brummie

Cameron Archer. Again.

She is an absolute toxic bell end. She worked with us for a while in some role on the womens' team and got shipped out pretty quickly for being an absolutely horrid gobshite.

Teacher's pet, sugar flavoured snot face. That's why I dislike him.

I thought Emery was nuts to bin him in January and just go with Watkins as the only experienced striker on our books, but he was right. Crikey, what a descent. Great finisher, but no legs left. Also has a weird, sort of World War Two Tommy look about him. One who has been in a POW camp for a while. EDIT: Germans, not Japs obvs.

Breeding then selling young prospects has a much bigger FFP connotation than buying young and cheap and selling, but yeah, you have to say, massive financial cheats though City and Chelsea are, and have been for years, they've been canny enough to not forget the other end of things, the youth sales. What makes this interesting now is that a lot of Championship and newly promoted PL clubs look at exactly this sort of end of the market, and have the money to buy in it, as well. As an example, if we sold Cameron Archer this summer - which I hope we do not - I reckon he'd fetch close to £20m, for a player who had barely featured for us, but had definitively 'done it' at Championship level. A while ago I remember reading an interview with someone high up in a PL academy - it might have been ours, I genuinely can't remember - and he was saying that given the vast numbers of players who go in and never make it, people don't realise what a huge impact the occasional sale at even 5m or 10m makes - both in terms of the costs of running an academy, but other things like FFP, and the immense amount of both effort and luck needed from both club and player to get them to that point.

19m AND a buy back clause. Just in case, like.

I think the major difference is nobody is going to bat an eyelid at the Saudi league at any point, other than the people being paid huge sums to go and take part in it. The Chinese league at least had a billion Chinese potentially interested in it.

Innit!

Yeah, it's just another little piece of history repeating itself.

Genuinely can not think of one single player he improved under us, not one. Can't think of one Emery has NOT improved. Possibly Leon Bailey, but that's it.

Gerrard basically accepting his is over. His problem is that he's going to forever be followed by the fact that a squad he had in 16th after 1/3 of a season, and averaging a point a game, was taken over by someone else, barely added to, and guided into Europe, having put together some superb form, winning their last seven home matches in a row whilst only conceding one goal from open play and one dodgy penalty, and scoring in every one of his first fifteen matches. As for Lampard, he's surely got the worst win ratio of anyone who has managed any team at any level. I actually think Lampard has managed to sink to depths Gerrard has yet to reach, his record is that bad.

I don't think he is convinced, either.

Kamara should be there.

Monchi at work, I imagine. Emery also worked with Torres at Villareal, don't forget, and I remember as soon as Emery joined, everyone was saying he wanted Torres. A bit like when MON joined and everyone knew his first signing would be Petrov

You’re not fooling me.

Bit harsh on Carlos. Snapped his Achilles in his home debut. Out pretty much the entire season.

¡No gracias!

Transfer list: Pau Torres Ferran Torres Alton Towers Fawlty Towers Fernando Torres Blackpool Tower.

They might not have anything to spend it on right now in Saudi, but they have the rest of their lives to do it. I think as fans we sometimes underestimate the extent to which footballers are really about the money. This Saudi thing is really showing it. It is the same dynamic that brings a lot of players to the Premier League, we just find it harder to admit that.

That’s actually €35m so £31m.

35 not 55.

Incredible how lucrative being a poor manager and delivering poor results can be.

Yes, good point re academy. I'll also say this now - Jacob Ramsey is better at 22 than Grealish was at that age. His two younger brothers are also at the club (Aaron was at Boro last season). I am hoping Archer gets a chance - he's a very impressive finisher. Also re spending - Douglas Luiz, Kamara, McGinn, Ramsey - total cost less than £20m.

Our net spend over the last 4 transfer windows is £40m. Nowhere near.

I think he's looking at it in terms of increasing the quality available in as many areas as possible, and whoever earns the start, gets it. Torres, Mings, Konsa and Diego Carlos as centre half options is very good. Now we need a back up keeper, a right back and a wide player.