Plaistow you are very correct. WE NEED INVESTMENT.

The thing that concerns me is that going into our 7th consecutive season in the Premier League ( which I willingly admit is no mean achievement) our stature and reputation as a club has not really grown in that time in the way it should have.

Our stadium hasn't improved, we start the season again as one of the favourites to be relegated, players don't seem over keen to come to Selhurst, there doesn't seem any coherent plan or strategy for the club in terms of squad development and recruitment.

We may survive another season but we really are skating on this ice.

I think we have to agree to disagree on this one because unfortunately, our DOF & Parish lack the necessary experience or expertise to make clever signings, I'm not sure I have seen anything from Meyer yet to put him in that category so clearly I'm missing something that you are seeing. As for SP/DF what have they done all summer, nothing as far as I can see because here we are with less than five days left of the TW and our clever signings to date have been a released GK from Nottingham Forest and a misfit from Swansea who did little when he was on loan with us last season. What about Sorloth & Jack, were they clever signings?. you just have to look at our activity over the last few windows to know that we are not capable of making clever signings, all our signings are last minute and often players no one else wants. As for the current squad all I can see is another season fighting away at the bottom of the table with an increased risk of the drop this year unless a miracle happens in the next couple of day. In summary we have no planning on team investment for the future, we lack leadership at the very top from a chairman who has exceeded his level of competence!

Saturday's performance clearly showed we are 3 injuries away from disaster - defence looked shaky, at best, without Sakho & Tomkins and without Wilf up front we had little threat going forward.

Because of this, we can't really gamble on bringing in players who are unproven/unknown - I include Sessignon in that as he really looked out of his depth last season & there's a reason that there isn't a long queue of clubs trying to sign him.

The lack of competition for places does little to help either.

Just a thought - to what extent does Parish communicate with Hodgson about club affairs, and, in particular possible transfers in and out?

For example, of the ongoing Zaha will he go or stay saga, Hodgson apparently says "He (Zaha) hasn't spoken to me. I don't know if he's spoken to the club."

Is this normal practice for a chairman to not keep the manage informed of what's going on, or is Hodgson fully aware but just deflecting speculation?

In a way I hope it is the latter as it would be worrying if our manager is not kept informed about issues that may have a serious affect on team performance.

If you look back through his career Roy has had a similar response to that type of question.
I think he is 100% bang up to date on what is going on if it effects his preparations or any of his players.
I believe he just plays the 'no one tells me anything' card because he cant be bothered with endless questions/speculation and would prefer to stick to facts instead of what ifs.