Outgoings aside (desirable, of course, but beyond our control), add a keeper (Hendo or other), a good DM (Sangare would possible sock-blowage) and a forward and it doesn’t look too bad, especially compared to Luton, Blunts, Wolves, Everton and maybe others.
Two forwards if Brennan goes, which I think is likely.
Cook set to join Colback at QPR.
Joint player managers by the end of the month. You heard it here first.
So, spend another £80M on it and it looks okay?
I don't think we are going down, there are others in a worse state than us, I just hope we are realistic in our ambition beyond that and don't make silly decisions because we expected better than we get.
I'm far from sure of that. I can see many modes of potential failure, leading to a titsup conclusion.
What I do have is a lot of faith in the coaching.
That's the bit where I'm worried we might make a silly decision.
Which is why I think Brennan will go. Spend another net £30m doesn’t sound so impossible, does it?
With some luck with injuries, I actually think we’d be OK now; thus far we have essentially replaced Henderson/Navas with Turner, and Lodi with Aina/?Richards, plus upgraded our attacking options with Elanga. But if you end up with broadly (net) the same squad, which is roughly where we are now (accepting that they’re no longer a bunch of strangers and are more used to the ‘Ship League), you’re likely to get broadly the same tight struggle for survival. And, though we probably exceeded our fair share of injuries last time out, it still could have been worse; a 3-monther for MGW last March doesn't bear thinking about.
I don’t think our owner - or, to be fair, our manager - are looking for a repeat of last season; they want better than that. And to achieve that we need to sign a couple of players who are genuine upgrades on what we have. So we need to raise some money, and the best source of that is to sell Brennan. There will be howls of anguish from many fans, but it’s the reality of “the Brighton / Brentford / <insert other supposedly well-run club here> model”; you sell a good player every season or so and hope that you invest the money wisely. Don’t expect MGW and/or Danilo to be at Forest for several seasons, for example.
Done well and you progress; done badly and you end up Leicester last season.
Another point worthy of consideration is that there's every chance Danilo and/or MGW move up the league next summer. Would we really want to lose Brennan at the same time?
Leicester, kind of, stopped selling. Maddison, I think, only had a year left this summer. Tielemans went out of contract and left for nowt (I have a feeling there are some others I've forgotten).
Morgan is never going to leave Forest and I will not accept any suggestion to the contrary.
It already happened, mate. Your head is just not letting you embrace the Leicester miracle.
There is only one Morgan who plays for Forest. There is only one Morgan who has ever or will ever play for Forest.
FFS. Gibbs-White is not a great player. Yet. He's a great player in the making who hasn't delivered enough to justify the adulation,
Burn the heretic!
Bonkers. He got more assists last season than Erikksen, Bruno Fernandes, more than Odegaard. And all in a shit team. Then he win the euros. The Telford Messi/Wolves reserve is a great player alright, even though he can and may yet get even better.
The elephant in this particular room, I suspect, is how closely aligned to the
head coach some players (MGW particularly) are. Lose the coach, and we will likely lose some key players (and their effectiveness in the shorter term).
