Dan

It's impossible to sell these crap players apparently.

The biggest takeaway. Any of my slagging is aimed at the dross players. Cifuentes will be judged on how he treats them. Such an unlikeable side.

Really is bleak. Said late last season you'll have 8 of last years team start our first game. I'd say it's now very likely to be 11. Life under Top and Rudkin for you - stale.

Never really thought of it like this but you might be onto something. He doesn't score enough that's for sure.

He's the first one I'd pick as well. Says a lot about the others.

We are just fundamentally weak under Aiyawatt.. We're dictated to rather than crafting our own way.

Problem is even if they're 'OK' in the Championship we've seen what they're about in the Premier League. Given they're mostly on Premier League wages we need them out. You can't trust the club to do the right thing - look what happened with Vestergaard. A disaster signing for two years, looks alright in a league he 'should' be miles above, does fairly well, we go and hand him another three year contract. Whenever you follow a flow chart on us it always goes back to us doing something stupid and damaging. It's why it's basically impossible to get excited.

I had fears for Lens the fact they only managed to win 3-0. As it turned out they didn't have a great season.

Even El Khannouss himself though - he's a good player but he doesn't score many, and this was also the case in Belgium where he was in a relatively strong team. Our central midfielder goal tallies are frankly an embarrassment.

We're in for a bit of a surprise I think. Squad is weaker than the one we had two years ago, substantially fewer goals in the team, plenty of players who had fresh starts at the time are now part of the deadwood. Add that to midtable form for the last third of the season. Wouldn't be surprised at all if we're in for a rude awakening - particularly as the clubs MO is just 'do nothing and hope for the best'. You can get away with it when you're blatantly a cut above, it will eventually catch us - could be this time around.

Remarkable how slow it's selling regardless of their arrangements. I really wonder if all credit in the bank has been used up.

Agree - therefore don't bother. It's one thing overpaying for someone we need. Neither manager valued him above around fourth choice at all. An absolutely terrible deal.

I don't read too much into friendly performances generally but the Lens performance was so drastically bad that you couldn't ignore it. A week before the new season and we served that up - I was about 90% sure we'd go down after watching that. About as dreadful a 90 minutes as I've seen from a supposedly professional outfit.

I do think winning the league and cup does raise more questions than it does of say Southampton - who are another club I don't actually really think get enough investigation. They've dropped off a ridiculous amount as well.

I increasingly like the Salech shout. Attainable given they were relegated, young, good in the air, quick, good goalscoring record. Probably costs you £5mil or so (if we can't shell this out on one striker we're in deeper shit than I realised) and very feasibly ends up worth treble that. Ticks a lot of the boxes for me.

Interesting how much derision this article got - was 100% correct.

Something we haven't at any point attempted to do with him. He's needed a quite specific role / system to flourish. It was therefore a poor idea of a signing from us and a poor use of funds, another reason as to why we are now where we are.

I'm dreading the day we have to pay for it. Might be a price worth paying though.

Would be an utterly dumb move, one of the daftest we could make so you'd really not put it past us.

We've already got that option in Ayew who is a perfectly fine second choice. Striker's the one position we need to get right - there are a chronic lack of goals in this team. As ever I fear we don't cast out net wide enough.

Agree although think Leeds' Longstaff signing is the spit of the Skipp one. Albeit for about half the money. I'll never understand that Skipp signing. Utterly ridiculous. Was worth about £5mil max.

Not a single unwanted player moved on so far. Tick tock.

Unironically agree - Ayew is no worse.

Bamford would be depressingly us.

When did Kasabian open a crypto bookies? How did I miss that?