[Salopbaggie]

I understand the points people are making about. not signing players unless they improve the squad, but I think we need to wake up and smell the coffee.

The point is we do not have a squad, so by its very definition any player would improve the squad, by how much is the question. We have 16 established first team players, (make that 14 during the Africa Cup of Nations), which means we could not put out a squad including subs without including academy players.

This begs the question, to improve the squad does a player we bring in, just need to be better than our academy players to justify the tag of improving the squad. Another question is where has all the money gone?

We have been told for years we can not afford this and we can not afford that, we have had "JP is froogle and the club will not spend above their means", fair enough, I agreed with that.

Since then we have had two increases in T.V money , income from sales and transfers, sponsorship deals, we will not mention our new billionaire owner, WHERE HAS THE MONEY GONE? (other than £9-£12 million on a £600,000 player who its doubtful will ever play at the Hawthorns)

I am not saying we should be matching Man City and their £210 mil, so far!!! (What happened to the F.F.P.R., while we are asking where things have gone) or even United with their £146 mil spend, but surely we should be up there with the Huddersfield's (no offence A.C. x) £41.2 Mil. I know we still have 4 weeks to go followed by the 16 weeks of the club making excuses saying "well they missed pre-season, so they will be fit after xmas". It is almost as if pre-season catches the club by surprise every year and they do not know it is coming up.

I see only two solutions to our dilemma, we bite the bullet and start paying the asking price (which some clubs will pay) for players or we close down the UK scouting scene and do all of our scouting overseas, though of course Brexit will dramatically reduce the possibilities in that area.

Rant over