In the summer we released a few players four of which were Flamini, Benteke's brother, Ledley and Frazier Campbell.

We can discuss their merits all day long and I for one don't think they were of the quality we should have at the club... However.

We wake up this morning with a section of fans still nursing a stiffie over signing Sakho yet we are devoid of signings in important areas.

For the record I think Sakho is a very good defender who will do wonders for us but I don't think he is comfortable on the ball when trying to play out. We saw that last year when.

That aside, this morning we have 21 'senior' players. Players like Fosu-Mensah, Loftus-Cheek and Riedewald are under 21 so do not require a squad place.

So why did we release players who, thought they might not play much or be good enough are certainly better than nothing!

Before you take to the keyboard to write obscenities at me remember we gave new contracts to Delaney and Speroni, two players I love to bits but are no more deserving of a new contract than the ones we released.

But, even worse, we gave a new contract to Jonny Williams. A player who last played for us in January 2015, if memory serves. Then what did we do? Ship him our for a season to Sunderland.

These contract dealings do not make any sense. I'm sure they do because smarter people than myself have made the decisions.

To close I'd like to remind you the players we released were released. They did not turn down new contracts. We did not have a manager who might have kept them around.

With any luck we'll sign 4 free transfers but if they are without a club we can imagine how good they will be. Sometimes it's better the devil you know. Resign your dead wood than ship them out and sign other dead wood.

Freedman was probably planning the team v Southampton.

Palace f up admin. Wow. Not like them.

TBH I'd let all of those leave. Doing that doesn't mean you won't get a 2nd striker in.

We've brought in 2 quality loans and signed 1 question mark. The problem further down the line is replacing 2 loanees worth £40 - £50 mil combined.

COYP