ikri

Weren't refs meant to be cracking down on grappling in the box at set pieces this season, or do the rules only apply to some clubs and not others?

There's still time for the referee to ignore another red card in the penalty area

There's a strong argument that we've already signed his replacement in Ramsey & are still looking for Longstaff's replacement.

Just need to look at Leicester. They made a load of excellent signings, enough to win the whole league, and were able to keep a positive cash flow. Until it all went sideways. They had increased their wage bill significantly to attract better players but the signings they made weren't anywhere near as good as they needed and they were suddenly stuck with a load of players who they had overpaid for, were earning too much and that no one else wanted. Man Utd should be in the same position except for their huge commercial revenue but even that is capable of disappearing the longer they go underperforming.

Harry Kane turns 33 next year and will be going into the last year of his contract. There's a very good chance that Bayern will be in the market for a replacement next summer.

As much as we shouldn't be rewarding his shitty behaviour, we shouldn't be rewarding Liverpool for theirs either.

It's a "No Dickheads" policy. We're allowed one.

We're going to run into a squad registration problem soon enough. I'm fairly sure that we have 24 players currently that would get registered, if we bring in a new forward to replace Wilson we'll hit the 25 man limit. If we want to bring in someone else after Wissa (assuming that deal is completed) we'll have to sell someone first or leave someone like Matt Targett unregistered and unable to play for the season.

I'll take that. We never have great matches away to Villa so a draw isn't a bad result at all. We desperately need a striker though, even if it's just as a focal point for the attack.

Not directly related to Isak, but this popped up yesterday as well. Shooting in Stockholm linked to Gyökere's Arsenal transfer Apparently there's a huge problem with agents and links to organised crime in Sweden.

There was a story yesterday that Barcelona were pissed off with Sesko because they expected to be in for him next year. So there's the answer. Barcelona give us Ferran Torres and £80m, plus some add-ons, we give them some favourable payment terms so they can afford it this year and Isak gets his actual dream move. Everyone wins except for Liverpool.

Andy Carroll had a loan spell with PNE so awful he was sent home early. 18 months later he was starting for us. Loans can fail for loads of reasons, it doesn't always mean that the player won't still succeed.

His agent will be getting a 10-15% cut of any deal. Of course he'll be pushing for £250k per week at Man Utd instead of £150k per week with us.

Anyone know Graham Carr's phone number?

Erik ten Hag is his current manager. I think he might just be desperate to get away.

Chelsea were fucked if they hadn't been bought back then. We kept on being linked to players like Terry who was likely to be available on the cheap because they desperately needed to sell.

I'd offer him to PSG and Madrid for 150m with some very beneficial payment terms, like £5m up front then the remainder over 4 years instead of 3x 50m payments as would be usual. We don't need the cash flow, the overall sale price goes into the PSR calculation whether we get the full money in one lump sum or over a few years. If Liverpool want him they can stump up the full amount in one payment.

And then casually admitting that she's played the entire tournament with a fractured tibia

Not sure, Google suggests that Roma were covering his wages. I thought of him as one of the new signings so didn't consider his wages.

Excluding the other new signings, I believe that £70k would be more than the next 5 top earners at Sunderland combined. They had a very low wage bill in the Championship.

Given the new sponsorship deals they've been announcing I'd say it's almost certain that they've either gotten away with everything completely or they know the punishment is going to be so minor as to not matter.

To quote Gabe Newell, Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem. Let people subscribe to a streaming service that lets them stream the games they want to see at a reasonable price and most of the piracy disappears.

Burnley will be in for a shock. They were promoted on the back of an incredibly good defence, they simply didn't concede goals. The problem they're going to come up against, and it's the same issue that Sunderland are going to face as well, is the time and space that defenders get in the Championship simply doesn't exist in the Premiership. Teams with a high press will be on to any loose ball or any players holding the ball slightly too long. You can get away with that in the Championship but will get slaughtered for it in the Premiership. Watching the play-off final you could see both teams making minor mistakes that weren't punished because the players weren't capable of pouncing on those lapses but you could see that a Premiership player would be all over them. Pre-season friendlies against teams that don't play with a high press don't show how good they're going to be this season once they go up against teams that have a well-drilled press.

Norwich made some decent money from highly rated young defenders who never reached their potential. Lewis with us, Aarons with Bournemouth and Godfrey at Everton.

Just a reminder, we've still got a shockingly low UEFA coefficient ranking. That almost guarantees that we'll get a really nasty draw again.