80

That's just gaslighting mate.

I do agree with your main points by the way. I don't want to get religious about it, but point 1 is maybe the biggest - I want as little to do with those clubs as possible. They don't want to do anything that will help us, and we should give them as little financial benefit as possible. The rumours are Eddie Howe feels similarly though, which is another reason why I'm not stressing too much about this possible deal, though.

Speaking as someone who hadn't been in the ground for a decade before the takeover, I can confirm the atmosphere now is shocking compared to before. Not shocking in a bad way, although it is, but shocking in the sense of "I don't recognise this place". It's probably more stark when you've not been watching the slow decline. The clientele (I use that word advisedly) and general attitude. The half heartedness. The (few) chants feel like transactional tribute acts. The confusion on people's faces, like they're in the studio audience of a TV chatshow. It reminds me of a more grandiose version of Bolton Wanderers, and we used to laugh at that. It's weird. I feel like the kid who left the choir when the new priest came in and started looking weird. Coming back left me in no doubt that I made the right move and avoided a lot of damage.

If someone's instincts are that far off, there's no salvation for them I don't think.

Just showing faith and support, I guess. The trick is to realise when that loyalty isn't being repaid. But giving no slack at all will get us nowhere.

I do think this is true, although I'm not labelling it as a bad thing at this stage. I'm not against giving a player or team a period of time to play through bad form, dependent on what's going on around them. 14 games might be a bit much, mind...

Both players who had iron wills to develop themselves and became more adept as their careers went on.

He's definitely a controversial one, but I'm optimistic. Time will tell, but I think he ought to at least end up in the safe section given his age, nationality and profile - those three things alone justify virtually 2/3rds of his transfer fee (unfortunately).

I'm refusing to let myself get too wound up about any possible signings until I see them in black and white stripes. Until then it could be anything including diversionary tactics. So far, all our signings have proven somewhere between safe and stunning. The transfer committee have a bit of rope from me.

Can't help but suspect the occasional rest for Trippier would've come in handy. Plus the option of Trippier going to left back with Targett out.

Looking forward to having him back, hope he makes a full recovery.

So far, yes.

It's hard to know with these things by definition, but reading that Athletic article, I would have to guess that Fraser has difficulties with his relationship to truth. And that's ultimately why Howe has segregated him. It's a pity though as last season's Fraser wouldn't have been a bad option for us right now in terms of changing things up.

Europa League would definitely be a good thing. It would demonstrate real progress to everyone inside and outside of the club, and deliver a footballing education to us. As I've said before, I expect our first campaign to be humbling, so better we get that done sooner rather than later, for Eddie and the board's sake, never mind the supporters. I think there's such a lot of reasons why we shouldn't be turning our noses up at that. The conference league, I'm less sure about... I guess it can't hurt too much. It's basically a season long intertoto, right?

This place became what we all knew was a joke a decade earlier. If .com had slotted Kinnear and Pardew in there I would think they'd been playing with voodoo dolls.

Richie I could see a little argument for Manquillo for Burn, but pretty confident we haven't seen it for the reasons Brown Bottle gives above. Targett's the one we're gonna have to wait for...

Yeah, I appreciate the perspective, thanks. Almost sounds like you've received reverse conditioning to us - seeing hard times come along and being used to eventually massively overcoming them. With us, the hard times come and then everything you've ever loved turns to ashes

It's like being sponsored by Barclays is a reasonable justification for insider trading. I don't get the confusion over him being prosecuted. It's dodgy behaviour for someone to gamble on a competition they're involved with, simple as. Would it be alright for referees to bet on games they're not refereeing? Seems to me the issue is being used as a trojan horse to criticise gambling being involved with football. Fair enough if that's someone's view but make that argument rather than trying to twist unrelated issues.

Greedy cunt, I say.

In a 'just wanted to say how excellent I think you are, have you met my daughter' sort of a way, I'm sure he has. It just goes with the turf of having players that are actually desirable, though. I appreciate that after 14 years of Mike Ashley this is a bit of an alien experience for many of us however

And one of the most frustrating things about that will be many people suddenly converting into the misery and despair camp. That's why I'd rather we were awake to it now, to avoid the worst excesses of the 'sack everyone' mindset.

Crisis is a bit OTT, but if we don't win in our next 3 matches, how will people feel? That would mean one win between late December and April, and heading into a run of three away matches.

Sure, it's fair enough if he's that good, but there doesn't seem to be that level of thought going into him whenever I've seen him name-dropped as our much hoped for third forward each time I look in here over the past 6 months. It's similar to the Pacqueta obsession which has gone ice cold since people have had the chance to actually watch him at West Ham. That's what I was picking up on, the fixations people develop on players just because we were linked with them once. No issue at all with getting players from lower leagues in and of itself, but I'll be surprised when people want us to spend solid chunks of our transfer budget on them rather than trying to move our current first teamers into the bench positions. Particularly as I'm not aware of Pedro being linked with us at all since we secured the Isak signing, with all subsequent press briefings indicating he was always our primary, 'luxury' purchase. Again, if the new contract he signed at Watford involved a £10m minimum release clause triggering should they not get promoted, my attitude would change. As things stand though, I'd rather have Wilson moved into the third spot unless we're actually getting rid of him as well, in which case, once again, that opens up our options.

Would kill for a bit of invention like that in our team at the moment... A right foot on the right wing. It'll never take off.