I missed it on the live stream but when asked "how does that sound?" In response to Saints fans chanting "sign him up", Downes responded by shouting "irons!" I forgot he was a west ham fan, can't see him signing for us unless West Ham push him to move on.
Depends though. He might be so desperate to make it at his boyhood club to be willing to do a season as a squad player but fight to prove himself as a starter.
Yeah West Ham have a new manager aswell and Downes has undoubtedly had a good season, be surprising if he didn’t want to at least take a look at him during pre season. I think we would have to make a big offer to get Downes early in the window. Might be one we can get done last week or so of the window but we might not want to wait that long to see how it plays out
We simply can’t afford to wait that long. We will effectively be throwing any game where we don’t have him or an equivalent player in our standing line up. We were utter garbage without him against championship opposition. In the premier league it would be suicide
I agree, the question will be whether we (probably) pay a large a fee for Downes before pre season starts or if we bring someone else in (we need 2 players who play that position) and then hope Downes is available at the end of the window. The latter seems very risky unless we also know someone else who we could get late instead.
Bad for us that Moyes is gone. Pretty much dead cert we’d have signed him otherwise as Moyes just didn’t seem to rate him. New manager will give him a chance you’d think, and as a West Ham fan, Downes will want to stay and play himself into the team there if he is given the chance.
Hence why I think we should enquire regarding a loan for Phillips with an option. City like us, so...
Well hopefully we have a list of players who can play in that number 6 role including some that could be potential late loans if necessary. And get on in early whether it is Downes or someone else. As you say we need a second person who can play there and Smallbone and Charles are not those players Assumptions are being made about the new West Ham manager wanting to take a look at him. But he might have targets of his own in this position. A successful season in the championship in a different team and different system may not be enough to sway that. Hopefully it doesn’t drag on too long though. Don’t want a saga and a long boring thread on it
Do they stop liking us now our transfer staff aren’t their ex employees? What happened to Phillips anyway? Was he a disaster on loan as well ?
He had a horror at West Ham, but he's not suddenly become ****. I think a team where he'd be seen as a vital cog would hopefully revitalise him. It would be a gamble worth taking for me. EDIT - though his wages are probably mental.
I have a work Daily Natter thread that gets filled up with puns by my colleagues. And part of what tips me over the edge (in a joking way) is times like January where there are endless puns on our sparse transfer rumour thread and then they start up randomly at work as well. Overload !
He was never extremely fast, but he's now extremely slow. The knee injuries have caught up to him in a big way...could be wrong, but I can't really envision him being a significant PL player again. I know people aren't really fond of #stats, but the two lowest-rated regular players in the PL (who didn't get relegated) on Whoscored were Adam Lallana and Danny Ings. We're now being linked to both of them.
I looked at Lallana’s minutes earlier today and I wouldn’t consider him a “regular”. And he might be coming purely as a coach or coach / backup I don’t really believe the Ings links
