sixx

Dan Burn and Eddie Nketiah are very much Bournemouth type signings. Not very inspiring but will probably do a job.

If Burnely wind up with Origi and we with Wood we'll have an egg on our face. If Origi becomes available we should be all over that.

Just looked through who Everton have signed the last few seasons. Dear me. Looks like they spent almost 100 million on Iwobi, Walcott and Gbamin (who?). You can't really fault them for trying. They've also had two managers recently in the world class bracket but fuck me their recruitment is abysmal. Really seems they have a preference in buying from other PL clubs.

Couldn't care less about him if Bruno arrives. Would have preferred van de Beek put he seems shy of a challenge. Not what we need.

Would he be better suited to partnering Lascelles or Schar?

Let's not assume it's entirely impossible to bring in players in January. We bought six players January 2013. We need options, just bodies in, someone to take a chance on. Even if they aren't walking straight into the XI we need competition and cover for nearly all positions.

We seem absolutely hell bent on getting this guy.

I’d like Alli but he works best in a bit of a free role behind the striker. Not sure we can tactically afford that with ASM already having a free role. Spurs fans generally seem puzzled as to what happened to him but it seems mostly mental. Maybe a change of environment could do him good. I’d absolutely trust Howe to rediscover him. Our owners seem really intent not coming across as they can be held to a ransom in the transfer market. Seems like they’re overthinking things a bit much.

Sit down man, Wood literally set a record in winning aerial duels. He’ll be useful until Wilson’s back.

Always had a soft spot for him. Looked really good at cb under Rafa for a while and was uncannily fast over long distance. Guess it’s over for him now.

I'd be inclined to put him in a back three along with Schar and Lascelles. Trippier and Ritchie (meh) as wing backs. A new midfielder behind Shelvey and Joelinton. Saint-Maximin in a free role and Wood (meh) up top.

This is looking very rough. The owners have to get used to the pace. Took far too long in sacking Bruce, far too long in hiring a replacement and should have had more lined up before the transfer window opened. I'm fairly sure this means we're down. Spurs hired Conte literally the day after sacking Nuno and we don't seem to be able to compete with Villa for players. It's massively frustrating.

At this level and given the predicament we're in it's all about putting very average players to good use and acknowledge their limitations. We saw it so clearly with Benítez. All of a sudden players like Dummett, Lascelles, Dúbravka or Hayden executed their roles quite impressively. They clearly had extremely detailed instructions on how to react on and off the ball, almost as if they had been given a script of the game beforehand. Given what Howe has achieved with an absolute toilet of players in the past I'm quite confident he can do exactly that. Think we most desperatly need full backs in the next window but a centre back or a centre midfielder wouldn't hurt. We really need to build a spine to this squad as soon as possible.

Probably zero chance of a manager like Rodgers coming in at this point. Why would he or Poch or even Potter for that matter leave an exciting project for a relegation scrap? Rangnick as a manager would be perfect, perhaps then as a DoF later on. Very experienced, great tactician, not shy of a challenge and has considerable experience of building clubs with newfound money from the bottom up. If he's interested we'd be bonkers not pursuing him. Conte would probably be my first choice though. This is exciting. I am currently feeling excitement towards NUFC. What the fuck.

If Southgate doesn’t show up in Qatar playing front foot positive football with all this attacking talent then he really deserves criticism. He has already tried the cautious approach and it cost him. I also think it’s quite underplayed how inexperienced most of your players are. Mount, Mings and Sancho have done 2 seasons of proper football. Kalvin has 1 season of top tier football under his belt as have Bellingham and Saka. Even Grealish pretty much has only 2 proper seasons under his belt.

Unlucky. Not many are going to win penalties against Donnarumma. Southgate made a judgement call with the last 3 kick takers, it backfired, shit happens. He just took you to within an inches of a cup with a midfield engineroom consisting of inexperienced Leeds and West Ham players and in general a wildly young and inexperienced squad. Also only conceded 2 with a back 5 that doesn’t really look good on paper. Been a great tournament all over.

Pretty much a perfect performance from England. What’s more impressive is that they’ve managed to reserve quite a lot of energy going in to the semi finals. Playing a lot at home helps obviously but still very savvy. No goals conceded. By far the best in the air and from set pieces. Not quite as well drilled as the Italians but still impressive. Southgate deserves praise, faultless so far.

It's never a red for me. Purely on the basis that it's not a 50/50 challenge. Danielson got there ages before the Ukrainian. What was he meant to do? If it's a 50/50 challenge yes it's a stonewall red card. He's just kicking the ball, it's not even a tackle and no malicious intent. Shit luck the Ukrainian went for it and had to eat his studs.

This might just be the most pathetic state I have ever witnessed our club in. What hurts the most is not the fact that we got rid of a world class manager for Steve fucking Bruce. It's not the notion that Rafa was assembling a noticeable spine for a team for the first time in ages which Bruce and Ashley collectively threw out the window managing to spend vast amounts of money in the process. What leaves me most bitter is this crony carousel of ex-managers, players and press telling us repeatedly what a wonderful job Bruce is doing, how fortunate we are having him and what spoilt brats us fans are for wanting something more. Anyone with half a brain can gather that all these dickheads riding the carousel have the same vested interests and would never dare to criticize one another too harshly. It's just jobs for the boys and it could as well have been me. Yet this isn't confronted. So amazingly English. It's the same reason that England has barely had a world class manager for 40 odd years (SBR probably the only one) and it's not changing any time soon. When was the last time an English manager won the league? How many times has an English manager finished in the top 4 for the last 30 years? When was the last time an English manger won the CL? Or reached a CL semi final? And don't you dare use Scotland as a crutch. Not being English I don't mind this carousel existing but making NUFC taking repeated rides on it is just moronic. Please just curl up and fucking die Mike Ashley.

Trust the process. Lagerback is king.

Absolutely no plan on what to do with the ball once we have it. A hallmark of a manager out of his depth.

Hate Man City as much as the next guy but if Messi chooses to go to England that's massively brave, I'd love that. Staying at Barca, going to Italy, let alone going to USA or UAE would be so much safer for him. In terms of the football, culture, weather and not least his legacy as a footballer, taking on the PL at this stage in his career takes cojones.

Went for Cisse. Looking back, that half season Carroll produced was a magical time to be a NUFC supporter. A local no. 9 pretty much being the best striker in the league - unplayable in the air, decent acceleration, strength, scoring from distance and poking them in, brilliant in the hold up. I really thought it was the start of something. It should have been the start of something. The day he was sold was probably the bitterest I've felt as a NUFC supporter, relegations included. Shame Ba never got the 9.

I've seen nothing to suggest he can be a useful winger. At least he has the physical attributes to be a powerful striker - other than that I have no clue what 40m was buying us. Dodgy.

Stopped reading here because in that game Sunday in saw enough to think he's good enough if being managed correctly. He's just not going to be. Yeah sorry didn't mean it to read as though I don't have faith in him as a player. I do. But not as 22-year old first choice striker, in his first season in England under the tutelage of Steve Bruce. That's just not going to work out.