Pata

Yeah, he looked very good at Fiorentina back then.

Think Richarlison will be first choice if he can stay fit. Managing his minutes is probably not a bad plan.

Correct decision IMO even if it feels soft. He breaks two different rules.

Sanchez

Goddamn Brexit!

This skipping the AFCON talk is so disrespectful. Let players represent their countries without the belittling. No one would suggest a European to skip the Euros for the sake of their club.

No chance, probably Szobo.

Couldn't believe it when I read it. People are homeless and starving yet they are giving loads of money to Jota's family when his kids will never have to work if they don't want to.

We very much gambled last season at CB but thankfully it ended well.

£125k a week is perfectly reasonable for someone like him.

It's weird because that body type should mean his stamina is exceptional.

I don’t think £40m is that bad for a 24 year old English player who has a decent pedigree already. If he isn’t a success, we can always get £25-30m back from some club.

Most hated the idea of signing him from Chelsea too.

Minteh cost real money (£6-7m iirc), Park Seung-Soo must have been 200-500k. It's not exactly a fair comparison but this kid has talent too.

Yeah, Ornstein himself said he was staying once the UCL qualification was clear. Really hard to believe Isak's agent hadn't informed him back then that he actually wants to move away.

Somehow it has only been little over 2 weeks now for this saga.

I can’t see how this is true or his agent is massively incompetent by not letting anyone know. Wouldn’t Arsenal and Liverpool put a bid in earlier if they knew he was available right after the season ended?

Why would we want to terminate the contract of an asset we value at +£150m and just let him walk to a new club?

I've never found any free advanced data from that far but remember reading how that season by us was used as an example of extreme overachieving relating to xG on some seminars few years ago. It was a funny season and we had some amazing likeable players but ending up 5th was really lucky. You only have to look at Cisse's goal reel from that season to see it was never going to be sustainable.

I honestly don't think Pardew had much to do with the 5th place season. He was given really good players and we were extremely lucky and overachieved all season.

Or if he wasn't so busy trying to sell those players to get a cut from the fee.

Main thing Serie A has now over the other leagues is real competition. No dominating super teams and there are so many big traditional clubs that there are interesting fixtures basically every week. Smaller teams have way more personality than the small teams in La Liga too, at least for me. Fan culture is the second strength and obviously top class, even on TV. I was in Roma-Lecce couple of seasons ago and the atmosphere was really good even for such a 'boring' fixture and the away fans were amazing.

Serie A is still really good even if the financial pull isn't what it used to be. Easily my second favourite football league to watch and miles ahead of La Liga or Bundesliga. Probably ahead of PL too if Newcastle stopped to exist.

Shouldn't you be a Birmingham fan now?

And now we can move Schär to his preferred position without any problems.