brummie

My dad and his mates fucked off Blues and got season tickets at Solihull a few years ago. Happy for him and totally weird if we get Soihull in the football league.

If i was a retired footballer, I'd make sure I got fucking HUGE once I could, as soon as possible.

Ha ha ha, excellent!

"So, Peter, just sit there and when we come over to you, sound like the biggest, most robotic officious cunt you possibly can"

What's the fucking point in Peter Walton?

SIx years ago today we lost Diego Swarfega. Rest in peace, hombre.

Grealish? I've gone right off him after this.

Bit harsh on Gerrard some of this stuff. His training methods are miles off the traditional British managers - for a start, we've got a huge coaching staff (you may recall Danny Murphy scoffing at the fact we have a dedicated set piece coach on MOTD) and use stats and analytics massively. He's miles away from MON with his bibs and cones or Bruce. Based on his time with us, the season since his joining date, we'd be 9th. I am still undecided on him, but if there's any doubt, it's not around him being the typical English manager of days gone by - he's no Souness.

We will be doing a fair amount of selling this window. Luiz will go (which I am fine with, I really don’t get what people see in him). Traore, Trezeguet, Wesley (the only Brazilian male in the world with no innate football ability), Targett, El Ghazi, one of Watkins or Ings, Guilbert and I really wouldn’t be surprised to see Mings sold.

Gerrard said before the end of the season that we were already well into discussions with clubs around targets and that he wanted them all in before pre season. Wasn’t expecting it this quickly.

re spending - if the money is there, try to improve. What other teams do won’t come into it, it’ll be about backing the manager. Our owners have got plenty of money and are doing exactly what you want from owners, making the funds available to improve the squad whilst at the same time growing the youth policy (Jacob Ramsey a great example). For all the money spent buying players in, the investment in youth is also there (building an inner city academy literally next door to the ground, also buying promising youth talent from other clubs for example). We’ve just sold a youth product for £100m after all, shows how important that side of things is as part of the bigger picture. regarding buying players, my take on it is that spending a lot of money on players does not guarantee success, but not spending pretty much guarantees failure

Although I personally loved him at Blues.

Not towards the end they didn't. always the same issue - the awful football.

It's pretty impressive that he's managed to unite the fans of all three Birmingham clubs, by having them play football so sphincter-shatteringly bad, they all loathe him.

The best thing Bruce did with us was send up Glen Whelan (of all people) to take a 90th minute penalty which would have secured a home draw with mighty Preston North End. I mean, Glen fucking Whelan? Anyway, he did. He missed, and Bruce got sacked.

It seems nuts to be saying it, but I really wouldn't (for us, I mean). Imagine the attitude he'd come with.

Although you are definitely right in that things seem much quicker when you’re not all over every detail of them.

not sure about that - Digne was out of the blue, and Coutinho was a surprise to everyone

i saw this tweet about the match which I thought was marvellous and summed it up. We need to be more mentally tough

I am going to be interested to see how we play both Coutinho and Buendia next season. Coutinho is on a different level technically, but Buendia is absolutely brilliant and in the latter half of the season really started to come out of his shell after his move.

i reckon he thought “I’m going to the Villa, fuck these guys”.

I would be very very surprised if that Bissouma stuff were true. And a bit worried as it might mean not enough money going elsewhere where it is needed.

We apparently run a strict wages policy - Coutinho had to fit in with that too, hence the 70% pay cut. If there's a difference, it is as Kamara said - we sent Gerrard, Lange (head of recruitment) and Purslow out there to see him several times, including Gerrard going to see him at his home. Whatever we're paying him, he could have got elsewhere. I didn't like the Gerrard appointment, but I must admit, the Coutinho and Kamara signings suggest that we're using his profile to sign players Dean Smith would never have been able to sign. Think about it - 17m for Coutinho and Kamara. If we'd been offered that several months ago, we wouldn't have believed it.

re Lampard, let's not forget his time failing to get Derby promoted, despite having a FFP busting squad which included Mason Mount and Tomori

It is difficult to rate Gerrard, as he came into the club in challenging circumstances, but he does have a way to play - likes the front three narrow, and the full backs pushing up. Although he's changed set ups a few times. I wasn't keen when he signed, but he's got to get at least a couple of windows and a season, really. He's inherited an unbalanced squad which had just lost our best player in decades, and hadn't settled in terms of the new purchases.