Jimbo

Don't know why, but I just the impression that VK is a bit of a kn0b. Don't know why, I just get that feeling from him and that a few in the squad might feel the same. A couple of times I've seen some gestures and body language towards him

I would suggest, and not trying to cause offence, those who are arguing that anyone outside of England doesn't go out of their way to pronounce names correctly have only ever travelled to British favoured hotspots where they can still get a pint of Carlsberg and a Sunday lunch, they don't want any of that foreign muck and the idea of foreign cuisine in changing that Carlsberg out for a San Miguel. For example, an ex girlfriend of mine was half Spanish, and her parent lived in Tenerife. Her family over there would always go out of their way to ensure, when speaking with me, that they pronounced everything correctly in English, not just my name, but everything they said they would ask me if they had said it correctly. The accent in Tenerife is considered "common" (much like the east midlands accent) for example they don't pronounce the S at the end of a lot of Spanish words, most certainly not with the lisp that many from mainland Spain do (for example gracias would be pronounced grasthiath in mainland Spain and gracia in Tenerife) and they would always correct her mum (the English half of her parents) who has learned Spanish in the correct way to pronounce something. In my travels, whenever I've conversed with anyone, whether that be while touring Italy, my trips to Spain, France, Belgium etc etc when I've been asked my name the person has always repeated it to me to ensure the correct pronunciation, and quite often told me the localised version of my name back, they have never been rude enough to not use my name in the way that I say it.

My wife says this all the time.

If we're comparing it to Slimani then, taking into account how transfer fees have grown over the last 8 years, if we bought Slimani today we'd have probably been looking closer to £60million

Football fans will always, always take grit, determination and tempo with over slow, boring and technical The national team had their most successful period in 60 years, everybody hates it Don't get me wrong, winning is great, but how boring was last season? I fully agree with you

Would have been worse with Enzo still here, we'd have better possession stats but we'd probably be 3 down

It's not he KDH money I'm talking about, it's the midfielder profile I'm referring too. KDH is as close to the classic box to box type player there is. Energy is one thing, but from what I've seen in pre season, drive from the middle is something we've lacked.

It's completely different from a 4231. 4231 changed quickly to a 3151 when in attack, back to a 3241 in transition and back to a 4231 in defence. The only time a 442 has worked supremely well in the last 10 years was us with Kante in the middle and 2 central defenders that would head bricks if they were crossed into the box. I'm a 442 your fullbacks are going to be often caught up the pitch. If, for example we play a 442 with Skipp and Winks, then they're going to have to cover our wide, which leaves you horrendously exposed in the middle. If they stay central then you're exposed out wide. Didn't see much of Tottenham last year, but with Solanke signing on, if we play a 442 tonight and expect the full backs to overlap coming forward then the likes of Son, Johnson, Kulusevski, Werner are going to have a field day running free down the wings, Madison roaming free in the middle and Solanke is on for a debut hat trick

Because you can be too narrow when transitioning back to defence. Although Enzo's style was ridiculously boring, when attacking (in theory) you have 6 going forward, 1 midfielder sitting back and your back 3 wide enough to cover the pitch. While not perfect, it's better than attacking in a 442. You either have 4 going forward or you have inverted wingers and have the over lap from the full backs to have the 6. 2 central midfielders and 2 defenders are very susceptible to the counter attack in the modern game of wide forwards

I agree we're lacking quality in the middle, but the quality we're lacking is in an attacking sense. We've replaced half of KDH with what Skipp brings, but he doesn't offer that drive forward that KDH had for us.

Is that not the same for any signing ever made??

If we stay (the biggest IF in the history of if's) then he would have played a key role in keeping us up

Skipp is actually a very good player, will improve our midfield But........ He isn't exactly the signing we need right now. If we'd improved in the areas we need to 1st (attacking midfielder and striker) and we had £20million spare then I'd be all for this signing because he most certainly improves us, but this signing is like booking a holiday without booking the flights to get there yet. It's a good deal, but we're banking on there being a couple of additions left that are suitable for us in the areas we need at a price we can afford. I'm happy that we're getting a player like this, just don't know why we are

Although I know your response to what I'm going to say is bound to "it's only pre season" the toys being thrown out of the pram are being done so because of how we've looked in our games so far under Cooper. We have created very, very little and have looked extremely poor going forward. Couple that with that fact that we only have 1 fit striker and for once I can see why the reaction of many can be forgiven.

