[Albion] Philip Billing

[Justice]

This x 1,000,000. I think he would be a superb addition.

Have to agree definitely an upgrade on what we have dismantled Wolves last season always looking to move forward.

 

[hans kraay fan club]

And we nearly signed Grabban at one point. Dodged a bullet there.

and ignored Aspinall's recommendation to go for Callum Wilson

 

[hans kraay fan club]

Mousset? Mings? Grabban? er, Murray?

For every Aaron Brooks or Nathan Ake there's one who didn't come off and one who has been so-so. Same at most clubs. The difference is that their owner (now a British citizen, I believe) seems willing to pay what looks like ridiculous money for fairly average players. But that's balanced by unearthing good players like Josh King for nothing.

People are too keen to suggest that Ali J and Locadia's stumbles represent a failure of our recruitment department, while forgetting that Ryan, Duffy, Bernardo, Bissouma, Propper, Knockaert, Izquierdo and Gross have worked out pretty well. Plus we have produced two Premier League-quality players in Dunk and March, which Bournemouth haven't.

Agree with all this, apart from Mings in the 'miss' list. The guy barely played for them, but a £12m+ profit, can't really be considered a recruitment blunder.

 

[OzMike]

Bound for Bournemouth according to Sporting Life.

 

[Gritt23]

How have we got to the point where we accept that we'll never compete with B'muff for a player? And if we can't compete with them, what hope anyone outside the Prem? Did they just get lucky with the timing of their promotion? Jumped on the gravy train as it left the station.

And this is the point I keep coming back to with where our expectations are. As we slipped to the edge of the relegation zone, I kept hearing people saying we shouldn't be "down there" but the reality is that the teams just ahead of "down there" are teams that we simply cannot compete with for signings. So, we end up with inferior players to the teams in 10-14th, so 15-20th is our mini-league.

I wondered if the sacking of Hughton was partly because that was about to change and for whatever reason TB didn't feel comfortable handing more expensive signings over to CH. But it seems not, we are continuing to fail to compete with the likes of Bournemouth for signings, to the extent that we all dismiss our chances of signing someone as soon as Bournemouth join the chase.

So 15-20th it is again. Strap yourself in for a battle to survive, and no more. If we do better than that then serious kudos to Potter, because he will have outperformed the squad he's been given.

 

[Gritt23]

No ones interested in Mooy seems a decent player.

Agreed. It's very odd, as I thought he would be the first player teams chased down, yet he looks set for a season in The Championship.

But I thought the same last season about Joe Allen at Stoke, and he never went anywhere.

Sadly, it probably just means I'm a pretty poor judge of a player.