 position). So you know - I fully understand why many will have latched onto the idea of inverting a full-back given the success we had with it last season; but we face a very different challenge this season and so that tactical idea might not be the best for us now.

Would someone be so kind as to put a picture up of the referenced ‘Honesty Flags’ to inform the rest of us plastics that don’t attend matches.

Bloody hell, Sporting even have their own plane spotters on this!

This just makes me want this guy more… damn you Sporting!

Some pretty obvious cheating going on from Crew Academy here - no way those units are under 15!

Tom talks trash is probably a better summary. Posted so you don’t have to.

They won’t get 20 million for him - they’ll be lucky to get 10m including bonuses.

Fotis Ioannidis is stepping up pressure on Panathinaikos directors to join Sporting. The forward made his decision a long time ago but the Greeks' elimination from the Europa League reinforced that desire. The next 4/5 days are decisive.

Yeah, you reminded me to look up Fotis rumours on Twitter… and instantly found this, so 😏 Basic translation; wants Sporting - we’ll. need Theo and Nikos to have words me thinks! Fotis Ioannidis is stepping up pressure on Panathinaikos directors to join Sporting. The forward made his decision a long time ago but the Greeks' elimination from the Europa League reinforced that desire. The next 4/5 days are decisive.

I believe Oliver wants out himself for first team football reasons - and that Spurs are willing to sell. Ipswich were rumoured to be the other interested party.

Wait until the Champions League games start - they can be a massive distraction because of how much a focal point those games can be and how mundane a trip to Brighton / Wolves / Forest can feel in comparison.

I wonder if the thing blocking us from signing him up to this point is our first game being against Spurs. It would not be surprising at all if we end up getting him early next week; possibly essentially concluding the deal on Monday evening.

They won in the end though. 2-0 up, went 3-2 down only to go on and win 4-3 with Twine - just signed on a perm - bagging the winner, so some cider’s will be going down tonight. And Jacki Dziekanowski is probably their most folklored player.

No - but it at least shows me are looking for the right kind of players, in the right positions and gives me hope that at least one of our approaches might stick.

You say that, but we’ve been linked with some quality looking players. There’s no point in us spunking money just for the point of getting a signing in. There’s a basis of a side already there, we need to complement it with some quality in forward positions - which are always the most competitive positions to try and secure.