At the end of last season we wanted to tie Wilf down and bring back Sakho. One of those is done and expediently too. The other of those has always seemed highly unlikely due to the cost to us as a club. In both instances well done SP. It's got to be right for us.

Taking his time over getting a manager is a master stroke because Parish is thinking long term. A rushed decision and the wrong manager would only cause Palace problems in the future. A manager with vision to develop this club wasn't about to pop up overnight.

Again it's got to be right for us as a club. We might want signings, but when Sam left that wasn't our priority.

So I manage a Workshop which provides a safe learning environment for blokes struggling with PTSD and other mental health issues. Being a Palace fan isn't listed yet.

The thing to remember here is the wages, the offset that against the blending together of players during a pre-season and whether a desirable player is going somewhere else. If you consider that we want to recruit say 5 players who get on average £60K a week, the difference between 1st June and the 10th August is £3m.
There were a few teams in for Loftus-Cheek and so we've done that deal. I would also expect a few Dutch deals to be done soon (keeper and right back). No one is touching Sakho at £30m with his "trouble" tag (which is BS, but there are a lot of stupid people about) at the moment, but come the end of August Liverpool will get a bit desperate and the price will come down and then I think we will get him. Back up striker will also be late in August as they always are. Last year Benteke was end of August when the deal had been mooted from the end of May. Have faith in Parrish - he's our biggest asset IMO

That's a very risky strategy as most of the better players who are up for sale will have gone elsewhere and if every club adopted the same strategy we would never know whether the players that we would like to sell are going to go or not until the last minute.

James McArthur is a case in point as there are a couple of clubs rumoured to be after him but if they did as you suggest and left it until 31st August we wouldn't be able to budget on the income and/or get a replacement in until it's too late.

It's happened before to us when we were expecting to buy a player at the nth hour but the selling club changed their mind on the evening of deadline day as they couldn't find a suitable replacement

I know what he's saying. Last summer our procrastinating meant no replacement for Jedi and so we were one squad/team man less in midfield and don't get me started on left back. The midfield debacle went from Rincon who we didn't scout enough, Macarthy, Wilshere, Flamini. It was a complete panic, hatchet job.

Weren't we a complete shambles up to half time vs Bournemouth? Points chucked at home v Swansea. No contest at Spurs. Couldn't win the match in the 2nd half v Bournemouth.

We've got a winnable run to start this season. If we are serious about staying clear of trouble we should be ready to maximise points rather than repeat all over.

COYP

Aye all we can really ever be sure is Steve Parish is no mug and is comfortable going to toe to toe with agents, other clubs owners, lippy media types, and British Airways (see twitter)

Good post, totally agree.