Sub Genius

I think we all want that, mate, but it’ll be an inevitable reaction if we stutter through the first month or so.

Could it be that in order to bring in new faces Gerrard has been told he must offload first, and with time beginning to run out - prospective loans to Doncaster and Breda falling through - we couldn’t afford to be too picky? It’s not a club I particularly want to see any of our players end up at, but as others have said, it does allow us to gauge his ability in the league we play in. On the wider question of patience I agree there. Gerrard really needed to hit the ground running this season otherwise the knives will be out for him, and after that the board will inevitably come under greater scrutiny.

Many of the factors King and the board face in running a multi million pound football institution in the 21st century are completely different to those we as supporters face. Yes they probably could do more defending the support and indeed the club from the barrage of abuse and attacks it finds itself all too often battling, but I honestly don’t believe they don’t care about us.

Helander really only made sense to me if we were aiming to add a couple other players of similar quality to the midfield and attack. Perhaps we still will, but if we don’t it does seem a rather odd even unnecessary use of scant resources. I think we have to hope that Ojo will come good in the same way Kent did. I think it’s far too soon to be writing him off, but I still felt we needed to bring in a straight out of the box player for that role, not another youngster on loan that we’re left hoping we can repeat the Kent trick with. Overall I still think we look a bit scattershot in our strategy.

Bang on. Helander, on paper at least, improves the squad and the starting eleven, Aribo looks like he might do similarly, but the loss of Kent without replacing him with at least as good a player (I know it’s far too soon to be writing off Ojo, or for that matter Jones and Stewart and we do still have Murphy to come back . . . maybe) has, on first impressions weakened us, therefore I’d say we’re only marginally improved overall from last term as things stand. Unfortunately I think that unless we’re somehow able to add another couple of quality players over the course of the season that can go straight into the first team and improve it, we’re probably left waiting to see how good or bad celtic are to determine where the title will be come next May.

Some seem to be clinging onto getting Kent back as the answer to all our prayers when I felt at the end of last season we probably needed better than him if we wanted to win 55.

Davis, or Arfield, depending on your viewpoint. We played this way at the end of last season - the Xmas Tree formation - with Davis and Kamara sitting deeper and Jack getting forward, but I think Aribo looks far more suited to that role. It’s not 4-3-3, more 4-3-2-1, or if you like, 4-2-1-2-1

It did rely on Kent being an out ball though, a player we don’t appear to have replaced in terms of what he brought to the team. I’d like to see Davis and Kamara in the same midfield though - I thought they complemented each other really well. It would then allow Aribo to play in the more advanced role. I’d also go with Arfield playing off Defoe and stick Jones out left to see how balanced that looks.

It's a winning start and we’re all thankful of that at least, but it’s difficult to ignore the similarities with last season, something an injury time winner doesn’t entirely mask. What I wanted to see was evidence that we’d added new players capable of adding that creativity and danger we often lacked last term, but on the evidence of the past week or so, I’m not really seeing it. Far too early to be ripping up the knitting though, but there are definitely a few concerns in the last three competitive games.

If money is at a premium, why did we spend £3.5m on another centre half when we already had Goldson, Katic and Edmundson? Would we not have been better adding another McAuley type backup and using the money towards a playmaker / attacking mid or goalscoring winger?

I think we’ll have a figure in mind that we’ll accept for Morelos and Gerrard will be aware of it. Robertson previously suggested we’d be looking for upwards of £18m because that’s roughly how much Dembele went for at the Yahoos and we rate Morelos just as highly. Which is all well and good, but in reality, if someone like Palace comes in next week offering the player £70k a week and us £15m, are we really going to turn that down? Alfie really wants to go. He has his dream move and is going to be paid a life changing amount for it, but we say no because it doesn’t quite meet our evaluation then run the risk of being stuck with a disgruntled player? It’s a tough one to get right and you probably can’t please everyone, but I think Gerrard will be aware of the variables.

Yup, agree with that. If an EPL sides comes in with a circa £14-15m bid in the next week, I think he’ll be off, partly because I think we’ll be confident of securing a replacement before Sept 2nd (I’m sure we have at least two or three options on our radar, Roofe being one), but if it drags on then someone like Milan offer a similar amount in the last week of August, I hope we have the resolve to turn it down.

Fair enough. I was using the EPL sides he’s been linked with as the most pertinent examples because we know that’s his preferred destination, but if the likes of Milan, Frankfurt or Betis make a move - three European sides he’s also been linked with - there’s still a good chance he’ll accept, presuming the personal terms he’s being offered are agreeable. I don’t think we can fully relax where Morelos is concerned until 2nd Sept. If he’s still here after that, great.

For the EPL, but any move to Italy, Germany, Spain, etc could still occur up until our window closes on the 2nd.

Month, bud - closes 2nd Sept.