Werner's useless.

Waggott would probably offer him less on the basis he's got the security of a long term deal.

Agreed. Don't think we'll get either. Hope to be proved wrong.

He'll have to be quick.

Well argued. You'd have thought if Eustace rated him that highly he'd have been looking to bring him in permanently. Forshaw?

Very good documentary on Sky about Tuchel - "The Road to England". I think we've got a real gem, finally.

Good lads - 0-0 half time. They dropped off a bit half way through the first half and can't see it staying that way but even if not they've got the fact that they held Premier League Spurs for 45 mins in their locker as a mini victory.

Agree with some of that but imo there is a subtle difference between keeping Eustace "happy" and him being forced to pick players of his choice off the C or D list because the budget is virtually non - existent. Do you think he'd have brought in Sanderson and Forshaw by choice if we had a healthy budget?

Could have put his cap on it, brought it down and shot, done anything.

Tamworth have been superb the first 20 mins - presumably the pace might get to them in the later stages though.

Tbf I'd take our back four now over that one. Horrendous. No wonder we went down.

Disgraceful isn't it. All so the big Clubs (with massive squads anyway) can play a few more meaningless games in the early stages of the Champions League or in a Club world Cup

Thanks, just looked it up myself. Although as I noticed players like Duff and Jansen in the build up I'd venture to suggest it wasn't quite as big a stretch then as it would be now.

Tamworth v Tottenham coming up. Tamworth's manager just been interviewed - works in College currently, going full time with Tamworth next month, presumably on the proceeds from this tie. He's had an hour and a half this week to prepare his team for the tie. The match "programme" was an A4 sheet of paper with the teams on. The Tamworth players had their names reproduced in full including middle names. The FA Cup is absolutely brilliant, nothing like it anywhere else in the world. Really annoys me when people try to devalue it - and more often than not it's the footballing authorities themselves.

Agreed. We did beat Arsenal away under Appleton didn't we when Kazim Richards scored but I wouldn't back a penny of someone else's money on us doing it now. If we get far enough we'll meet someone decent eventually, but let's leave it as long as possible.

We didn't win either of those ties against Liverpool though did we?

The ones we have actually brought in aren't very inspiring either.

Yep. Where's the next Dack/Szmodics?

Apart from being on 70k p.w. and (imo) useless Bamford is a colossal injury risk, made of glass. Fair point on Wallace IF he was being brought in on a one in one out basis to replace Sigurdsson for squad depth. As a main signing don't think he'd be the answer.

Keep thinking wistfully back to when we brought Steve Archibald in on loan when he was at Barcelona. In terms of impact and wow factor that's the sort of signing we could do with. Given our impoverished circumstances at the time it was so surreal and off the scale bat shit crazy that the equivalent now would be bringing in someone like Marcus Rashford on loan.

Quite possibly. Rings a bell.

Don't think so. He came in on loan, was a sensation, didn't get on with Jim Iley and went elsewhere as far as I can recall. The Board got flak about it and that probably did for Iley.

Either way that's the sort of signing we need to be targeting imo potential stars of the future or players on the way up or at their peak. Not ones on the way down unless they were truly exceptional to begin with.

Well past his best by then, still thought you could see his quality in comparison to the rest of the side though.

I thought Radford was quite good tbf. Agree on Bamford though.