Steven Berghuis

Well in that case, we're going to have to bring in some more homegrown players then.

 

Gradel would be perfect.

As mentioned above, we are at the point that new signings are going to need to be homegrown.

 

Think Yoghurt ad !

 

I don't "want" Dyer but the homegrown thing means we might need him (unless we get Gradel, in that case Dyer can f off). Dyer is crap and Fessi isn't great, but he could do a job. Anya is decent enough as a back-up. He didn't have the greatest of seasons last year, but he finished the season well IMO. I've just said Lewis only because it seems the club are hyping him up a bit, but chances are he'll just be in the u-21 team. I think you underestimate the squad a bit

 

How? You've just gone through and agreed that 3 of our potential wingers are pretty much crap. We're going into the toughest league in the world, and I honestly wouldn't be happy with any of those 3 starting in the Championship.

 

I move for no man

 

I think Dennon will definitely be seeing a bit of cup action next season.

 

Well I assumed you said the 2-3 signings were for the whole squad and not just the winger position, to which I'm saying we don't need to (that's excluding Berghuis and Immers). That's what I'm referring to when I said you underestimate our squad.

 

I think we'll just move out the players who are backups if they're foreign. For example Paredes and Pudil are clear backups now, it wouldn't surprise me if they are moved on and a cheap or a loan homegrown player was brought in to replace them. Dowling probably has a whole list of homegrown players to bring in but we're getting the first choice players sorted first.

 

I'm guessing of the two girls variety...

 

Can we have a bit of faith in the players that got us promoted?

 

Didn't we go down that road on the last two occasions we were at the top table? I seem to remember we were relegated both times.

 

I agree with you to an extent, but I also agree with Yellowkicks and his assessments of Dyer and Anya (the latter reluctantly). I do think though that he's being a tad harsh on Fessi. He may flourish this season, but he has really got to improve on his decision making.

 

Looks good,

 

Yes because it worked the last 2 times we were promoted and we definitely did not finish rock bottom with barely enough points to stop us from driving.

 

No...

 

Agreed, we needed signings, but some fans think we need new players in EVERY position. A lot of our promotion team were (rightly in my opinion) described as Premier League quality last season. I think our promotion team would have survived without ANY signings, a few decent signings should propel is up to mid table in my view.

 

You think the promoted side would have survived without ANY signings? Do you want to reconsider that?

 

must be drunk

 

and we have :jumping1:

 

Would be touch and go but Leicester survived with only 2 or 3 signings, and I honestly believe we were a better team than Leicester when they got promoted

 

Gino will show zero sentimentality - there are hundreds of millions of pounds at stake

Of the promoted team I expect only Deeney, Vydra, Ighalo, Cathcart, Gomes, Angella to be with us long term

 

Not sure, they got 102 points and only lost 6 games all season! Plus they brought in about 8-9 players last season (including the January window) who ended up playing a part.

 

Every team buys players every summer regardless of what league that team plays in. I think we have needed the players we have signed. At times last year when Abdi was out our midfield looked very weak. Same in the full back area's. lets not talk about defending at times either. So yes we do need players. the core of the team that got us up will still be around. We have added some real quality.

 

I'm well aware that actually, as a season progresses, a lot of clubs disappoint..it happened in the championship too..clubs expected to do well, didn't!

But I predict a very tough PL season this time rounfd! Last season the likes of Sunderland, Newcastle, Leicester, Villa were all involved in the relegation scrap until the last few games. This season 3 of those clubs start with new managers, while Villa only recently changed theirs. The club won the Championship play-off only finished 3 points behind us and beat us 6-0 on aggregate! WBA have a manager who has never been relegated. West Ham struggled last year after Christmas and have a new man in charge. And so it goes on. Nearly every club will start this PL season confident of progressing from last season. So I believe we've 'picked' a tough year to be back in the PL and therefore we're absolutely right to have bolstered our squad so intensely as we have.

I was trying to think this morning about the current list of 20 PL managers and of those, how many have been relegated in this country..I could only think of Martinez..any others?

 

Burnley got over 90 points that season! Pretty low standard that season

 

Yes but the point is Leicester ran away with the league and still ended up signing nearly a new teams worth of players!

http://www.wdsport.co.uk/2015/07/lex-immers-has-a-medical-and-steven-berghuis-interest-confirmed/

Moving onto this, is it me or are they saying another striker is coming in? Surely not? Vydra definitely better get used to life out wide if that's the case!

 

Absolutely, if Abdi stayed fit we'd give anyone a game.

 

We can have a bit of faith in the players who are clearly good enough to make the step up - your Abdi's, Deeney's, Gomes' etc. but sentiment has to and will go out of the window for anyone the management and owners view as not able to perform to the required level, and rightly so.

Roll on more signings.

 

Two-footed? Not many of those!

 

Done a lot of work up here in Newcastle. they defo think they will struggle again this year. They are a little envious of the fact that we have strengthened our squad while they at the moment anyway havent. They are not convinced about the manager and there is a lot of negativity around, so i think they will struggle.
That MASSIVE club Leicester will also struggle. Pearson got them playing as a team. I would think a lot of players are upset he has gone. A big job there. Bmuff and Norwich will also be right down there as well. Everyone bangs on about Norwich having a prem team, yes the team that got them relegated have they strengthened?
As for Bmuff they did do well last year no doubt about that. but there are bigger and better teams in this league at conning ref's, better defenders are not going to get sucked in to Wilson like they did last year. Left back from Ipswich with no experience and a 38 yr old cb (who was exposed at Everton in the last year or so. QPR tried the same thing with Rio and look how that worked out) are not going to keep them up. I really think there will be enough guff teams to ensure we can stay up. Yes it will be tough, yes we will struggle but in the 2nd half of the season I fancy us to pull out of trouble.

 

Lordy, not sure if this has been mentioned already/elsewhere, but WDSport's piece on Immers and Berghuis says that they are certain to be followed by an out and out striker!

http://www.wdsport.co.uk/2015/07/lex-immers-has-a-medical-and-steven-berghuis-interest-confirmed/

 

Maybe instead of selling, we could loan some of our surplus players to Granada and return the favour.

 

We needed two full-backs, one central defender and a defensive midfielder in this transfer window. If Florrie is set on four at the back, having inherited a squad built for three at the back, then we also needed a winger. Once we'd seen the surviving members of the promotion squad playing at Prem level, we'd know what reinforcements were needed in January (undoubtedly some). But bringing in almost a whole new team at this stage risks losing tactical cohesion and team spirit. Somebody - maybe Wenger - said that three new players is the optimum, and that Spurs lost out because they brought in too many.

January signings are more expensive, but picking up hardly any points in the first two months of the season as the head coach experiments would be even more expensive.

Of course it may be that Florrie is a tactical and man-management genius and that all our new signings hit the ground running. In which case, I'll hold my hand up, as I did with the Cathcart signing.