Chris_R

Well I could understand if he heard Arsenal or Spurs were in for him, he'd fancy a move to those clubs which may manifest itself as 'wanting to move to London', but having a desire to only live in that specific city irrespective of club doesn't make any sense at all. I mean, do we think he would he fancy a move to Brentford or Palace? They're in London, after all. It just doesn't make any sense to me. He's got (to my knowledge) no connection with the city.

Always found the "Maddison wants to live in London" chat a bit weird. Born in Coventry. Played for them, then moved to Norwich. Loan spell in Aberdeen then a few years at Leicester. Why the fuck would he have any affinity to London?! It's like saying any of us geordies would want to move to London. I mean maybe some of us do, but it feels like a bit of a reach and personally I can't think of anything worse.

You can't coach pace though, and that's what Maguire completely lacks. There isn't any realistic way to coach him to have mobility and a decent turn of speed. Be far better starting with someone who actually has that in their game already and coaching the coachable bits in instead. Plus Maguire will cost lots (bafflingly) and want massive wages.

This. Home grown first teamer when we already don't have enough? He's going nowhere. I think even for 60, maybe 80m we'd still say 'no'.

Foreground: last place I ever stood Background: first place I ever sat

It's not a strange take. Firstly, of course Short as an adult is responsible for his own decisions, many of which were clearly bad. I'm not detracting from that. But he probably banked on the fans actually filling the stadium with full priced tickets which would have made his investment affordable. When they didn't, it wasn't. He probably then didn't see the point of bankrolling you further in the Championship because you'd need serious investment to get back up and get back up for what reason? To be unprofitable in the PL again? How much is a team worth that doesn't even make money in the PL? He realised he'd been sold a pup and cut his losses. Ashley knew that in the PL, we were highly profitable. Sunderland weren't, again largely because their own fans didn't want to pay proper money for tickets. If they were averaging what was it, £10/head instead of maybe £45/head (sure, kids tickets are less but corporate could be way higher), assuming a full stadium that's a deficit of £28m/season.

If Spurs will potentially pay £60m, we should offer £59m to ensure they do. No point walking away now and letting them get him cheap, bump the price up for them even if we've got no interest in paying it. Spurs will absolutely sell Kane this summer. They won't want to lose £100m just to keep him for another season, that's not good sense in anyone's books.

Why was Short obligated to throw good money after bad though? What's wrong with him doing what he did and saying "that's my limit, enough is enough"? Why, after all he put in, did he (at least seemingly in the opinion of many of your fans) owe Sunderland even more than the hundreds of millions he poured into the club? Maybe he had some mad expectation that after years of funding the club, the fans might actually be willing to spend more than an average of about £10/game so that he wasn't hemorrhaging money like someone trying to bail out a boat with a sieve, and his shrug off the shoulders and cry of "fuck it" was perfectly rational, and blame can better be traced back to the supporters who, quite frankly, didn't support.

Birdseye agree with you, there's not mush point in us podding along with this, we'll just make ourselves feel green when he goes elsewhere.

And with 1 year of qualifying for the CL in the last 20, and us having won nothing (arguably) better since 1955 than what he achieved with West Ham just yesterday, he'll not be coming here. We'll get to the level he wants to play at, but we're not there yet.

Be quite impressive for Keegan to convince Rice that Newcastle is closer to London than London is. Regarding Rice though, he's on £60k/week now and turned down £200k/week 18 months ago. He's not coming here

They spent a billion on golf, ffs. GOLF. Without FFP we'd have had a squad of Galacticos by the end of the first transfer window.

Yes, but no matter what anyone says, there'll be a first XI and a second XI. One of them will be "preferred" in the big matches, and the other will generally play against the weaker opponents.

Are people really suggesting that firstly we'll sign McTominay for about £30m to be Longstaff's backup? And that secondly, McTominay will be happy to come here on that basis?

That's a bold claim considering Burnley bought him to replace Wood and promptly got relegated. Want to try again?

Did we pay too much though? It's an easy comment to make but who could we have signed for less who'd have kept us up?

Don't get the Wood hate. He was a focal point for our attacks which we'd have otherwise lacked at a time we desperately needed one, he pressed well from the front, worked his bollocks off and had the right attitude. Without him we might have been relegated. He didn't score as many as we'd have liked, but having him in the team allowed us to push higher up the pitch and carry a threat to the opposition instead of being camped in our own half. Whilst I'm glad we now have better options, he was vital for that first 6 months or so and I'll always think of him fondly. Hopefully he goes on and rediscovers his goalscoring form for Forest.

Is he mint, eh?

Murphy may have had the easiest task in the world to score Vs Everton, but there's no reality where I am I not voting for it after probably the greatest assist* I've ever seen. *I also don't give 2 royal shits that some stuffy old farts in a suit have declared "iT wAsN'T aN aSsIsT!" Goal of the season Assist of a lifetime.

I'll admit it took me a hell of a long time to COMPLETELY give up on Ashley. I kept hoping that what we were seeing were him making mistakes he'd learn from. That it was incompetence, not malice, that he'd surely come good. The guy was a multi-billionaire after all. In theory, a dream owner. Sure, I think deep down I knew he was a complete waste of time very early on, but I kept hoping I was wrong. Why would I WANT my club's owner to be shit? It was probably around 2014/15 I completely gave up any hope and I was cheering opposition goals - a common sight on here around that time. But then after the second relegation Rafa came, and although I knew Ashley for what he was I, like many, had hope again because Rafa believed in us. I even hoped that Ashley would see the error of his ways and that investing would increase the value of the club with Rafa and that we could build something. I knew I was wrong, but I still hoped. You always want to see the best in your owner because they're the ones who have the power to see you realise your sporting dreams. Of course when Rafa went, every last scintilla of hope was utterly and finally snuffed out, but that was a hell of a long time after the fat prick first took over. And even then, an insane amount of time after he'd bought us and with Steve fucking Bruce at the helm, there were still nearly 50k people who seemed happy enough with his tenure to yeet the best part of £1000 at him every year. Fuck knows how long it'd be before they all gave up. So no, I'll not berate any other fans for not turning on an owner quickly enough.

Sure. But when Ashley was downing pints in the away end, sacked Allardyce and brought Keegan back, we didn't exactly hate him either. Sometimes it takes a while. Of course Donald always looked like a chancer from the outside, but from the inside you want to give the owner a chance, you want them to succeed because that's what's best for the club and for you.

Probably good news for them, getting rid of Donald seems positive.

Dele Alli is finished. Completely finished.

I've already said my main problem is removing £30m (or whatever number) from our transfer budget and adding it to that of a direct rival. If he was a superstar they couldn't replace, fair enough, but the general perception is they're going to use that money to go and buy someone better