Yorkie

Fair enough. Dull as shite in interviews like.

I was on about Isak but have you watched/listened to The Rest Is Football? Shearer is very much himself on that.

Fantastic from Sels

Oh look. Another pointless, unnecessary, glacial intervention from VAR.

Obviously I believe we can win and wouldn't advocate playing for a draw. But going into that midweek tie off the back of two home defeats is a recipe for disaster. It's as must-not-lose (as opposed to must-win) as it gets. And Fulham are decent. A point wouldn't be the end of the world.

I'd take a point and gamble on Bournemouth and Man City both losing.

Yes it was very boring. He's not the most charismatic, like. Fortunately he's absolutely amazing at football.

Extended version of that interview https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0kmv5ys/premier-league-alexander-isak-the-big-interview

Marshall's passive aggressive 'shorter questions please' was chefs kiss. Tbh I've never really minded her but she comes across as a bit of a twerp in those pressers. A lot of them are a bit odd. You've probably got to be in order to do that job. Take that Scott Wilson Targett link the other day; I mean that's a total embarrassment in any other line of work, but on you go to the next one, means nowt.

That would be annoying. Fuck knows why anyone would want to go and play for that idiot though I suppose he won't be there long.

Pope added to the Hates Osula club.

Don't see what's so unusual about it. We were gonna sign someone and City acted quickly so we couldn't. I didn't say it was out of spite, they presumably identified him as a target too, but there was nothing to suggest they intended to get him in January. He was linked to us and then suddenly he was in a City shirt.

According to Caulkin we were all set for a summer purchase.

Didn't even buy in Chelsea/Tosin's case. It's literally Jeff Bezos sneaking through the exit door at Lidl and raiding the basket for the food bank.

Apropos of nothing, Caulkin all but said Man City bought Khusanov to prevent us from doing so. So that's both him and Tosin where that's happened now. We can't really win. It's critical that we stay active and have things in the pipeline, but then you've got agents letting the cat out of the bag and driving interest. Restrict spending somehow, fine, whatever. I don't want to be Man City anyway. But apply it fairly, you fucking dicks.

He was telling Cabella to cheer up. He was an absolutely mint coach, like.

Surely fucking not.

Yeah strongly agree with this. One big reason for my apprehensiveness over a new stadium is that we'll get something that looks utterly boring. I get why SJP isn't for everyone because that's the nature of architecture but at least it's distinct and, like you say, unique. Everton have at least tried to buck the trend to some extent but I think it looks more like an art gallery than a football stadium.

Without delving too far into it it seems like there's a fair bit more in the balance in this competition?

The fee for Duran is irresistible in a PSR world or otherwise. Hopefully Osula knocks on a couple more worldies between now and the end of the season and we can spend in the summer too.

Do agree. I'd have swapped Dortmund for a Red Star or a Copenhagen mind...

Who needs Saudi connections when Darren Eales can ask an old flame for a favour. Incredible deal for Villa. I don't think they've got the squad to get CL again this season but they seem pretty well set up in the short term. Spunking a lot of their new cash on Disasi and Felix would give me some comfort at least.

£12million for Longstaff is bollocks even in today's market, where teams are probably less inclined to spend significant cash on the likes of him. But he's not some no-mark; he's a seasoned pro with over 200 games under his belt for Newcastle. It's a very low risk signing for the likes of Everton, so they can stump up a bit more than that I'd say. Surely he's worth more to us as a squaddie than a paltry sum like that. I'm not averse to selling him (though there'd certainly be a lot of sadness there) but he's not a bad person to have around.

Made the point a few times but I really don't think there's anything wrong at all in wanting a pint at the ground as part of the whole occasion. In fact it's a joyful thing. The trouble is, at SJP (and I assume basically every ground more than a few years old) you can only achieve that at the expense of watching the game. So it's a question of how much you care about the team I guess. I've never gone to the concourses before the whistle at SJP but, at York, my lass and I take it in turns to be the one to nip down and miss the last five minutes of the first half. I assume those doing the same at SJP are even more casual about NUFC than we are about York, given the difference in how much football you have to miss in either ground. To make it possible without missing loads of the game, you need massive concourses, shit loads of taps and shit loads of staff. I think the new Everton ground has a bar pretty much the entire length of the stand at one end, so that'll be an interesting case study.