Dan

The only reason I think you could be against signing Zaha is the possibility he's had a complete tail off as a player like Bertrand did when we'd signed him. If he's anything like the Palace player it's a big coup in our position. He was the best player of a side who hardly had a relegation battle for years.

This looks a good deal. We only have to make any big commitment to it if we stay up so not really any risk we're lumbered with a dud (unless we do stay up and he's just a big flop in the process but pretty unlikely). We're quite well covered on this one and there's a potential gem in there too. Yeah good move. I'll take.

I saw them earlier getting praise for getting a free meal on the coach to Lens even though that's specifically a deal DFDS, the ferry operator, give you if you travel via a coach. How do you even compete with that? They're untouchable in this fanbase no matter how much they **** the club up.

****ing ridiculous. We've completely killed him as a player. He was great as a destroyer and we seem to be obsessed with making him something he isn't. Keep him there doing that job, what he's good at. We should've released 100% if this bullshit is the plan for him. None of this is pragmatic. Pragmatic implies there's some sense behind it even if it's not aesthetically pleasing. This is just complete rubbish, it's how I'd manage Forest if I got the job.

Drove to Lille back in 2018 and thought exactly this at the time. Genuinely easier.

Parker has not managed a Premier League game since those comments. Bournemouth stayed up against the odds and then have properly built on it, now people would be quite surprised if they went down this season. They're a club who've got their shit together. Fair play to them.

It's the same with O'Riley. For me it's when a player is just blatantly, abundantly too good for the level he's at. This appears to be the case with both Ioannidis and O'Riley. I'm as doom as anyone about us atm but this would be a good signing. Everything we don't have in attack.

Was just thinking how inevitable it is he ends up at Bournemouth.

RUDKIN OUT

It's impossible to give a description of that performance without thinking its hysterical. Genuinely as bad a 90 minutes as you'll ever witness.

I'm there now. No regrets. New ground. Not a bad away end, their fans quality. Novelty trip. I can't let football on the pitch dictate everything now. We're so amateurish at literally every level that my expectations have been eroded to a point I almost see the funny side. 2022/23 was harder to take because it was fresh. This is just us now. An amateurish, unserious club run by people who have no love or care for it. At least every loss is a black mark against them as well.

We're the worst run club in the Premier League and it isn't close either.

Corberan in.

Alarm bells were ringing for me when I saw the Italian anecdotes.

At least maybe it'll be so bad that people finally collectively realise things have to change. Trying to stay optimistic.

Hit a point where I think I'd take the relegation providing we don't break any records. My opinion on us somehow falls even further each time I see us. I've no idea how much lower I see it going.

This is going to be one of those things we look back on and think "did that really happen?"

Baulked at that loan fee at first but I think if you flipped it around and said it was £3.5mil loan fee and you covered £70k of wages, which was the same amount, you'd say it sounded reasonable. I'd take a chance on this one to be honest. Just praying he hasn't had some big drop off in the last year.

If he's anything like the Palace Zaha it's good for a years loan.

That's a relief. Great stuff.

I do remember a similar vibe in 2022 where there was a lot of "we just need the football to start to forget all of this nonsense" and the football just ended up reinforcing all fears. I don't expect the club to set out an exact policy on the footballing side to the fans but maybe that's just what I'm accustomed to and maybe they should. I think you can often work out what they're trying to do but this time I really don't see the obvious direction. I get the impression there are disagreements, lots of differing voices in terms of aims and recruitment and we'll end up with the worst outcome - a mish mash where we end up both relegated and without a particularly valuable squad for next season. We fell from such a height in 2023 that we were always likely to be simply too strong in 2023/24 but I don't think the level of inefficiency we display is going to be bailed out by sheer quality in future years as that quality is diminishing. There's a real case we've a weaker squad than a year ago and how the hell is it even possible for that to be the case? I really do fear the worst. Even in Cooper I think his strength at Forest was the siege mentality but I think that's a lot easier for people to buy into when you've already got the club promoted and you have a load of credit in the bank. If he starts here how he started with them in the PL, pretty badly, home losses to bottom half teams, losing 4-0 to a local rival who were in disarray he's going to have virtually nobody fighting his corner. The foundations are nowhere near as strong for him here as at Forest and it's why the appointment for me is quite badly thought out.

I just don't see any real commitment to anything. If we had stuck the budget this season into 4/5 under 22 players to get in and around our first team I could completely understand the argument that we were accepting our likely relegation and making a prudent attempt to bounce back up in the following season, as defeatist as that is, as crap an outcome as it is. But we aren't even doing that. It's just a load of nothing.

Right but he doesn't play for Man City. You can't use a hypothetical that totally changes the context of the argument. He's the sort of player we could've been having a pop at on a cheap deal a few years ago when we had the chance to where we could potentially take all the upside. This may not turn out a bad deal for us, but it's a real sign of how far we've regressed - again.

It's desperate stuff isn't it. Sort of player we should've bought a few years ago on the cheap when we were in a position to and now we're signing him for our first side because a team we were miles ahead of haven't had a great start with him. It isn't to say there's no chance he can be good for us but it's a signing that really hammers home how badly we've fallen and how quickly.

This planning on bouncing back rhetoric I read on here is ridiculous because what an utterly depressing existence, and it's not even true because I don't exactly see us signing a load of young prospects. If we'd kept the churn, more Hermansen, Mavididi, Fatawu etc... type signings I'd understand the argument but I don't really see anything that constitutes 'building'.