Next Season's Squad.

[Notts Royal]

Sounds like a good signing & sensible contract length. You don’t hear many 2-year contracts handed out nowadays- should be more commonplace

Would’ve loved to have Miazga back but never mind.
Got a sneaky suspicion Baker might end up back here - very much doubt he’ll have as many suitors as the other loanees we had

[Snowflake Royal]

Sounds like a good signing & sensible contract length. You don’t hear many 2-year contracts handed out nowadays- should be more commonplace

Would’ve loved to have Miazga back but never mind.
Got a sneaky suspicion Baker might end up back here - very much doubt he’ll have as many suitors as the other loanees we had

Which is bonkers given he was every bit as good as Miazga and Martinez, and better than Oliveira and Ejaria.


Reservations about the route we've taken with Virginia, but Morrison seems spot on - provided we don't insist he plays 10 yard passes into trouble and tries to round strikers all the time.

Going in to this season we had four major areas of concern. GK, CB, CM and ST. Two sorted, and one still needing some clearing out before recruiting really. But CM ideally needs a couple of players.

[NewCorkSeth]

Sounds like a good signing & sensible contract length. You don’t hear many 2-year contracts handed out nowadays- should be more commonplace

Would’ve loved to have Miazga back but never mind.
Got a sneaky suspicion Baker might end up back here - very much doubt he’ll have as many suitors as the other loanees we had

Which is bonkers given he was every bit as good as Miazga and Martinez, and better than Oliveira and Ejaria.


Reservations about the route we've taken with Virginia, but Morrison seems spot on - provided we don't insist he plays 10 yard passes into trouble and tries to round strikers all the time.

Going in to this season we had four major areas of concern. GK, CB, CM and ST. Two sorted, and one still needing some clearing out before recruiting really. But CM ideally needs a couple of players.

Who we gonna clear out from the ST section?

[Snowflake Royal]

Sounds like a good signing & sensible contract length. You don’t hear many 2-year contracts handed out nowadays- should be more commonplace

Would’ve loved to have Miazga back but never mind.
Got a sneaky suspicion Baker might end up back here - very much doubt he’ll have as many suitors as the other loanees we had

Which is bonkers given he was every bit as good as Miazga and Martinez, and better than Oliveira and Ejaria.


Reservations about the route we've taken with Virginia, but Morrison seems spot on - provided we don't insist he plays 10 yard passes into trouble and tries to round strikers all the time.

Going in to this season we had four major areas of concern. GK, CB, CM and ST. Two sorted, and one still needing some clearing out before recruiting really. But CM ideally needs a couple of players.

Who we gonna clear out from the ST section?

Well ideally Baldock and McNulty seeing as they're not wanted.

[NewCorkSeth]

Which is bonkers given he was every bit as good as Miazga and Martinez, and better than Oliveira and Ejaria.


Reservations about the route we've taken with Virginia, but Morrison seems spot on - provided we don't insist he plays 10 yard passes into trouble and tries to round strikers all the time.

Going in to this season we had four major areas of concern. GK, CB, CM and ST. Two sorted, and one still needing some clearing out before recruiting really. But CM ideally needs a couple of players.

Who we gonna clear out from the ST section?

Well ideally Baldock and McNulty seeing as they're not wanted.

God I forgot McNulty was here still. My bad.

[Hound]

Sounds like a good signing & sensible contract length. You don’t hear many 2-year contracts handed out nowadays- should be more commonplace

Would’ve loved to have Miazga back but never mind.
Got a sneaky suspicion Baker might end up back here - very much doubt he’ll have as many suitors as the other loanees we had

Which is bonkers given he was every bit as good as Miazga and Martinez, and better than Oliveira and Ejaria.


Reservations about the route we've taken with Virginia, but Morrison seems spot on - provided we don't insist he plays 10 yard passes into trouble and tries to round strikers all the time.

Going in to this season we had four major areas of concern. GK, CB, CM and ST. Two sorted, and one still needing some clearing out before recruiting really. But CM ideally needs a couple of players.

CM massive priority for me now. Not overly fussed about a striker unless there’s a good deal to be had somewhere

[linkenholtroyal]

There are still some good free agents floating around actually.
Josh Mceachran and Jacob Butterfield spring to mind hardest spot to fill would be the striker

[Hound]

Didn’t hear it but appaz the embargo has been lifted

So expect a couple of signings this week, probably starting with Boadu and Ejaria

[Zip]

Didn’t hear it but appaz the embargo has been lifted

So expect a couple of signings this week, probably starting with Boadu and Ejaria

Do you think Boadu will be signed? Was only in the reserve side this morning. Agree about Ejaria. We really need some out too.

[Snowflake Royal]

I don't really see what's changed.

