John P

So Juve get about £85m for Pogba, and give us £50m of it for Sissoko. Carroll and Torres all over again.

Good to see he thought his 'most complete performance' was one in which he didn't get a goal or an assist and his team lost to the underdogs. Sums him up really.

So good being able to trust the manager, I'd forgotten what it felt like.

Love how this lad decided to step up and be a leader in the squad, great attitude.

Sakho would absolutely destroy the championship, can't see it happening though unfortunately.

Should get Rafa to periscope it

You have got to feel for him a bit, must be incredibly frustrating constantly getting struck down by injuries as soon as he gets fit again. He's probably on a pretty big wage though so it's probably best just to get rid of him, which is a shame because I'm sure he'd score a bucket load in the Championship if he were fit for a run of games.

Jesus Christ man

Their biggish crowds are negated by the fact they charge next to nowt for the fans to get in and flood the place with free tickets. For example their gate receipts are far smaller than the likes of Southamptons are as shown in the last set of accounts. Regarding the free tickets thing, a mate of mine works at Newcastle Uni and found out recently that the uni gets a load of discounted tickets for home games that uni staff can apply for. Never knew we did things like that, otherwise I'd have taken advantage of it whilst I was working there.

Dennis Wise tells me he's basically a left wing clone of Oba Martins

Being able to hear Tony Pulis screaming at his players during the game

It really is a sorry state of affairs when doing a good job at Bolton (I think we have to give him that), distinctly average to poor with Newcastle, ok at West Ham (where the fans hated him and couldn't wait to get rid) and then managing Sunderland to 17th is enough to get you the England job. I had a chat with a Sunderland supporting friend of mine this morning about it. He's a very intelligent guy, knows his football and he told me he would be really sad to see Sam go because they were a mess when he arrived, he brought in the right players to fill the gaps they had in their squad and he organised the defence and transformed them. I can sort of see some of his points, but they still had the 4th worst defensive record in the league last year and I think he relies on constantly drilling his players to get them organised. He simply wouldn't have time to implement that organisation with England and I think he would be totally clueless when it came to trying to break down a team that is set up to stop us. He's never had to do that in his career, he thrives on playing spoiling football against bigger and better teams. It would just be a cmplete disaster.

Ibe to have medical at Bournemouth in next 24hrs according to those wonderful sky sources

Yep, nicely done by Rafa. None of this 'we know he wants to play at the highest level so we'll have to consider any decent bid' bollocks

I thought so too.

Him and his agent can get fucked. They were happy to sign a long contract, he was then part of a team which underperformed for the whole season and got relegated. During that relegation season, he performed poorly for the vast majority of it, looked disinterested and couldn't wait to tell the French press how much he wanted to play for a bigger team. Guess what Moussa? If you play poorly all season, there's a chance your club will be relegated. If you want to play at the highest level, maybe put some effort in at your current club. You can't have any fucking complaints, so either wait until someone meets our valuation of you (seeing as you're such a great player) or shut up and get on with your job.

Probably relates to what he said in an interview a couple of weeks ago where he mentioned working out a way of playing against teams who are going to sit back and defend deep against us.

A dream move.

What on earth are the FA doing? Fat Sam and Fat Steve, jesus wept.

I never click on the pictures in this thread, it's incredibly sad seeing this time and time again.

Imagine being a young lad and Rafa talks to you for 2 hours about your game and tactics. You'd sign on the fucking spot.

I agree, think Ibe would be class in the Championship, looks quite promising from what I've seen of him. £15m seems like crazy money but some of the fees this summer are mental, plus we'll probably get more than that for Wijnaldum and Sissoko so it wouldn't bother me too much.

Watched snippets from a couple of interviews when he was at Hull, seems like a good lad, speaks well.

What the fuck are the FA thinking man? They look through all potential candidates and think Big Sam is the one?

Pretty persuasive guy old Rafa isn't he? Convincing Ritchie to drop a league and move from the opposite end of the country, then persuading Jesus not to go back to the club he made his name with in the south of Spain to come and play for a Championship club.