It makes you wonder....

[luke45]

just how much Mr. Coates is giving pulis financially, as we see more targets slip by, and the deadline day edge further closer, the prospect of entering the long awaiting top flight, with our current squad frightens me.

It may just be me here, but despite my gratitude towards Coates's financial backing last-season and our ultimate achievements, there is still something inside me that still doesn't fully trust him, following his previous stint with us.

I may be totally wrong, pulis make have heaps of cash at his door, and it's pulis's persistancy to find the right player that's the reason for the delay in movement, but either way, in really frustrates me that we as fans and as a club have waited for this moment for 23 years, and i would hope/assume the club as a whole would do everything in it's power to obtain our current status.

Coates may see it ideal to try and stay up by spending as little as possible, and still even if we went down, cashing in on parachute payments, and become something of a yoy-yo club, but i would really like to see us do everything we can to stay up, and in time become a stable premiership outfit.

The current full-back situation is alarming, Griffin isn't first team material, he was of the pace and out of position far to often in the championship, and the standard is undoubtably greater here.

And despite the fact i love dicko's passion and drive, i still don't think he's ready for first team football in the prem yet, certainly an excellent squad rotation player, but i just think we need some experienced full-backs who've been there and done it at this level.

Ideally another midfielder would be acquired, i still personally think Stelios or Solano would do a good job and add that pivital experience to the squad, and noth are still free-agents.

Whatever happens, the next few days will say alot about how successful we can be this season, because when the window re-opens in January? could be wrong there, we could already be in a bad situation, Derby were already dead an buried come January, however i don't think we'd do a Derby even with our current squad.

I just hope the club as a whole invest with at least 2 new faces before the window shuts, and give us a fighting chance of survival, something i think we can certainly achieve, with the right mentality, and mix of players.

[mikeyb99]

I can't blame Coates for this summer - it seems the cash has been there - but a combination of Pulis' ineptness, naivity and inexperience, together with Scholes incompetence and (seemingly) complete lack of football knowledge has cost us.

Thats how it seems to me anyway.

[pugster]

How much of the £8.5m spent so far has actually been paid upfront?