MikeyBoro

Just noticed Steffen still doesn’t have a club - would we have got him if we’d held out? Or do we think wages were the issue?

Would definitely stick a recall clause on Coburn. If he’s in double figures by Jan we will want him back.

Could next summer be the first one for over a decade where we don’t need a ‘summer rebuild’?! 😮

Rogers also has our largest resale potential. If you look at someone like Alex Scott who plays in the same position and is a similar age, he’s just gone to Bournemouth for a package worth up to £25m, and I know his role isn’t necessarily to score goals but he only scored once last season, with 4 assists. Imagine if Rogers could get into double figures for goals/assists, we’d be able to get a very good amount for him.

Even if we don’t get Hayden, I’m glad to see we are targetting a defensive midfielder.

I don’t think Spence is a good enough defender, we’d probably concede even more goals.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the additional fees are very much in Spurs thinking when it comes to selling Spence. If they’re appearance dependent, it may be less risky to just cut their losses than to play him and see how he gets on, because if he plays the season but doesn’t perform, they might owe us a few more bob.

He played today, maybe a post match interview with their manager or something?

Similar numbers to Zian Flemming in the Dutch league, and he’s a great player for Millwall.

Sounds like the source might’ve been some sort of TV interview? Which is why there’s no article?

Pritchard would be ok but i would be a bit disappointed if he’s the experienced player we want for the number 10 role. I’d rather we go for someone around 25 who is experienced in this league but still with room to grow. At this point in his career Pritchard is only likely to decline.

Would be really disappointed if McGree goes

I think our squad is at ‘minimum viable product’ at the moment - we can be relatively competitive as we’ve got all our positions filled, but there’s still quality to add at right back, centre mid, number 10, striker and back up left back. Centre mid most essential for me.

That’s a fair point - I think it’s difficult because so many of the players we had massively exceeded expectations, to the point where we finished the season with the second best squad in the league and lots of premier league quality players. The club would’ve had to fork out £30/40m to get close to the same quality of squad which was never an option realistically. But I do understand the frustration from fans in that we do have a perceivably weaker team.

Yep - I think it’s important to note that we, as a club, have turned Archer into a £20m forward, Ramsey into a £12m midfielder and Giles into a Premier League wingback. That was all us, giving them experience, giving them the right coaching and allowing them to play their natural games. The unfortunate reality is that we did it for the benefit of other teams last year. There is absolutely nothing to tell me that we won’t do the same for our own players this time around.

I think people are seriously overestimating how well thought of (by our fans) Ramsey, Archer, Giles and Steffen were when they first signed last season. Ramsey was a bit of a ‘never heard of him!’ reaction, ‘he wasn’t good enough for Norwich’ etc. etc. he only had about 30 career games when he joined on loan. Giles was seen as a bit of a risk too, having had a fairly poor half a year at Blackburn. Yes he’d done well at Cardiff but it wasn’t a wholly positive consensus. Steffen was very much seen as a ‘dodgy’ keeper, because everyone referred back to his mess up for City in the c

Haaland and Rashford 🤞🤞🤞

We should’ve went and got Ethan Laird for that right back spot. Carrick might know him as well.

Thats’s a fair point - I maybe worded it too strongly, I wasn’t suggesting that Lenihan and Fry can only tackle, block, head etc., I was more so saying that I don’t see them as ‘ball playing defenders’, although I recognise they’re far from bad at it.

The thing with Lenihan and Fry is that they’re both victims of our new style. If they were playing for a more defensive minded and compact team, think Luton or Coventry (last season), they’d look so much better. They’re both excellent defenders, but not much else (and they don’t necessarily need to be anything else for us). As someone else has already pointed out, they deal with 9 out of 10 dangerous attacks really well, but because of a flaw in our system, and arguably the way our midfield currently operates, they are exposed to a higher quantity of those dangerous attacks than they woul

Brum have had a class window. They got Ethan Laird on a permanent too. £500k I read somewhere. We should’ve been all over them two. Definite outsiders for the playoffs.

I’d like us to sign a big aggressive centre back who’s horrible to play against. Fry and Lenihan are both great but both lack that aggression that puts the fear in strikers. Think Pontus Jansson.

This is why I absolutely love the transfer window - some bloke has gone down to Manchester to meet his mate and watch the Man Utd vs Wolves game, probably sat having some pre match scran right now, none the wiser that a bunch of people are debating over whether or not he’s Middlesbrough’s next signing. Do footballers typically walk around in public wearing the shirt of the club they play for?!?

Crooks plays his best football on the right of a midfield three, where he can play the passing triangles with the winger and full back, and make late runs into the box to get on the end of crosses.

Dieng Smith Lenihan Fry Engel Howson Hackney Forss Willock McGree Lath That looks so much better already, hopefully with 1 or 2 more still to come in.