Ashley17

Not quite the same for Maupay. New players have to be registered by 12pm the working day before the first game of the round of fixtures. Maupay signed Friday 4pm, no working days since so signed too late

Be interesting to see if big teams rest players in this round given there's only one league game after this then the World Cup break. I'd imagine the non-World Cup goers will be desperate for as many minutes as possible before kicking their heels for a month.

They’ve played some pretty average sides so far. Coventry are reasonable but about 9th-12th kind of range, Bristol City have had struggles at home for a few years now and QPR are in flux after an awful second half of last season. They’ve won one of those games and I can guarantee if you look on Twitter or RTG when they were 2-0 up there’ll have been some of their great “banter not banter” like the HMS piss the league when they won a couple of games at the start of last season

Good chance for the Thursday with us playing Sunday both before and after

Maddison quite often played on the right of a front 3 for Leicester, albeit in a 5-2-3. Would still work in our set up with Trippier providing the width, which is more or less how we played in the first half against Benfica. I think he'd be a tremendous statement signing.

Gillespie has had offers from Scotland but has been told he will be the third choice this season so club have rejected, so fully expect one of Dubs/Darlow will leave. Not overly surprising of course.

He has been offered a role but he wants to actually do something meaningful and not just be wheeled out for events. He’s left it to the owners to offer him something worthwhile.

I did wonder if it was this, Peter Kenyon looking to be involved as well

He was on the bench in the last 4 matches, came on for 30 minutes against Wolves?

My reservation with Ake is that towards the end of the season City had no Dias or Stones, Laporte was on one leg and Pep still opted for him and Fernandinho over Ake.

I loved him as a commentator for this reason and was genuinely quite said when he announced his retirement. As it is Raisbeck has stepped in and done really well so that's less of an issue. Since the "Twitter era" it seemed nobody had a good word to say about him on a personal level but I got to interview him for the SG during Lockdown and he couldn't have been more generous with his time. We spoke for nearly 2 hours about the Keegan era along with a bit of the more recent stuff including his retirement. He's opinionated and took his job very seriously, isn't from the North East but totally bought into it and as you say, will always be synonymous with that era for me. On a side note when he left Metro they destroyed all of his archive so none of it will ever see the light of day again unless anybody happened to record it. No idea what got into him last night, kept going on about football charlatans and using vomit emojis, don't think social media is really suited for him if he doesn't like people promoting things.

Be amazed if this is anything other than 0-0

I tried that, they said it was a trading decision and couldn’t be changed

Has anybody ever had their SkyBet account restricted? Got an email today saying I was no longer eligible for any of the promotions (free bets) and it was a trading decision. I bet £25 a week to get the fiver free bet and I've done it for about 15 years, no idea why they've done this but basically an easy way to lose a customer.

I like him but I don’t think he’s had the same pace since that first hammy he got with us and he’s obviously not got the reliable quality we are going to need in the final third. I’d like to keep him as a squad player but he will actually have a value worth selling for unlike a lot of his counterparts which probably means he will be moved on.

Lack of replacement for Wood. This 3 starting were the foundation of our unbeaten run

I think I’d rather stick with Dubravka. Probably Henderson if I was forced to choose one.

Willock and Shelvey are ill.

You wouldn’t have someone ill hanging around with the squad

Of course he can play, WBA and West Ham got into bother a few years ago for agreeing Snodgrass couldn’t play when he moved

I see a lot of similarities in the relationship between Bielsa and Leeds as with Rafa and us. He just got it and was loads better than his predecessors. The Leeds fans I know are gutted, at least Marsch is quite a respectable choice as opposed to where we went next

He’s not vaccinated so that put a lot of clubs off. Burnley obviously don’t care and he looks decent so far. Wood has been fine in terms of general play but doesn’t get loads of chances as he doesn’t seem to anticipate anything. The team is playing well, there’s not really an alternative either, so here we are

Yes, he got it caught climbing a fence wheb he was younger

Think there'll be goals in this. Villa like pushing the full backs on which will cause us problems especially down the right as I doubt ASM will stay with Cash. By contrast though if possession can get turned over there should be good counter attacking opportunities.

They did this with Pardew as well. Oh those deluded ungrateful Geordie’s don’t know what they’re talking about. They’ll soon realise his many, many faults