I thought I would start a thread as we are 5 weeks away.

Will we do any business at all?

I suspect that we will only buy if one of our key targets suddenly becomes available otherwise we will sit tight. For once we are not desperate for reinforcements.

One player we might get is the young striker at Arsenal Eddie Nketiah who I believe is 6 months from a free transfer. He didn't seem keen to come in the summer but now that he has seen how well the team is playing under PV maybe he is tempted.

Apart from that I don't see any others.

Over to you.

One more point

Yup Martin Kelly for instance.

One more point

Still early doors and another couple of relatively bad injuries like McArthur in the coming weeks and we may decide we need to buy or loan a player. Otherwise, I agree with you Badger, we'll keep our powder dry until the summer.

on the exit front, I expect Mateta to return to Germany in January and let's not forget that in addition to Gallagher we have several other players whose contracts are due to end in June 22, including Kouyate, Ayew, Schlupp, Tomkins and McArthur. Will be interesting to see which of those are offered extensions and how soon.

Edited by doombear (25 Nov 2021 7.57pm)

I think we'll be looking at if there's any bargain deals to be done for players out of contract at the end of the season. Reckon there'll be more talks about Nketiah and maybe a couple of others to pad out the squad.

I can't see us doing much if anything at all. There's not that much value in January and I think all we'll see is us being linked to any player that remotely has a chance of going to Newcastle, purely to drive the price/contract up.

I think Nketiah is likely to be dead now. I think the reason we pulled out was he wanted silly money for someone who hasn't done a thing yet and if he's on a free, he will only ask for even more.

The one player I would love us to get though if he is fit and available would be Sander Berge from Sheff U. They are nowhere near top of the table but he hasn't played much football after hamstring surgery. If his hamstrings were sorted now, he would be the perfect player for our style of football at the base of the 3 in midfield.

McArthur I think will be (possibly has been)offered an extension

Kouyate, Ayew, and Schlupp seem to be first team or regular subs so seem to have PV favour. I think they will all be offered extensions but Kouyate may decide to go elsewhere. Personally I think Ayew is not good enough but PV seems to disagree

Tomkins I think it depends how much game time he gets, his injury record etc. When fit he is good cover but is no longer first choice