Clint

He is not the worst striker in 40 years. He is being judged based on his price tag, which he had no influence on. If we base him on pure footballing ability, he is nowhere near the worst. Bearing in mind he only ever played for us in the top flight as well, and only in a very poorly managed side. We’ve had strikers who’ve been absolutely dreadful in much lower leagues in much better set-ups.

Whatever anyone thinks of his time here, I bumped into him just after that fateful first season and he seemed a really good bloke, desperate to do well and repay the faith shown in him. Rightly or wrongly, he was never given that opportunity. That’s absolutely terrible news but he’s lucky he got that bang on the head and the doctors found it early. He definitely has my best wishes and hopefully makes a full recovery to continue his career.

We sold Jacob for, what was then, silly money, off the back of a decent but not spectacular, half season in the championship. I’m not surprised he hasn’t made it in the prem yet, as we wasn’t anywhere near that standard when he left.

My experiences of Daryl Sutch are far from positive!

So do the fixtures count as a first team match? It’s a strange scenario if one teams appearances and goals count in the record books but the other teams doesn’t.

I think Farke picks his CB pairing on which dominant foot they have, ie one right and one left footer. Which is why certain pairings are never seen. I may be wrong but I think Hanley is Zimbo’s direct replacement.

Bethnal, would he be an improvement on Onel? I may be a bit biased but on his day, Argos is a superb player and his improvement from first signing to last season was phenomenal. Do you not think he can still progress? Bowen isn’t proven at the top level and a completely different type of player IMHO.

On the basis he was said to be signing and was part of the kit promo, I guess this’ll be announced shortly. Hopefully anyway.

I think it’s arguably more important that we keep hold of our better players, than sign additional ones. Losing Max for example, would be a huge blow. We do need back up in certain areas and when I posted I wouldn’t be too worried with no additional signings, I forgot Rhodes isn’t actually our player anymore!

Based on last season, I’ll leave it to Webber! Roberts was clearly a primary target and is already here. I would think we may only see another 2 maybe 3 signings so there isn’t going to be a revolving door scenario like in other seasons. If we got to the start of the season having signed no-one else, I’m not sure I would be too bothered as I would like to see the current players given a go. Possibly naive but then who’d have thought they’d have torn up the championship last season.

Jools, wasn’t McLean Scotland’s best player in their recent qualifiers? According to a number of Scottish ex-playing pundits.

£600 a week to £12k a week is less than a £12k a week pay rise. Sounds ridiculous but a £12k a week pay rise is a pretty small one in premier league world!

Mario in the middle with McLean out wide. Anyway, that’s not really the point. All I’m saying is maybe both Vrancic and Cantwell are stalling on signing new contracts as they want reassurances on game time. Seems understandable, given the very different but respective very important stages of their careers. Neither needs to be spending half the season or more, sitting on our bench.

I’m not saying Mario doesn’t deserve a new contract, as he definitely does. I’m looking at it from his point of view. Does he want to sign if, rightly or wrongly, he’s got too many people ahead of him? I’m not sure of the stats but I think he started less than 15 matches last season. The point about Todd was that in those games when Buendia was suspended, he started two of them ahead of Vrancic, who you’d have thought would’ve been a shoe in at that stage.

Mario and Todd are both in discussions I believe. Maybe they want guarantees about playing. As good as Mario was last season, he was never really seemed to be first choice. Todd was actually keeping him out of the team at times!