Thousands of them just showed up to storm the pitch.

So you think Sharpe got premature tweeting about Anel on holiday? I hope nobody noticed and he got himself cleaned up.

Only earns 6 points on the work permit calculator. Nowhere near enough, wouldn't be possible.

First pro deal for kid I've never heard of: https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/20256806.first-professional-deal-just-magic-monty/ Mentions in there that there is uncertainty over whether Jay Haddow will sign the deal he's been offered. Was a bit surprised to read that.

Tbh, I don't want anyone that ends up in League One instead.

That's fine if that's how you choose to view things. I'm not sure why you expend so much time and energy on castigating people who choose to view it differently though. Adopting a stance of realism based on recent history is perfectly reasonable. I wonder how much of your emotional gains are outweighed by lamenting the thought processes of your fellow fans (and perhaps the disappointment when what you decided to expect to happen invariably doesn't). That said, this summer there is a bit more room for hope than most, with the new team. You'll note that I, who am often critical of what we do, am advocating patience in this early stage of the window. It's because I think it makes sense, not because of a positive or negative mindset.

Let me put it this way, even though I really shouldn't have to. Last season, the top scorer in the National League was Paul Mullin. He scored 28 goals, nice! I guess he must be good enough for the Premier League. After all, if you're good enough, you'll stand out, the level of opposition is apparently irrelevant. We should sign him. Although I'm sure City, Liverpool and Chelsea are circling... Oh and National League is a considerably higher level than AFC Darwen, so it's actually a more realistic comparison. (Note before anyone wades in, I'm not saying Burns isn't good enough, only that 5 goals against shite teams don't demonstrate he is)

Ah I'd been thinking that was a shite result for Hibs! I mean the SPL is poor but the Irish leagues...

Plenty of jokes after he was made Chief Refereeing Officer recently that United have made their first signing of the summer!

It being your conclusion doesn't stop it being warped. It doesn't make any logical sense, sorry.

That's a really warped conclusion to draw. Pretty sure Chris Brown would have notched in those games too.

It seems the assumption is that not moving quickly means we have no money or plan.

It wasn't specified whether they needed to give or receive.

Sure but the opponents aren't of remotely the same quality. The goals were the same size when I used to play, but I don't remember Rovers signing up our star striker who bagged plenty. In fact Paul Gallagher played a couple of matches for us when he was at Rovers' academy and he absolutely shredded the two best teams in our league. Pretty sure he wasn't even trying.

That will add to the delays I mentioned. I'm surprised tbh, I thought they'd identify new targets of course but I would have thought the old list would still have been of some interest. Park only left a week ago didn't he, so they only started drumming up this new list in the last week? The sort of thing you'd usually spend months putting together. Though they'll still use the same scout reports from before presumably.

That's a very fair price, I might even be tempted myself.

I think it's fair to give JDT and GB the benefit of the doubt for now. They're still quite new to the job and the club. We shouldn't have taken so long to get them in. In the fairly short time they've been here they've had to meet the squad, understand the squad and who is or isn't good enough (including the youth players, which will require seeing them up close), get to know the club (staff, facilities, processes), do all the media interviews, settle into the area perhaps with their families, bugger off to Portugal in JDT's case, take training, talk to the owners presumably, assess the existing targets the club drew up, throw some of their own into the mix, analyse who might be attainable within the budget (even harder to do when there are so many players needed...wouldn't have been much use spending 3 mill on Anel and then realising late in the window that the remaining budget was going to fall two players short because clubs or players are demanding more than expected), then go through the transfer process on targets and all the negotiations and back and forth and waiting that entails. They've probably also had to argue with and convince the old shoulder shruggers we've had about the place for years that there are better ways to do things. It certainly helps that there are two of them, and that their duties are split nicely, so some of the above might only apply to one of them. But tbh, if we had signed 5 players by now like Burnley have, I'd be worried we had rushed it all. Burnley's activity is helped by their indubitably larger budget and the fact they engaged Kompany much longer ago than we seem to have engaged JDT. This will have given him a lot more time to assess and plan. I think if nobody is through the door or about to be by early next week, that's when I'll worry the old bungling ways are still dominant.

