TRon

Which is why putting him on a par with Bruno sounds about right. Probably a decent compromise considering he's still got 4 years left on a much lower level pay.

What!? We were still paying him up until August??

I'm sure ideally we'd like to pay him superclub wages, just not so sure we can do that under PSR constraints. We might be a couple of years off that unless we are allowed to plough PIF money into the club short term. Barring that, we have to get used to the idea of selling players at a premium and investing that money into a replacement. It's not ideal, but at least we get to cash in on them at peak value.

I wonder if he's ever been to Liverpool.

Just don't think he fancied it much once he got here. Hard to say what he was capable of since he never played. I guess how his career went once he went back to Spain would be a better gauge.

As long as the release clause is sufficiently high it's not really an obstacle. £150m+ I would have thought. Otherwise why bother? We are holding all the aces here really.

If you are talking about Des Hamilton he was a right sided mid. Allegedly.

Saw there was an Athletic write up on their fantastic start in the championship. Their fans must be slightly conflicted hiring a French manager after their proud Brexit campaign became a torch for the nations's isolationists.

City aren't a cartel club. They are perceived as gatecrashers IMO, the football royalty is Man U, Liverpool, Arsenal. To a lesser extent Spurs and Chelsea.

It's a bitter pill to swallow, but I really think that those who run the PL believe they are looking after national interests by protecting the cartel clubs from penalties. They see them as national assets which sell the PL across the globe - and I suppose they might have a point. It's not that surprising that they bend over backwards to try to accomodate them as much as they can. Financial Fair Play is a bit of a piss take description of what this process is really about.

He'll have played most of his contract out at this rate, if West Ham ride their luck he could fire them into Europe in the meantime.

Yeah I guess wear and tear is a thing. Hopefully it was just an impact injury and his body is actually well mended after such a long layoff.

I'm genuinely intrigued how Tonali would play that number 6 role if he was to start instead of Bruno for the Wolves game. More likely Bruno will start like, but at some point they will swap over.

They were fine for a season and a half previously, unless they've developed abnormally since then.

Jack Carlton brought in two big fellas up front when he wanted to go Aces High as the Chronicle memorably called it. I think one was called Tony Cunningham and the the other was George Reilly? Both were absolute shit, and we made Waddle and Beardsely play deeper to accomodate them.

Rick Masters will be drafting the exemption forms for them.

I think Eddie's gone over and above to keep Trippier on board. We could have sold him in January, and with PSR concerns, getting good money for a 33 year old - 34 later this month - was not to be sniffed at. Howe sees him as a key player, shifting him now for pennies seems a bit pointless.

The time to buy Elanga was probably when he went to Forest. Chasing him now just reeks of us paying a premium for a PL tested player. Don't see why we would have hired Mitchell to pursue such a deal.

Depends how we are setting up. If we are sitting deep and playing on the counter, Longstaff can do that role and his limitations are less exposed. Obviously Tonali could probably do it better, but I guess if he is going to start on the bench due to international duty, away from home to Wolves isn't the worst fixture.

He doesn't, he tends to cut inside a lot, but he does it to good effect. He is probably getting overrated slightly by Newcastle fans when you compare his skillset to the really top wide men, but in the PL he's still a very good wide man. But I do think we need to look at getting him to sign a new contract or selling him while he's at maximum value if he's reluctant to do so.

What did you think when Howe set out his stall on what he required when Mitchell came in and Staveley and Ghodoussi left?

Because their recruitment has been recognised as one of almost continuing disaster for years now. This is what can happen when a new manager comes in and demands he signs his own players. If the manager is particularly savvy, it can work, we can look at Klopp where you might point as an example, but I stil think they have a very smart recruitment set up behind the scenes. Currently I see Conte seems to be signing Lukaku at every club he gets work, it doesn't look like particularly good value when it happens either. They are both getting reunited at Napoli now if I'm not mistaken.

Anyone of the same calibre or better will still want to operate in the same way. We just don't have the turnover to compete with the cartel clubs to invest in the same calibre of players unless our player trading improves.

I know what you are saying, he doesn't have the tricks in the box you would get from someone like Ben Arfa or Maxi, but I think that can also be seen as a strength. He's very direct and doesn't waste time with stepovers and other showboating, probably well appreciated by team mates.