Neil

Well hello Kate Riley.

My first thought.

Stoke looks like a shithole beyond shitholes.

Wait, apparently Odemwingie doesn't have any permission to talk to QPR. Crafty.

A lovely metaphor representing Jenas' position in any sort of quality squad.

And wormy, but until he removes that fucking avatar, I'm refusing to acknowledge him as a long-term member of the forum.

Made me think of listening to his music. The band any good? Not bad IMO, Pilko I seem to remember is a sooooooopafan.

£34m for Will.I.An, blimey.

He's a ballsy player, like. Why? Just, why? Rock in defence, though.

Don't suppose anyone has seen John Stones play? Sounds like an FM regen.

It's also weird that the generally reported thinking on him staying would be just to play vs Juventus and likely get knocked out of Europe. Don't really know why he'd want to waste his career in Scotland for much longer.

Someone's going to quote "Martin Samuel" in this thread later.

Give us Negredo damn it.

Good win for your lot. How much did you win?

Took Barca @ 6/5.

Tear them a new one, Leo.

Jelavic dropped. It was coming.

Skybet front page.

Ronaldo has 7 in his last 6 El Clasicos. In the last 3 El Clasicos, both have scored. 5/2 is an insane price, and I will say that even if it doesn't come off.

As mentioned on the last page, I'm doing the same. Think it's fucking excellent value.

What's going on with the Fer transfer? Read something about Everton imposing a deadline on FC Twente to agree on some additional contract clauses, due to him having had knee surgery or something? Are you trying to make a part of the agreed fee dependent on certain targets or somesuch? Basically yeah. The original deal was going to be spread out over a couple of years' worth installments, which I guess is how a lot of deals are done nowadays. The medical however showed up a potentially serious knee problem he suffered while on international duty last year. We're now scrambling around trying to renegotiate a deal with more emphasis on appearances. We've apparently set a deadline of 7.45 (kick off tonight) for an answer either way. The Twente president has been very boisterous about this in the media and depicting it as though we're pissing them about. Hard to say exactly who's saying what here but the latest is that Munstermann (president) has said "if nothing changes, then he'll probably stay". Whether that's sheer stubbornness from him (and he has every right to defend the interests of his club) or just some common haggling, remains to be seen. At the moment though, more likely not to go through than to happen. "We tried." I can hear it now.

To me, it's that fine line between it being a win which stops the rot and allows you to look up rather than down, and concentrate on getting towards mid-table, forget about this season and push forward with a strengthened squad next year.... and also recognising you're still in the shit, and 0-1 points in your next 2 games (which is very possible) will put the pressure right back on, and back to square one almost. Very confident you'll be more than fine (still think you'll get top 10) while also recognising yeah, this season's been a massive disappointment. Hopefully, with the January additions, you can build some momentum between now and May, and use that as the base for next season. I firmly believe that's what happened with us - we got Jelavic and Pienaar in last January, hit some good form and that continued at the start of this season.

Wonder what excuses Kenwright and his media cronies will come up with this time if this Fer deal doesn't happen. At the moment, it doesn't look like it will.

Draw.