The College Dropout

Think he could go on to become a very good footballer personally. But he really needs regular game time. A year at #9 for Everton would actually be great for him. Martial is similar. A year at #9 and he could become a top, top player.

Would love SJP to be away fans only.

Deeney's turned it around too. Andre Gray too. Your Barton's, Ranger's, Ravel's are from very tough upbringings but they have to take blame on themselves as they've been given opportunity after opportunity and they still mess it up. There's loads of footballers from the same neighbourhoods that aren't any bother at all. Granted that's only part of the problem but still. It's important to say a lot of footballers have grown up in tough environments, friends with gangsters and murderers growing up that are absolutely no bother. Lads like Nile and Barton I believe have some mental/psychological issues or traumas stemming from their upbringing which they will struggle to fully escape from for life. Btw did Nile explain why his nose is broken and why he has a black eye? Stopped watching after a while.

Without Wolves in the division, Villa would've been promoted imo. Would've been Cardiff, Fulham and Villa. Bit unlucky with the timing.

Seems hard to buy out of the bullshit roadman narratives these daft lads build in their heads. Easy to say if you don't grow up in that area. 90% of people from the area, given his opportunities, would turn out decent lads. Raheem Sterling for one grew up not too far away.

Heard he used to hang out in the streets while he was a signed footballer earning 6 figure sum. He's an idiot.

Simple really, if we are taken over, we want to be in the premier league. Do we? With the right owners, it's an extra year or two to get out the Championship. The division we are in isn't that important. Key thing is getting Ashley out. It might require the club losing significant money through staying in the Championship for a number of years. Villa have had two takeovers, spent money or signed quality under both and look miles off going up in their third season. Stoke have the same owners but have invested hugely on a promotion push and look nowhere near. Sunderland aren’t a promotion certainty and if they go up will have to spend a shitload to compete at the right end of the Championship. As fun as the last 3 second tier seasons have been for us, I really don’t want another man. Our Premier League existence is meaningless from our perspective. Wouldn't you rather support a championship club with genuine ambition rather than a Premier League club that's only motivation is survival and Sports Direct brand exposure? Agreed. Honestly, while he's here I don't care that much about what division we are in. Losing money is perhaps something that might make him sell. He's not going to lose money, he'll just cut his costs and adjust accordingly. It will still be a good vehicle for him to showcase Sports Direct for free, even in the championship. He'll always ask more than it's worth, doesn't matter what division we are in, we saw that last season. As soon as we were safe the price went up £50m. Maybe if we got relegated and stayed down he might leave, but then again he might not. As I said earlier, anyone who can only afford us once we are relegated isn't going to be much better anyway. That final point doesn't make sense. Most smart business people won't spent 350m on something that is worth 270m when there are viable options at 250m anyway. We are a big club but we're not worth paying over the odds for when there's other big clubs around. Wolves were acquired for what.. £50m? £150m to get into the PL. £150m for stadium expansions, it's a no-brainer. I don't buy that an owner that can only afford us as a much cheaper acquisition won't be much better. Much better is just trying to maximise the clubs potential. Daniel Levy shows you can grow a football club through shrewd development. His company doesn't invest in Spurs, it's self sufficient. Our players are on PL wages or close to it. To get us back up he'll offer new players strong wages. The club couldn't cope with missing promotion 2 years in a row imo. He'll be forced to sell players. People will eventually stop turning up. Once everyone at the club has given up, he'll need to move on or he'll take us down the divisions.

Gambling on coming straight back up at the first attempt will fail him soon enough. The price he wants is too high. He won't actually want to sell while we are in the PL. I think we need to hit rock-bottom for him to sell up. Low attendance. Championship / League 1. 10 years. 1 top 8 finish. 1 European run. 0 cup semi finals. 2 relegations. Fuck this man. We have the best manager we could hope for and Ashley wants to play Russian Roulette with relegation? Any progress we make, he'll stall investment.

Simple really, if we are taken over, we want to be in the premier league. Do we? With the right owners, it's an extra year or two to get out the Championship. The division we are in isn't that important. Key thing is getting Ashley out. It might require the club losing significant money through staying in the Championship for a number of years. Villa have had two takeovers, spent money or signed quality under both and look miles off going up in their third season. Stoke have the same owners but have invested hugely on a promotion push and look nowhere near. Sunderland aren’t a promotion certainty and if they go up will have to spend a shitload to compete at the right end of the Championship. As fun as the last 3 second tier seasons have been for us, I really don’t want another man. Our Premier League existence is meaningless from our perspective. Wouldn't you rather support a championship club with genuine ambition rather than a Premier League club that's only motivation is survival and Sports Direct brand exposure? Agreed. Honestly, while he's here I don't care that much about what division we are in. Losing money is perhaps something that might make him sell.