The fans do, at least on this board. But the more important thing is we sign the right players for all the positions we need and don't overpay too much. It would be ideal to get them in now, but I'd rather sign quality next week than shite this week. Time is approaching being sensitive but it's not there just yet. The club shouldn't rush signings just to ease the anxieties of fans. But if we are two weeks from now and nobody or only say one player in the door, it's going to start to impact our preparations.

On this point, I believe Glimt did have decent finance after their success, having sold some players for good money. So he might not be as easily impressed as you think. Plus he was at Norwich previously so is aware of the larger budgets in England.

I feel like healthy isn't quite as strong a statement as a good budget. It speaks more to it being sufficient to make alright signings than impressive. Of course, he was never going to say it was shit if it is. It would also be stupid to say we have tons to spend as we would get our pants pulled down. Lack of early activity suggests we don't though.

This is minor, but you keep saying it. You quote 'good budget' but the only quote I've seen is 'healthy budget'. Not sure if he has also said good budget.

There were about 4 or 5 reasons to disallow it, some of which were nailed on. I'll admit I forget the specifics because there were so damned many, but I'm fairly sure it was that it was offside, didn't cross the line, a foul, I think a handball and something else. Maybe that it shouldn't have been a corner either? I just tried to find the footage and I struggled. It's not even in a sky sports video on youtube called 'the controversial goals that made Man Utd sign Tevez'. Which shows several of his West Ham goals that season, including a penalty against us in the same game. You could be forgiven for thinking they don't want you to see it... I eventually found it in highlights of the whole match: About 2:40. The glaring reasons to disallow are the fact it definitely doesn't cross the line, and even if it had, Tevez as the scorer was offside in the most obvious way by being the only man stood on the line. The replay doesn't show enough for me to identify where the foul I thought I remembered was, but before the shot is taken all our defenders are appealing for something, I think a handball as the ball comes back from the line first time. A bit ball-to-hand, but you see them given. In fact back then they barely seemed to care about that and any hand contact was handball. Later in the clip we see Bentley sent off for being pushed by Neill and hand balling as a result. We got royally fucked over in that game. It transformed their season. They had just lost the last 5 games, and lost 8 of the last 11, the other 3 being draws. They won the next two after us, including Arsenal away, wobbled for 2 games and won their last 4. They stayed up by exactly 3 points (their GD wouldn't have saved them). Without that dodgy result they went down. Without that dodgy signing they went down. But West Ham legend Trevor Brooking of all people got to decide their punishment for it I think? Or was it him that got to decide what happened with the Olympic Stadium?

Nobody will ever convince me that Manure weren't paying the refs off in the 90's and early 00's. The amount of disgraceful decisions, not even just the lengthy list against us, was shocking. Opponents' goals disallowed under bullshit pretences, extremely dodgy Manure goals allowed. Plus Fergie time and all that. We'd have won the league in 94 with fair decisions. But nothing trumps the Ewood game where Lee Sharpe fouled Henning Berg in our penalty area. The scum got a penalty and Berg got sent off.

And there was a foul, and I think the ball didn't cross the line either. I've never seen such an illegal goal get to stand...in fact wasn't this when there were serious doubts about his eligibility to even be playing due to the third party ownership shit? The result transformed West Ham's season and they stayed up. I'll never stop being bitter about it, but then again we had that bit of Miklosko magic back in 1995 so I can live with it!

Most of your post is right, but this part isn't. To stand still we only need to replace the departed players with players of the same standard. Some were very decent(Lenihan, Nyambe, Rothwell, JPVH, arguably Khadra), some were just decent (Poveda), and some were a bit sub-par (Davenport though he maybe straddles decent when fit, Zeefuik, Giles the way we played him and Johnson). I make that 5 very decent, certainly not 8, to stand still. Plus some squad fillers.