We've only shifted Ward, Bod and Kelly of those still in contract we want to lose, leaving McNulty, Meyler, Baldock, Gunter, McCleary, Popa and Southwood (plus technically Aluko and Mannone) on our books. The sponsorship deal was done weeks ago.

Why would any embargo lift now?

[Zip]

Not much has changed but perhaps the release of McShane, O’Shea, Harriott and Jaakkola has helped aligned to an understanding that we are realistic in our expectations, ie we will be bringing in loanees and freebies.

[Snowflake Royal]

Not much has changed but perhaps the release of McShane, O’Shea, Harriott and Jaakkola has helped aligned to an understanding that we are realistic in our expectations, ie we will be bringing in loanees and freebies.

Yeah but it's the timing I find weird and they also are old news.

[windermereROYAL]

Oliveira confirmed at AEK.

[Hound]

I don't really see what's changed.

We've only shifted Ward, Bod and Kelly of those still in contract we want to lose, leaving McNulty, Meyler, Baldock, Gunter, McCleary, Popa and Southwood (plus technically Aluko and Mannone) on our books. The sponsorship deal was done weeks ago.

Why would any embargo lift now?

Dunno, what Gomes said apparently

Not sure on Boadu. Strange he has played so much if we didn’t want him

[Snowflake Royal]

I don't really see what's changed.

We've only shifted Ward, Bod and Kelly of those still in contract we want to lose, leaving McNulty, Meyler, Baldock, Gunter, McCleary, Popa and Southwood (plus technically Aluko and Mannone) on our books. The sponsorship deal was done weeks ago.

Why would any embargo lift now?

Dunno, what Gomes said apparently

Not sure on Boadu. Strange he has played so much if we didn’t want him

It's not like we have any other midfielders.

[Ascotexgunner]

The interview with Gomes on BBCRB left more confusion than ever. The problem is that the club have plenty of money to spend but the FA will not 100% confirm there is an embargo. Gomes however was told Sunday by someone at the club in the evening that that embargo was lifted......so there real confusion. He did say there would be a lot more movement still.....but I guess that's pending the FAs final decision.

Credit to Liam Moore, great interview and actually looks like a good choice of captain.

He also said Gunter and McCleary were model professionals and heaped praise on them but in short they will need to try and move on for "financial reasons"

[Sutekh]

Between Tim and Jose on BBC Berks yesterday

Gomes said that the embargo had been lifted.

Hopeful this next 7-10 days will be reasonably active in the market

Lost out on some players because of the limbo created by the soft embargo

Too many u23s with the squad in Spain but is good experience for one and all, obvs. some will be “returned” to the u23 squad but 5/6 or so will remain in first team

Ejaria is a player he wants to bring back

Defo wants centre back, 2 mids and a striker (think interviewwas done before Morrison arrived but would not be a surprise to me if further cover was added)

All in all we shall see what we shall see over the remaining couple of weeks.

[Hound]

Thanks all for the detail. Yes Ejaria & 1 more defensive CM plus a striker and I’ll be happy

[Snowflake Royal]

Thanks all for the detail. Yes Ejaria & 1 more defensive CM plus a striker and I’ll be happy

I'm not convinced Ejaria is the right player for what we need, but he's good and he's safe.

We have so many players who can play in behind the striker but who you'd describe as doing nothing more than filling in for that central role.

In terms of where our players are most effective, it seems to me it's:

DM: ...
CM: Rinomhota, East
ACM: Swift, Olise, Loader, Holsgrove, (Ejaria).

We just seem to fail to balance our squad again and again. Spending a lot of time shifting players into suboptimal positions because we've got too many for one area and not enough for another.

We can get by without a dedicated DM if we have two decent all rounders. What I don't see working is mixing one good all rounder with two soft flair attackers.

[NewCorkSeth]

You are not wrong. The midfield balance is heavily weighted towards attacking players (For the sake of this argument I'm going to call Meite, Barrow and Loader forwards as the wide positions will likely be the same as last year)

But realistically the number 10 role is Swifts to lose. Even if you're not as big a fan boy as I am you have to admit hes got that role nailed down at the moment. That leaves Olise and Holsgrove unlikely to both play a part this season. Olise is going to be the back up there. Add in Ejaria and that's 3 for that position. That's healthy. It only looks bad because of our complete lack of proper CMs to play behind them.

Now I know you dknt think Ejaria is as good outside of the number 10 role but I really do think he can be capable back up to Meite and Barrow. His ability on the ball was enough to convince me of that. And, if desperate, I would be fine with him as our 3rd choice CM. He put in some decent defensive shifts at the tail end last season.

I think Ejaria, in short, is wanted back to fill a number of roles. Not just as another backup to Swift.