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Probably just absolute garbage so you have been warned.

I did start the summer quite excited. I did, however, at one point write a longish post where I predicted we will be hoping on TDD for some absolutely crucial signings (or so it will seem). But I did think we'd be a better pull. Not because of the stadium but mainly because we can again offer decent wages and I was hoping our negotiators were good at selling the project.

But truth to be told, if you were an employee and looked at a company in this situation, how keen would you be to sign up for the next five years? There might be grand plans but the stadium was not built by current owners, they just basically got it cheaply because of previous owner's financial woes. They have put money on the women's team but that's peanuts. At least we the fans haven't heard concrete plans, of course some of them are best kept out of public.

It is strange that with so many positions needing filling club has only managed to fill one. As far as I know they can talk to as many other clubs and contact agents as they want. There's not queue system where you deal with them one at a time. Are we to believe every potential player in the world is priced too steeply and none of those players is interested? Basically, why the delays for every position?

Now, I'm sure we will see more signings but I do think we will be a few players short on September 1st. Squad will be serviceable, but some players will have to play out of position if (when) we have a few injuries. Pretty much what we have seen every season in the past 30 years.

What does annoy me is that if we sign several key players end of August we will throw away points, again. We will again look like a team that hasn't trained together. Especially if we do sign multiple starters this could go on for quite some time. New full-backs, midfielder and right winger is over a third of the first 11. It will obviously take time for the team to gel.

And how sure are we that delaying signings squad will actually be better? Will Moyes & co make the best deals possible on TDD hours before window closes? Or is this is a gamble? Or worse still, maybe they really still don't have decent money to fill the critical gaps? In this case we circle back to the point of this "project". In that case it would be no wonder players are hard to persuade. "Yeah, we will struggle next season because our squad will be tiny because we have such a small transfer kitty".

I don't know what's going on except that I was quite a lot more optimistic two months ago. I still hope and pray things take a drastic change because I do think I'm an optimist at heart. But I'm not stupidly optimistic. If we are 5-0 down with a minute go it's probably better to accept defeat. So I hope for signings and believe we will see them but the realist in me points out the issues with leaving them so late.

Hope this clears my stance for those that managed to read through all that.

I have to again wonder what a wizard Thelwell was. He managed to sign good players basically without money. Sell to buy. And didn't leave them all late.