Forgive the rather rough nature, I'm no graphic designer, nor do I have any app or software to design kits, but these would appeal so much more, at least if we'd done something similar to other teams with retro badges and/or designs

I'm so disappointed this year with our kits. Not that they're the worst we've had, certainly in recent times, but when you consider what Leeds, Newcastle and Man United have done with their away and 3rd kits, ours are just so meh

The paperwork would be signed and it would be formalised as soon as the conditions are met to make the loan a permanent under the terms of the obligation. The player has already put his name to the deal. It would appear that Hlozek hadn't signed the deal with us yet because he was contemplating the terms of our offer because it could have become permanent if the terms were met.

I hit the panic button as soon as our promotion was guaranteed. It was clear halfway through last season that things weren't going to go well this year, regardless of the league we found ourselves in. The club is in a mess, bigger than any other club in the premier league, due to our size and income and the PSR mess. We'd already sold out better players due to relegation and then sold another to balance the books again for this year. We have no real financial power to bring anyone half decent in and out transfer strategy the last few years shows that we have no real way of finding hidden gems like we used to. We're stuck trying to get anyone we can in. I wouldn't mind, but on paper we're only a striker short of having a half decent chance, but seeing what we have in pre season, 1 fit striker on the books who has seen about 19 seconds on football in that pre season and having created very, very little going forward anyway, that even prime Ronaldo ( Brazilian or Portuguese) would struggle to score in this team, we're in for a very long season and right now our aim should be just getting to 12 points to avoid the unwanted Derby County record

A loan with an obligation to buy is all sorted before the loan is agreed. The player has to agree personal terms and contract statuses because if the obligation is triggered, as was with Fatawu, then the player has to join. If wages, contract length, clauses etc aren't agreed prior to the loan being agreed then the buying club could find their way out of the "obligation" should they want to by offering stupidly low wages to player knowing he'll turn it down and thus backing out of the deal

We're in very real danger of becoming what Derby are, or what we were 15/16 years ago I'm that deflated with the club I didn't renew my season ticket, a ticket I'd held for 30 years. I've had the offer of a ticket on Monday, really can't be bothered with it There's just something wrong with us and has been heading this way for far too long. I considered giving up my ticket last year, but didn't. Enzo's style didn't help matters but could be forgiven. Add everything up though, the 25 quid charge, the extortionate prices of tickets for non season ticket holders, the announcement of the stadium plans followed by complete silence for 3 years, the transfer strategy, PSR breaches (not that I agree with PSR) and the feeling of a complete disconnect between the club and the fans - all just not worth it anymore

We'll be after Dele Ali next ......

Because Szmodics (one reason not to sign him alone, people don't know how to spell his name) is actually pretty rubbish. He's a David Nugent type of player, a bit too good for the Championship, nowhere near the standard of the Premier league. Absolutely no reason at all that a club in our position should be risking £20million plus on that type of player

Why are some of you moaning about the club because of the breakdown in this move? The people in charge of our transfers have made a mess recently but this deal looks to have fallen through because of "tax implications" there's absolutely nothing at all the club can do about that. It would appear obvious that those tax implications are from the players side of things so what can we do about that? I give a lot of stick to the club for some of our transfer dealings in recent years, but there's not much they can do about this one

We've got one, we've got two, we've got more Wilfred's than you

Maybe he doesn't want to come if we don't stay up? Then he'd flat out reject us anyway if the deal now was a permanent transfer rather than a loan? The only way players of this calibre and potential are going to come here is on a loan with purchase options should we stay up (which is good business if he does smash it because his goals could potentially be the difference and he's our player) or we pay them ridiculous wages and find ourselves in a deeper mess than we are already. How is any part of this deal "bad business"? We can't afford him outright and still strengthen other areas, there's no guarantee that he's going to smash it, he's hardly set the world in fire and with that there's no guarantee we're going to make a profit on him. Daka was sure fire hit, as was Soumare, what makes this guy any different? There's always an "option" on any player, if a club wants them, they have the "option" to bid for him. If we go down and he's enjoyed his time here, if he's happy to play in the championship and if we can afford him, there's no reason why we can't still buy him at the end of the season.