Segun Oluwaniyi

Oblak was rubbish in the shootouts against PSV and Madrid. He has faced probably fifteen penalties in these two matches and not come remotely close to saving any of them. I wonder how many times Pardew performed that dance in his mirror before deciding to do it in front of 100,000 people and looking right toward a camera so the entire world could see.

He looked offside on the replay.

This match may hinge on how quickly Clattenburg takes his book out to deal with Atletico's cynical fouling.

She is a woman of great beauty. Why is she here? Why did her agent book her to sing endlessly in front of 80,000 disinterested European men? When did Clattenburg become one of the top referees in Europe? He is maybe my least favourite of the regulars in the Premiership.

It will be into the next hour before kickoff at this rate.

Seriously, what is the point in this? Ge ther off that lousy stage and get those players in. Didn't care too much about this game until now, now I just want it to start quickly. Someone at UEFA watched Superbowl and started developing ideas, anything to be more American. Anyway, it is always a pleasure to view Alicia. I do not begrudge it at all.

A litany of other clubs could have signed them for the same fees and wages we paid. None of them did. They were fine signings. Even the likes Debuchy and Gouffran were relatively good signings. Debuchy was very good after a period of adjustment and for what he cost, Gouffran played a fairly important role in keeping this team up three years ago (obviously there has been a sharp decline since then). A demotion seems a just reward for him, given the small amount of information we are privy to about his position in the football club. He seems useful, but was given too much responsibility, a situation that has been common in the Ashley regime. What about his qualification or history lends itself to near total control over a club's player staff? Eh...in my mind, the main reason for this relegation is the poor recruitment/general transfer activity (along with the extremely poor management of the recruits) of the past two seasons and the reluctance of the club to sack McClaren. I had no real issues with his initial hire. While not particularly exciting or ambitious, he was certainly qualified, willing to come, an improvement on Carver, and seemed a steady enough hand to rebuild after the genuine disaster that marked Newcastle in the first five months of 2015. It didn't work, but managerial appointments across the world fail constantly. If you look at the rate managers are sacked in football, it is a position in which failure is normal. What is also normal is for clubs to cut out the personnel that is failing and continue to work to change and improve. For a club of Newcastle's stature to respond to a season spent almost entirely in the relegation zone with no change until March is madness. The level of complacency and lack of care at the top is what has ruined them once again.

Musa is "good", but there is no way I would be paying 22 million for this man. I am a fan of his game, he is extremely fast, has incredible acceleration, and is quite good in front of goal, yet I've watched him for most of his career and he is responsible for some of the single most idiotic decisions I have ever seen on a football pitch. I also don't see him displacing any Foxes starters in their current roles. He definitely needs to play upfront as he does for CSKA and not out wide as for his country. If you let him just run around causing havoc he can be devastating at times, tbh.

Isaac is a bit of a headless chicken at this moment and has shown flashes of being a headcase, but the talent he has is obvious. Very quick, fairly skillful also, and an (somewhat erratic) eye for goal. The boy is legitimately only 20, so I would be interested to see how he performs in what should be a better team than Granada. Maybe he can match his age mate, Iheanacho.

Assuming Cisse is due to leave, there needs to be another striker signed regardless. I would like a proven goal scorer from that league, tbh. How much would someone like Nahki Wells cost?

DR Congo seem as though they have fallen to a disappointing 2-0 defeat in Bangui just now. I didn't watch this match, but it seems they have persisted with Mbemba in central midfield, as sites are listing Zakuani and a local boy in defense.

I have seen Obertan, Gouffran, Riviere, Williamson and others listed perform as top-level footballers at some point in their careers. I have never seen anything approaching this from Eliot. Eliot is the worst.

Not sure I agree, I don't understand why he didn't force it. He's 26, and it's a short career. especially with the euros coming up, sure he'd be an outside contender but another season like last one goal wise and he'd be in consideration for the squad. Then again do we need another player crying and moaning because he won't be getting a slightly larger sack of money each month? All credit to him for not acting so selfish. Hope he does well this season and in his career. he'll probably be off in jan anyway, somebody down near the bottom will be desperate enough with the new tv deal starting next season (i think) to pay whatever to get a goalscorer. I agree, one of the clubs in trouble will have no problem paying 15-20 million in transfer fees and a large deal, if it keeps them in the Premier League. The only worry for Austin is catastrophic injury.

The Martial signing reminds me of the Andy Carroll signing. The fee seems ridiculous, but if you believe the club is singing the heir apparent, what does it matter?

I think Navas is quite useful, tbh. His end product isn't good enough, but his directness and pace balance out the side well. De Bruyne is better, but also a totally different type of player.

Moses is a good player and the last two seasons he has actually played, 2013 at Chelsea and 2015 at Stoke the boy has done quite well. Good signing for them and good for him to get games. I believe that De Bruyne will do fairly well at City, but will not improve the team much, if this makes sense.

Surprised Janmaat didn't end up in the book. But don't remember him making a challenge actually. Colback too. You would think him a prime candidate the way the team had to play. The red card was terrible. A yellow is fine, but there was so little force in the challenge and no malicious intent. Sometimes in football, people are stepped on, it is natural thing and doesn't warant that sort of reaction from the ref.

Disagree, tbh, it's a decent draw this year. City will win, but Juventus is vulnerable, imo. They've struggled and in one case failed to qualify above Galatasaray and Olympiakos in the last two seasons. Who are the two stronger teams in H? Zenit is very strong and can easily challenge the other two. I would give CSKA and Gala a good chance of sneaking through as well. Tbf though, the Champions League group stage is almost always bland, sterile, and predictable, so you are probably correct.

The defence is genuinely atrocious and much of the talent is young and experienced. Finishing top half is a good goal, but I'm not too fussed about it. This season is more about building a team unit, restoring a positive atmosphere around the club, and having a legitimate go at winning cups. Without major sales and some more good purchases, this side could actually be competitive in 2016-2017.

Tbf, they are a 1 seed. Really, the only way they would get an extremely difficult group was pulling Madrid from pot 2 and/or Wolfsburg from 4. The other three English teams were in more vulnerable positions, but frankly all four should be favoured to get through. B,C,D and E should all be very interesting and tight in terms of who gets through. edit: Group H has three very good and fairly even sides too.

Without any exaggeration whatsoever, I believe Bayern are stronger at every single position.

Says a man who soils himself at the sight of a mildly attractive female or minor football news. Anyone opinions on Silva? I don't think I have ever seen him play.

Kurzawa went to PSG.

Not sure but he's got a decent amount of game time for a guy with no pre season If he's not sold I still think he'll have a part to play this season assuming McClaren rates him. He's much better than Colback, and there are some games where he might be better suited than Anita if we need a more physically imposing defensive midfielder. Is Tiote really "much better" than Colback? The player I have seen over the past few seasons is not "much better" than any other senior player in the squad. I like what Tiote represents in terms of a physical midfield presence, so I am hoping he can recover his past form, but he's looked a poor player more often than not in the recent time frame.

Based purely on abilities, I'd have Bony, Benteke, Lukaku, and Dzeko. In terms of picking a player to lead the line in front of Arsenal's quick-passing game, Giroud has special attributes, but I prefer those four to him generally. It is possible, obviously, given that Chelsea only lost thrice last season, but there is no reason to even mention this with 12/13ths of the season remaining. Only a strange person would be reaching conclusions at this stage of the season.