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Allan looked good early in his first season under Ancelotti, then had a couple of injuries and looked finished. Watching him last season was painful at times. Couldn't fault his effort, but his legs have gone and he would just be chasing shadows all game. With the signings we've made this season he was realistically down to about 6th or 7th choice. He might have been ok back in Italy, but none of the clubs who'd want him there could afford his wages. The Middle East was his only option without taking a huge paycut. Wish him well but it's great to get rid of his wages.

The home looks like a Wolves kit. Weirdly, they've got the right shade of orange on the away kit.

Did Guy Fieri design it?

Brutal

No bitterness because he's doing a puff PR piece to throw his hat in the ring for the Leicester job! Doesn't mean he isn't lying through his teeth that he "couldn't change things inside" at Everton because he's a red. He literally came in and won a power battle with the DOF and scrapped most of the medical, scouting and recruitment departments without any replacements lined up for the latter two. He was allowed to change far TOO much in a very short space of time. We had no senior recruitment staff for the January window and his medical people left us in the lurch when he got sacked. Kevin Thelwell seems to have done a good job since the summer of cleaning up his mess, appointing new staff and putting some proper structures back in place. Very easy for Rafa to blame his past on getting sacked, and not the run of 1 win in 14 or the way he conducts himself. I don't see him getting any more Premier League opportunities, because his diminishing returns on the pitch mean he's not worth all the hassle he causes behind the scenes. He should either drop down a level or retire, but his ego would probably struggle with either option.

Yeah, he's done a better job than he gets credit for I think. We're lacking goals and have been suffering from having no striker available in these opening games, but Lampard has at least made us much more solid and harder to beat than we were. They've quite clearly targeted getting the right 'type' of player in as well this summer - Coady, Tarkowski, McNeil etc. Not the most exciting but will give us a decent base to rebuild with. I thought we also played some good counter attacking stuff tonight and created the best chances despite Leeds possession. The VAR offside was extremely harsh as well.

I don't know what game the BBC were watching then, since Patterson played really well and got MOTM on BT

This opinion is so bad it's unreal. Lampard has worked wonders with him. He's probably been our best player since he took over and played him in the middle. Him, Onana and Gueye as a three should be really good.

Yes, no payment to Spurs until 20 EFC appearances (£10m at that point) Spurs have a sell-on fee, so maybe they will get a cut of any loan fee but that will be peanuts

No not yet, but reported that we are touting him around. He only has one year left on his contract. Marseille have been linked.

Yeah, Kenny. He's signed for Hertha Berlin on a free. Everyone is hoping Patterson is the starter next season. Coleman is well loved here and worth keeping around as a club captain but he's finished as a regular. It was £60m! Will fix that. You're spot on about Mina. He's the only one that can organise our defence and the stats show there's a massive difference to results when he plays. I think the club see Tarkowski as having the same organisation and leadership qualities, hopefully he can do the same job. I will miss Mina's word class shithousery though

Yeah I don't see us selling him to anyone. Financial pressure should be off with the Richarlison sale and other high earners' contracts expiring. Lampard seems to love him, so expecting him to be a big part of the team again next season. Would cause uproar with the fans if he was sold this early as well.

Aside from the creative accounting for Covid, the club have drastically reduced spending. The following all came off the wage bill in the last 12 months: James £200k Bernard £120k Sigurdsson £120k Richarlison £100k Digne £100k Delph £90k Tosun £60k Moise Kean £50k Kenny £30k VdB and El Ghazi's loans ended and we were covering all of their wages. Pretty sure VdB was on something ridiculous at Man Utd. Some decent fees in - about £60m for Richarlison and £25m for Digne. Juve have an obligation to buy Kean for £25m. We spent about £30m combined on Gray, Mykolenko and Patterson in that time. All of them on much lower wages than their predecessors. The only high earner to come in is Dele on £100k. He will end up costing us a £10m fee, but nothing as yet. I don't expect us to be big spenders in this window, probably make a small profit and keep the wage bill sensible. Tarkowski is apparently on around £80k but Mina (£120k) is likely to be sold.

I think they just matched his Spurs wages, so about £100k a week which is still less than the likes of Bernard were on (£120k!) and James (£200k) Alli has already paid for himself by getting a couple of assists towards the end of the season that kept us up and avoided financial meltdown. Anything else is a bonus. Shame for the player that he has this £30m payment hanging over him though.