David Kelly

This is exactly the position we didn't want to be in and shouldn't have been in. There's no getting away from it, the club management are royally fucking this up. Plenty of time left to do what needs to be done but it's getting harder and harder to faith in them doing it.

For one reason or the other we're going to need to speed up the striker recruitment. We're either not going to have Isak or not going to have a fit Isak for the Villa game at this rate. If we have to start Osula up front we may as well fuck PSR right off and take the 10 point deduction because we're not picking up many points at the start of the season anyway.

Lets be honest, it doesn't look good and either way we're going to struggle in the games over there without a striker.

Don't knock holograms!

I'm virtually accepting that apology.

Works well when someone is saying that.

Well done.

I'm fully aware of that and I have no idea why you're wanting to make something of this. If you couldn't work out what I meant when I said he was virtually 29 that's on you I'm afraid.

29 in September hence virtually.

No doubt they're the same people saying just pay the extra £5m or whatever for the last player we were supposed to be low balling for. Seems to me more likely that Wisa will join his old manager at Spurs but to have a regular scorer in the premier league as he is as back up for Isak would be extremely beneficial to us. 29 (virtually) maybe isn't ideal but he should still be able to offer a minimum of 3 good seasons. In only one of the last 9 seasons has he played less than 20 games (playing over 30 in 7 of them) which is much better than Wilson had at the same time in his career. I think we need to realise we can't compete both financially or in terms of global recognition with the likes Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, City or even Man Utd and Spurs so we need to go back to transfer model we used to identify Trippier, Bruno, Botman, Tonali, Isak etc and sign players who aren't at that top level yet but who aren't a million miles off. Especially given that most of the positions we now need to fill are backup to our starting 11 anyway, if we sign players of that quality we'll be in a very good state.

I read first thing this morning that his agents had already said they'd never spoken to that Saudi press and it was complete bullshit.

My brother in law is a Burnley supporter and he's far from convinced Trafford is worth anywhere near £40m. He's also not convinced he's that much better than Pope with his feet. He says the time that opposition teams in the championship allowed him is far more than he'd get in the premier league and doesn't think he'd look that good without it. TBH, from what I've seen, he's never looked that great on the ball even in the championship.

I think there is a question mark against what is paying over the odds and what is paying what is necessary. I fully get the need to not have our pants pulled down and make sure we don't completely fuck ourselves PSR wise for future years, but if it's our valuations that are constantly coming in below what the selling clubs are then you have to wonder whether it's our valuations that are the problem. If you work through your list of preferences and every time you fall short of the valuation then it's not a Saudi tax or a premier league tax or whatever, it's that we're being unrealistic in our expectations. Similarly we're being unrealistic in our expectations if we expect Isak to remain happy to be on the same wage we signed him on when he's gone from being a risky signing to one of the most coveted strikers in world football. It's up to the club to find the answers to this or we're not going to be ready for this season.

I actually thought their home strip last season was pretty decent apart from my obvious hatred for the colour, but these two are pathetic efforts. But I think our 3rd strip is as well, I never liked the strip it's based on in the first place and somehow they seem to have made it worse.

Jesus christ what the fuck is that?

I would say Murphy last season was just as important to us as Elanga was to Forest. Murphy had 20 goal contributions in the league last season and we had no one else who looked like putting in numbers anywhere close to that on the right. I agree with the different points in their career part and I think I'd be looking for £30m+ if we were to sell him. The size of prices we're being quoted for replacements tells me we'd have to value him at that sort of amount. We'd probably get about £15m for him from Saudi though.

I was just interested in what people value Murphy at. He had a better season than Elanga last term so I was wondering how we valued him in comparisson.

Would you accept £45m for Murphy?

The more I read about him the less sense I could really see in signing him. He's played almost exclusively as a striker or a left winger for Brighton and neither of them are positions that we need a starting player for. So £50m-£60m seems unnecessary for backup at this point. I know he has skills that may allow us to play in a different way and we may have been able to use him to work against a low block but it seems to me that we should be signing someone who can go straight into the starting 11 to do that. Which basically means someone who can play on the right. Not sure Elanga would really offer that either mind but we'll see how that progresses.

Totally agree we can't waste time with offers that aren't going to be accepted but I'm not sure that was the case here. It seems the player always wanted to go to London and it seems to me that we've been used as bait to get Chelsea to make the move.

Not saying that this is what you're saying here, but I see a lot on twitter saying we should just pay the extra £5m or £10m as if it's just an extra couple of quid. I know to our owners that sort of money isn't more than change but unfortunately we have to work within the ridiculous constraints of PSR and those are certainly large amounts within the world we working.

Bit much to class Tripps as an overseas player mind.

We were interested in Elanga last year though before Forest had the season where their system seemed to click so he's obviously someone we'd been watching for longer than just one season. We as supporters may be basing everything pretty much on this last season but I've no doubts the club aren't.

It is but it feels like a combination of putting the mockers on the deals and disrespectful to the clubs where these players currently are. It just doesn't sit particularly well with me.

He's also another right footed right winger so he doesn't give us an option to change away from the way we have been using Murphy. I actually like this in the sense that it is something that has really worked between Murphy and Isak but it appears that we would be very much be swapping out like for like without having anyone that we could bring from the bench to play a different way. Joao Pedro wouldn't offer much else down the right in that sense either. So if we come up against an opposition who are nullifying us down the right we may struggle to change things. And I suppose the same could be said about the left, although Joao Pedro is comfortable playing there so, while he's still right footed, he would offer something different. I do hate getting into these thoughts about players we haven't signed mind, I feel we should be waiting when/if they are our players before getting into tactical discussions on them.