Shay was so consistent as well for such a long period of time. I personally think Krul for maybe 12 / 18 months was better than anything i've seen from our GK but he quickly went the other way.

Simple really, if we are taken over, we want to be in the premier league. Do we? With the right owners, it's an extra year or two to get out the Championship. The division we are in isn't that important. Key thing is getting Ashley out. It might require the club losing significant money through staying in the Championship for a number of years.

To be honest this applies worldwide. Real Madrid are shiite, Barca are shiite, Bayern are shiite (currently 5th in Bundesliga), Juve are shiite but they're in a ridiculously weak league at the moment. That's my point. Those teams are playing shite and losing games. Man City, Liverpool and Spurs especially haven't really started firing this season at all yet are doing well in terms of points. Not sure how Juve are shite mind and Serie A is probably better than the Bundesliga and not far off the PL Not so much Spurs but City and Liverpool have tremendous quality off the bench. Arsenal too. And they're just able to pull away from teams in crucial moments. You have Mahrez, Auba, Sturridge coming off the bench. Players good enough to be the leagues top goalscorers / players of the season. Even the best teams around Europe dont' have as much depth.

What the fuck?

Sterling won it not too long ago.

Anyone who just lets the club spend the money it generates will feel like Roman Abramovich. And tries to increase the money generated through proper sponsorship and marketing.

Would a European government extradite him to the US? All sounds disgusting and if true he should be brought to justice.

I’m someone who has been apathetic under this regime for Long time. But even compared to last season I care much less. I wouldn’t be surprised if the playing staff and coaches were in the same boat. Even a 2% drop in focus and we’ll get relegated.

Especially with F1 and Ryder Cup on Sky. Neebody will watch that shit.

He's showing that if you can get quality deliveries into the box - he will score you goals. Not just with headers but he's showing the ability to overpower defenders at this level in the box to create space and score goals. I was concerned it would come back to haunt us this transfer with only Rondon in. That's the price we pay with riding with Benitez. Overall, I think it's worth it but Benitez needs to be backed. He was backed in the Championship and brought in good players. Knocking around the bargain basement in the PL's he brought in some dross.

I've said it before but it's a lack of game time that is ruining these young players. Ruben Loftus-Cheek is almost 23 years old. He hasn't made 50 club appearances yet. Frank Lampard had over 100 appearances by 23. Look at international players of a similar age who are French, German and Spanish and they've played way more top-level games than most of their English counterparts bar Sterling and Alli.

I'd like to see football clubs limited to 30 or 35 players over the age of 18 or 20 on the clubs books at any one time - including players on loan. If they have over the limit, players can be bought out of their contract by other clubs to the value of the remaining contract (eg 3 years on a 2m p/a contract can be bought for 6m). Tbh I don't think the loan system is that bad. It's only Chelsea that really abuse it for profit. Real Madrid use the buy-back thing for their actual first team. Carvajal, Morata and Moriano were sold to potentially come back and become proper first team players. Chelsea have no intent on these lads making it at their club - to their own detriment too. Chelsea would do well to let their young players replace the likes of Fabregas, Cahill, Willian and Pedro who are around that 30 mark. But instead it seems like they would rather buy in. Instead of letting that Gullit looking lad play instead of Cahill they bought Rudiger. Instead of pushing RLC they bought Drinkwater and Barkley. Such a disgusting club.

Ramos aye but it just seems like you despise Real Madrid.. Carvajal seems like such a nice lad too. In comparison to who Spain usually play at FB anyway. Carvajal is horrible man, he's in a similar mould to Busquets. Behave. He's nowhere as bad as Alba let alone Busquets. Costa-- Alba ------ Busquets - Ramos That's the Spanish national team cunt top 4.

Well all four of them are very different types of player . I’d say Alli is like Lampard tbh. We def need a Scholes and/or a Carrick though. Lampard was a much better passer of the ball. Lampard played a lot of his football at CM in a 4-4-2, I don't think Alli could play that role ever. Alli is more of a Muller type midfielder/forward.

Ramos aye but it just seems like you despise Real Madrid.. Carvajal seems like such a nice lad too. In comparison to who Spain usually play at FB anyway.

In recent memory, I'd say he was right. Our 10/11 and 17/18 sides achieved a lot but player for player, I'd say yea. He said all time. He's a prick. Merson said Rafa has the dream job and thinks the stick Ashley gets is OTT. Whar a prick.