PRL

They’ll probably say they were allowed previously but they’re being blocked off now.

Hayden turned his nose up at plenty of L1 loan offers, while considering an offer from Reading, of League 1. Seems legit

Obviously none of us know, but the idea Gordon could have dictated signing a 3.5 year contract when he was desperate to get away from Everton and Chelsea’s interest appeared to have cooled, seems unlikely. For what it’s worth, I’m sure at the very worst there’s a year option our side. It all feels like one source being quoted, which coincidentally helps to stir the pot.

I would assume the majority of our purples have agreed to stay for another season and see where we are, so the club view may be to sign 1-2 made for first 11 players to get us to best position possible in the hope of keeping at least all bar one, rather than having to be fending off interest in all of them if we finish outside Euro places again.

Msg from a Palace season ticket holder friend of mine, for what it’s worth: “Gutted you are getting Guehi. He is quality.” They’re more upset with this than Olise going it seems

Which one of you is Simon Bird?

As much as I hate the Mancs and think that Ratcliffe will fall on his face when he keeps making obnoxious public statements and begins to alienate internally as well as externally once the 'not the Glazers' schtick wears off, I would hazard a guess that their entire staff has been run in a similar manner to the squad, with slap dash recruitment, not shifting legacy workers when new hires are brought in and plenty of dead wood. It's not great being made redundant in the current marketplace, but from a business and club management perspective this probably isn't the most stupid thing to do, and it's not like Ashley who cut us back to the barest of bones, this is getting rid of excess fat.

Hasn’t he just ripped off exactly what Shadow Puppets said a few pages back? Same as he did earlier in this thread or a different one earlier today?

Got the ‘here we go’ from Romano

Their striker last season was Chelsea youth. Didn’t go so well.

Removal of relegation by stealth. Get what they wanted by gaming the system

Or as they’d say in the West Country, it’s Gert Lush

Normally don’t mind the random pics and posts, but would be lovely not to have them unless relevant just during June. No fun seeing this thread at the top of page.

Not really. It’s like any business investment - if you can loan at a reasonable rate against a solid asset and invest in something you think will garner larger returns then you’ll do it. His view could well be that the injection of cash will give rise to more rapid returns at a higher yield rather than a passive investment. Just large scale private equity investment. NB - not saying this is what he’s doing, but it wouldn’t be particularly strange if he was. edit - what stifler said quicker than me

They appear to be persuading themselves that Lampard would be a good appointment and his Chelsea links would do wonders for them. I’m sure they had a loan from Chelsea last season who didn’t have the best of times.

Seems Will Still might be off to Lens instead. Just the 4 months waiting… shame

I think Hall, Livro and Barnes were all opportunistic long term strategy buys last season - opportunities seen as too good to let go by. With Tonali being the ready to go straight into first team signing. I think/hope that’s burned us and this window we are looking more pragmatically at direct first team players with the majority of funds, as I think we are, if current links are correct. Longer term, the first approach will probably be the way to go, we just aren’t at the stage where the first team is good enough yet.

Where this fails is the number of seasons Arsenal had to give Arteta (and very nearly cut him) versus the likely time Maresca will be given. While they may claim this one is for the long term, their fans are severely pissed Poch was binned, and if they have a shit season having once again sold all their homegrowns, the atmosphere there will be absolutely toxic and the loop will play again.

They’ve already signed his replacement by the sounds of things.

If we must go for DCL, I wouldn’t mind some of the cost being offset by a loan of Minteh to them for a year. Wouldn’t want to sell him and don’t think Everton could afford him.

Not happening is it

Man united have set up well, no doubt about it. But the sheer sloppiness and not give a fuck from city, continuing into this half, is fucking tragic

Absolute fucking gobshites

He was miles on mind, lines on pitch showed the lad on far side playing on

City players definitely still hungover from partying by looks of this