Transfermarkt shows him as playing 9 times last season as LW and 2 as RW, with 6 at CF, so nearly twice as much on the wings. And pretty much the same time on the wings as CF the season before, plus a couple of games at AM. The season before, more games at RW and LW combined than at CF. So I don't know why you think they have him down as not playing there a lot? FM seem to go off the most recent season/s, and they probably picked right over left for their position suitability as he's right-footed. Course, all a bit complicated by the way wide players are used these days...he's actually down on FM as AMR primarily, which is further upfield than traditional 'wingers' played, though has 'Winger (Attack)' as his most suitable, but not necessarily best, role (rather than position), followed by 'Inside Forward (attack)'. The lines between wide players, wingers and forwards have been blurred a lot in recent years so I think we can forgive the discrepancies, but something like pace is a pretty straightforward assessment. Albeit the general category of speed on FM is broken up into pace (max running speed), agility (how quickly you can shift direction) and acceleration (how quickly you can go from standing to max speed). The point really was just that he's assessed as being pretty rapid, by a game that goes quite far to get broadly accurate assessments of players and has even at times been used by professional clubs. I expect him to be quick, although since he's been out of action for so long I don't think we will see all of that right away. Oh and I expect whilst here he will primarily play CF, although that may depend on how long Gueye's form continues. He may have to play wide to begin with when they're both on the pitch.

Looking a bit more closely at Dennis' career, he seems to be a roughly 1 goal in 4 games striker. Over his whole career he averages less than this (verging on 1 in 5) but on the whole I'd call it 1 in 4 (when you factor in that some of those games he was very young, and that he has spent most of his time in top tier leagues including the Prem and Bundesliga). His spell last season with Watford, he got just under a goal in every 4 in this league, so I think that's a fair expectation to apply. I'm not sure that's quite enough tbh, but if we extrapolate it, assuming he played every game he would notch 3 or 4 goals in the remaining 15 games (can't play tonight), if he played every match. If that's right, and hopefully he proves this wrong and bags 7 or 8, I hope they come at key times to win us points. He may also add more than that in terms of his general play of course, and we need pace like he supposedly has, to stretch teams for tactical reasons. Side note, FM 24 has him down as being quicker than Kargbo (85 acceleration and 90 pace, out of 99, compared to 80 acc and 75 pace). That's really rapid tbf, and I know it's only a computer game but they do their research, consulting fans and scouts, and aren't usually too far out. Those are easily his stand-out attributes on there, followed by bravery (80), agility (75), then aggression, flair and penalties (all 70).

Or just leave it open and let people talk about it whenever they want to talk about it.

The deal isn't cheap anyway, really. Obviously relative to his contract it is, but 20k per week is the top end of what we pay, in fact it seems nobody else at the club is on that. I think I read 18k for Siggy (I know) and after that it's all 15k or less? It's also going to cost about 340k - although that's before adding these 'bonuses' that are mentioned. I don't know if that's appearance and goal bonuses, which will be huge in an 80k per week contract, or a bonus for Boro if he plays frequently, like the monthly loan fees based on appearances you can arrange on FM. Either way I'd expect it ends up costing more like 500k total, which is nearly enough to buy a Kargbo on a permanent, for a loan lasting just under 4 months. And he may or may not take a few weeks to get up to speed. (Before anyone feels the need to pounce, yes it will be a great deal if he fires us to the playoffs, but in real terms the deal isn't cheap)

The much maligned club? Go fuck yourself Nicko.

Tbf yeh that's about double what I expected. Bit of a risk unless they're confident in their other options whilst he gets fit. If it were us, I'd maybe have accepted him and Dennis, but with reservations as likely neither is ready to go. In and of itself, a player out that long brought on loan...you can take that risk start of the season I'd say but there's not a lot of months left now to take a player who is guaranteed to miss at least one of them.

None of the indications are that we avoided it. We won't know of course, but all the press talk had us very interested, but that the player chose Sunderland. The fact a team in 4th place and 13 points ahead of us took him on despite knowing about his back, suggests he won't be out long.

Swag is definitely part of the problem.

Failing a medical doesn't mean you're not allowed to sign. It's just advisory for the club (and I guess it might mean you can't insure them?). They've clearly decided they're willing to take the risk on him, knowing he will be out briefly, and let him rest and come back.

We're not playing in the PL, we're playing in the Championship. Where Armstrong's last 3 seasons are: 46 games, 21 goals 40 games, 28 goals 46 games, 16 goals And Dennis' record is 19 games, 4 goals. Armstrong's pace lets him really shred teams in this league in a way he can't in the Prem. Also worth mentioning in those seasons he totalled 24 assists. Dennis got none. In fact Dennis' entire career total of assists is 24. And his career total of goals is 52, in all competitions. Armstrong got 65 in those three seasons in this league, the one we play in. Dennis has genuine quality and could be a real asset for us. But he also hasn't played since last April, and Armstrong is a monster in this league. Anything could happen, but if Armstrong signs for WBA I'm pretty confident he'll score more than Dennis.

That's completely fair! You just shouldn't say you've fulfilled his request when you haven't. You didn't even give your assessment of the other four signings.

You didn't even fulfil his request, you just danced around it. He asked, what do you think of the signings?

Do Sheff U have as many players out of contract in the summer? They're also odds on for automatic promotion, playoffs at worst, so bringing in the best players they can, short term if need be, makes more sense for them as they will have immense funds to buy permanent Prem quality players soon. Meanwhile we will have done very well indeed if we qualify for the playoffs, which are a lottery, and are more than likely to be in this league again next season. Might be different if we had struck earlier.

Can you imagine 😂 'Sorry Cauley, we didn't think Dennis would actually sign the contract, and Rudy was doing his best to sit on the fax machine whilst Swag sent photocopies of his arse to the EFL, not sure how Dennis' paperwork got through.'

Signing more than one player we will own past the summer, with a bit of the 40 mill we have reaped, would help. As would a proven, prolific Championship striker like it sounds like WBA got, rather than one who is struggling at this level and one who hasn't played for nearly a year. And/or cover for CM that isn't fuckin Forshaw. It's definitely looking better than it did before today. But the striker options are firmly a gamble (yes yes, all signings are a gamble, blah blah, but it's about degrees) and if Trav and Tron don't stay fit upon their returns we are a bit of injury trouble from our strongest position becoming our weakest. It's not a disaster of a window, and with who we have in charge we may be able to scrape 6th even, but ultimately we have been in our best spending position in years and spent 800k in fees on only one player who will be here past summer. A summer in which a huge chunk of the squad are out of contract or returning to parent clubs. It's kind of amazing we brought in 6 players and didn't address that, and still have an Achilles heel in CM if injuries to two players there persist (which I suspect they will, Travis was down 3 times in the last match).

'The league didn't tell us there are no longer deal sheets in the EFL. Well, turns out they did but it went into our junk mail. So we just sent the deal in principle before 11, thinking we still had 2 hours to finalise it.'

That suggests you know it isn't true for an absolute fact. And you don't know that.

We must really think they're fit if we're pulling them off.

I think that is the technical term for someone who looks at YouTube highlight reels 😉 Perfect timing, I'd have hated to get someone on that job while they had time to add their analysis for the benefit of this crucial window.

I'd really rather he didn't. Hopefully he fails it.

52

The LB, Ribeiro (not Bruno)

Watford were actually in the Prem when he scored 10 for them.

Not true.

Romano is one of the most reliable in the transfer stories game.