[Beefy 1965]

Few tabloids reporting Jay Rod should be done soon
He wants to move here !!

Southampton striker Jay Rodriguez is reportedly keen on making the switch to West Brom this summer.

According to a report from the Birmingham Mail, the one-time England international is looking to leave the south coast this summer and has identified the Hawthorns as the perfect destination to revitalise his career.

[Mosestheballwinner]

Your approaching the Transfer policy all wrong. Thanks to Leicester and our mid table safety TP can argue that we only need to score more goals in 33 minutes than the opposition do in 90 minutes and the jobs done. Hoof it down the pitch and play off the scraps for half an hour is what we see. Howard Wilkinson started it and came up with the coach garble "second phase" ball to make it sound more technical than it is. He went on to be FA Technical Director so What do we know about such things?

We are horrible to watch. Bereft of attacking instinct with a limited choice of players and styles. We lack pace, game intelligence and flair. That is Pulis's fault and we really need an overhaul. New players and ideas are needed to fix our deficiencies.

[Baggievicar]

Few tabloids reporting Jay Rod should be done soon
He wants to move here !!

Southampton striker Jay Rodriguez is reportedly keen on making the switch to West Brom this summer.

According to a report from the Birmingham Mail, the one-time England international is looking to leave the south coast this summer and has identified the Hawthorns as the perfect destination to revitalise his career.

Charlie Taylor wanted to come here as well, so they said. We'll see.

[drewks]

Seems like anyone who would like game time in the PL will be linked with us and maybe even say they WANT to come to us ......until another club approacheth!

[Stairs]

I know this will sound very innocent but at the end of the day West Brom employ people to scout, watch and assess players and also to consider their fit into the squad and plans of West bromwich Albion.

We were linked to Taylor, and get linked (or are rumoured to be linked) to numerous players but have chosen not to take it further - we have to hope that the logic and thinking is good.

So Burnley are welcome to have him as he suited us a few years ago and last but now does not have what we want.

Let's wait for the window to open and take stock at the end of July - it might not be any different frm previous years - but we will only know that for sure come August 1st.

Stairs, the only thing I would say to that is, why renew the recent interest in him?

We only have the press to say that real interest was shown.

But let's say we did. We might have made one enquiry because he was effectively on a free. But then we found out it was not as simple as that and silly money was being talked about.

Once it was clear we could not take a low cost risk and add him to the squad we brushed it aside and moved on.

Minor, casual interest blown out of all proportion by the press - as usual

[Beefy 1965]

Henry Onyekuru

http://c.newsnow.co.uk/A/891440637?-11200:789:0

Cross this one off
Everton buying everything that moves

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/footbal...ekuru.html

[BaggieSteve]

Let's be honest with ourselves, despite all press and agent speculation linking us to some exciting young overseas, and occasionally domestic, talent, this transfer window will follow the others of recent years and provide us with a slew of completely uninspiring signings, ones that fit the Pulis mound of hard working, ageing, Premier League players who have either seen better days or are cheap because they've gone off the boil and couldn't score in a brothel. There will be no signings that will take your breath away or even excite you, just run of the mill journeymen, most likely from recently relegated clubs. The tactics next season will be the same as last season - defend, defend and then defend some more, cede all the possession going, pray that Fozzie plays a blinder and hope to nick a goal from a corner in the one attack we have late in the second half. Oh, and pay £30+ for the privilege of watching it. As long as Pulis is manager, this club I have supported since 1962 will play some of most boring, sterile football any of us can imagine, devoid of creativity or flair. Not losing and survival will be all that counts, some ambition. It doesn't have to be like this, clubs similar in size and stature to us make a better fist of it, have more belief, more courage. Who we sign and the efforts made to get them on board tell us a lot; right now clubs around us are being ambitious, are doing business. What do we do? We baulk at paying a reported £5milion for a young and, by all accounts, talented left back (a position we all agree we desperately need to fill), even though we have a £40million transfer kitty but will spend £12million on a non scoring, injury prone striker who cannot get into the starting line up of a club similar to ourselves. I know this is a very negative and I would dearly love to be proved wrong, at which point I will happily eat humble pie on this forum and admit my error, but right now I see nothing to convince me that this transfer window and next season will be any different to our recent history.

