Elma

The promoted three are absolutely going back down, albeit with more money and a better chance of staying up if they make it up again the year after. Wolves, Fulham, Brentford, Palace and Bournemouth all have very good managers and are starting from a much higher point then the promoted three, even if they do lose a player or two. Everton would have been a possible under Dyche but not in the new stadium under Moyes. Forest won't be as high up next year but will easily clear forty points. That leaves Man U and Spurs. I think Postecoglou is limited but they've got way too much to go down. The jury is still out on Amorim and I wouldn't bet on them getting top half, but I'd be stunned if they are as bad next year.

I just landed in Istanbul and drove past the stadium. Love that kit. Will pop into the club shop this week some time.

Eddie Howe is always Frank…and John.

Project that forward 21 games and you'd like to think that Howe's NUFC will have out-scored Keegan's over the same number of games. Crazy how underrated Keegan's defence was though.

Not sure if I'm delighted (due to the timing and I kind of wanted to see what Mitchell would come up with this window) but if it's Mitchell or Howe then it's Howe all day. I also think Howe did a great job in January 2022 overseeing the transfers and I trust his eye for a player, as I did Keegan's. I firmly believe that a manager should have the most significant input on first team incomings and outgoings, with a DoF sense-checking it in the context of value for money, and taking an holistic approach with regards to continuity throughout the club. I appreciate that in the modern era a DoF has that role to play and ideally you have a manager and DoF who have an excellent working relationship and who trust each other. However, the manager is always going to have the greater impact on the direction of the club/results in general, and when you separate recruitment from the manager (as we did under Ashley) it rarely works. Eddie has earned this trust though. Let's just hope we have the team behind the scenes to pull it off this window as Eddie needs to hand over his list and then take a proper break this summer.

Used to quite like him but he said something a few weeks back which came across as quite arrogant. I can't find the actual quote now but if I remember correctly it seemed to shift any credit for their season onto him and away from the players. At the time I put it down to a translation thing, but the way he was going on yesterday made me think otherwise. He's obviously a very decent coach but having been a fan of Eddie since his Bournemouth days I'm so glad Emery turned us down.

I got.... Home: Barca, Club Brugge, Napoli and Monaco Away: Inter, Leverkusen, Ajax and Celtic

At least their match DJ got some practice in this year by playing the Europa League tune. Will allow them to hit the ground running.

28 August I think.

To be fair I don't blame him.

Ooh, got lucky there.

This will be a Villa goal.

Man U hit post again

Hence, "pretty much guarantees".

That's not true. A draw and we finish above Forest on GD. A Villa loss pretty much guarantees it.

I'm moving to Turkey a week too late for this one. 😕 From next weekend I'll legally be allowed to watch all the games, including the 3pm Saturday slot, from about £7.50/month. Used to be about £2.50 when I was there ten years ago but everything's gone up. Great timing with the season ending 😂 Ridiculous that the UK has such rules in place and the cost is so high. My folks have just binned Sky Sports and their bill went from about £150/month down to £35/month.

Ah of course. Less parachute payments.

I think the long-sleeved version is dreadful due to the change to stripes after the shoulder - looks like it's been patched together. In general the shirt looks better on the players than the leaked version but still pretty poor. The problem is shoe-horning a striped shirt into an Adidas template while simultaneously trying to do something different year on year. There's loads of people on here (not me) who could probably come up with something significantly better in half and hour, if they didn't have those restrictions.

Was just going to say this. Twenty years goes back to the Glazers so I get that, but Man U won the League Cup and finished third with 75 points two seasons back. This is like a gradual decline which turns into a cliff fall in the last two years - not quite coinciding with Ratcliffe and INEOS but not far off.

I want the Champions League of course as it's the premier competition and we're a good cup side now. I'm not saying we'd win it but we could get as far as Villa did this year. Would really help with the finances, club profile and player retention. However, if we do end up in the Europa I'll make my peace with it. We'd have a good chance of winning it which would bring UCL the following year, would be another trophy, bring in a decent amount of money, and would also raise the profile. The final being at Beşiktaş would be big for me personally too if we were to get there. Would be more pressure to win it though and the games wouldn't be as big.

Is it fair to say that a Villa win on Sunday actually benefits Man Utd now, as with it they have a chance of shifting Rashford quickly to a Villa side with likely UCL football (and the money that comes with it). If Villa don't make UCL then surely that's a major suitor for Rashford gone?

As well as totally unlikeable players and aging, overpaid owners.

I was thinking the same. Ten Hag left them on 11 points after 9 games so it looks like Amorim has them 28 points from 28 games.

Go back just over a year and not one of them on Red Cafe (I know) were saying they'd swap Ten Hag for Eddie Howe. They pretty much all thought Howe was average. There were a couple of them on there last night saying they should sack Amorim and go for him now.

…into a headwind