[drewks]

Let's be honest with ourselves, despite all press and agent speculation linking us to some exciting young overseas, and occasionally domestic, talent, this transfer window will follow the others of recent years and provide us with a slew of completely uninspiring signings, ones that fit the Pulis mound of hard working, ageing, Premier League players who have either seen better days or are cheap because they've gone off the boil and couldn't score in a brothel. There will be no signings that will take your breath away or even excite you, just run of the mill journeymen, most likely from recently relegated clubs. The tactics next season will be the same as last season - defend, defend and then defend some more, cede all the possession going, pray that Fozzie plays a blinder and hope to nick a goal from a corner in the one attack we have late in the second half. Oh, and pay £30+ for the privilege of watching it. As long as Pulis is manager, this club I have supported since 1962 will play some of most boring, sterile football any of us can imagine, devoid of creativity or flair. Not losing and survival will be all that counts, some ambition. It doesn't have to be like this, clubs similar in size and stature to us make a better fist of it, have more belief, more courage. Who we sign and the efforts made to get them on board tell us a lot; right now clubs around us are being ambitious, are doing business. What do we do? We baulk at paying a reported £5milion for a young and, by all accounts, talented left back (a position we all agree we desperately need to fill), even though we have a £40million transfer kitty but will spend £12million on a non scoring, injury prone striker who cannot get into the starting line up of a club similar to ourselves. I know this is a very negative and I would dearly love to be proved wrong, at which point I will happily eat humble pie on this forum and admit my error, but right now I see nothing to convince me that this transfer window and next season will be any different to our recent history.

Can't argue with that, BS - I think that THIS window will prove, one way or another, if TP does have any ambition to do anything more than grind out enough results to survive.
Let's hope he suprises us all

[Slick_Footwork]

Let's be honest with ourselves, despite all press and agent speculation linking us to some exciting young overseas, and occasionally domestic, talent, this transfer window will follow the others of recent years and provide us with a slew of completely uninspiring signings, ones that fit the Pulis mound of hard working, ageing, Premier League players who have either seen better days or are cheap because they've gone off the boil and couldn't score in a brothel. There will be no signings that will take your breath away or even excite you, just run of the mill journeymen, most likely from recently relegated clubs. The tactics next season will be the same as last season - defend, defend and then defend some more, cede all the possession going, pray that Fozzie plays a blinder and hope to nick a goal from a corner in the one attack we have late in the second half. Oh, and pay £30+ for the privilege of watching it. As long as Pulis is manager, this club I have supported since 1962 will play some of most boring, sterile football any of us can imagine, devoid of creativity or flair. Not losing and survival will be all that counts, some ambition. It doesn't have to be like this, clubs similar in size and stature to us make a better fist of it, have more belief, more courage. Who we sign and the efforts made to get them on board tell us a lot; right now clubs around us are being ambitious, are doing business. What do we do? We baulk at paying a reported £5milion for a young and, by all accounts, talented left back (a position we all agree we desperately need to fill), even though we have a £40million transfer kitty but will spend £12million on a non scoring, injury prone striker who cannot get into the starting line up of a club similar to ourselves. I know this is a very negative and I would dearly love to be proved wrong, at which point I will happily eat humble pie on this forum and admit my error, but right now I see nothing to convince me that this transfer window and next season will be any different to our recent history.

I'm not sure that Phillips and Chadli fit that mould, nor Livermore or Evans for that matter.

People seem to be forgetting the side that TP inherited, full of either aging or bog standard Premier League players. We scraped up by the skin of our teeth the season before he came and looked nailed on for relegation the season he arrived too. Clearly we have improved massively since his arrival.

Now I don't want to make it sound like I'm a big fan Pulis, because I'm not. I agree the football needs to be better, particularly away from home where we could play against the Hen and Chickens and go for a draw. However, the improvement is there to see, despite pathetic backing.

On the subject of pathetic backing last year -in 16-17 our net spend was less than £10m. Less than Sunderland, Burnley, Bournemouth, Watford and Hull. And significantly less than West Ham, Stoke, Palace and Middlesborough! Didn't see any of these sides playing particularly free flowing football either.

In fact, the only teams with a net spend lower than ours were Liverpool, Southampton and Swansea - the former two because of huge player sales.

It's clear to me that like his predecessors, Pulis hasn't been backed in comparison to our competition. Despite this, he gets slagged off left, right and centre by some fans. The reality is, in black and white, he's got us punching well above our weight in terms of league position to what he's been given to spend.

IMO it's time for the board to back him and then if we continue to play rubbish football, we're within our rights to slag him off. At the moment, when he's got us in mid table on a shoestring budget, it feels really harsh to see some of the criticism he gets.

[aries22]

"speak volumes"
Predictive text Steve, it's a pain in the butt !

Your approaching the Transfer policy all wrong. Thanks to Leicester and our mid table safety TP can argue that we only need to score more goals in 33 minutes than the opposition do in 90 minutes and the jobs done. Hoof it down the pitch and play off the scraps for half an hour is what we see. Howard Wilkinson started it and came up with the coach garble "second phase" ball to make it sound more technical than it is. He went on to be FA Technical Director so What do we know about such things?

We are horrible to watch. Bereft of attacking instinct with a limited choice of players and styles. We lack pace, game intelligence and flair. That is Pulis's fault and we really need an overhaul. New players and ideas are needed to fix our deficiencies.

To correct those deficiencies we will need to replace TP.