leffe186

Not sure it works like that, Ian... Edit: Unless you're talking about a completely different league I guess.

I hope they completely fall apart now Pellegrini is a dead man walking.

Alli nearly outscored the rest of my entire team in the first half.

I used to doodle formations and write A Tribe Called Quest in my notebooks. At school i used to do AVFC with various degrees of slope where the right hand part of the A runs parallel to the left hand side of the V. I also used to draw the two tone records logo over and over, too. Blockheads logo here.

Yup, me too.

Why is the BBC live text update so unreliable?

I'm still saving up for Aguero. I'm worried I'm one week too late.

Never heard that I have flowery prose before, cheers! Yeah, I was being a bit generous there, just based on your guys' reactions to Saivet/Anita/Colback tbh. I figure you know your players better than me.

OK - this is the bottom half: 11 Crystal Palace 23 -3 31 12 Everton 23 6 29 13 Chelsea 23 -2 28 14 West Brom 23 -8 28 15 Swansea 23 -9 25 16 Bournemouth 23 -11 25 17 Norwich 23 -15 23 18 Newcastle 23 -16 21 19 Sunderland 23 -18 19 20 Aston Villa 23 -20 13 I don't think there's any chance of Chelsea or Everton dropping, they've got too much to them. Villa are surely gone. Palace have been shit, but have some very winnable matches coming up, so I make them safe too. That leaves two from six, with only nine points separating you. Bournemouth - good couple of purchases in Jan, on a good run, excellent coach, squad may get stretched. Newcastle - 4 new players, need players back from injury, mediocre form, tough Feb. Norwich - tons of new players, ropey defence, awful form, tough-ish Feb. Sunderland - lots of players in and out, mediocre form, scary next four games. Swansea - quiet transfer window, decent enough form, three winnable games coming up. West Brom - quiet transfer window (in the end), mediocre form, winnable games coming up. As things stand, I have Norwich and Sunderland as the two going down with Villa.

You mean Alli? Actually, I suspect that his mentality is where he has the edge over Barkley. I think Barkley has better technique - Alli's goal against Palace notwithstanding - and is a better passer, but Alli is three years younger, and in theory a couple of years behind in his development. The most impressive thing for me is that Alli seems to understand the gritty side of the game. He uses his strength better than Barkley IMO, and can be an irritating sod, but usually knows where to draw the line. He's got a long way to go though, and is definitely being over-hyped right now. Many Spurs fans would not even pick him in their first XI, because he is still a bit raw and his protection of the ball is still suspect. He definitely has a goal-scoring knack, arguably more so than Barkley. I don't think he's really ready to be a regular for England, just too much to learn. A useful guy to bring on late, maybe, when the oppo is knackered. I think the two of them are just too similar to play together. Maybe in a few years.

A quality centre-back, centre-midfielder and proven goal scorer would have been an terrific window, surely? If that's just OK, then Christ knows what you were expecting. Edit: Expecting is probably the wrong word. Let's say "hoping for".

Here's a view from the outside. Honestly, I think if somebody told you you'd be spending 30M in January you'd have been well chuffed. With the benefit of hindsight, there could have been better ways to spend it, but I think you're quite obviously a stronger squad now. Look, I get the argument that "it's not our money", that the risk is that you'll lose more by going down etc etc, but from a fan's perspective there was a genuine possibility of you not spending anything at all. The fact that you did is clearly a good thing. I also get the argument that despite fixing one glaring flaw you've failed to fix a couple of others, but underlying everything is that fact that your administration is quite clearly incompetent to a large degree . They just left too many problems to fix in one window with the amount of money available. It was always going to be difficult to attract players to Newcastle this Jan without throwing money at them, and I'm guessing that your wage bill has taken a pretty sizable jump up. The greatest danger now is that you've fallen between two stools. You could have gone completely batshit mental and spent over 50M, or you could have battened down the hatches. It's ended up somewhere in the middle, and arguably more towards the mental side. You've spent a shit-ton this season, and so if you do go down it will be that much more of a disaster. The flip-side of that is that I suspect it would increase the odds of Ashley jumping ship. In truth, I genuinely feel that despite the shortcomings in both manager and squad, you'll now be safe. Doumbia isn't the best forward in the world, but I reckon he'll score more than Mitro. Townsend isn't the best winger in the world, but he's a useful weapon. Saivet and Shelvey aren't the best CMs in the world, but I they're better than Colback and Anita. If you go down now, the blame lies squarely at the feet of McLaren. He has no excuse to fail to make a decent XI out of that team, with no Cups to distract/tire/injure players. Your squad is bloated, but most of that bloat is mediocre players who you can live without for the rest of the season. My wife's a Villa fan. She's thinking of taking a football sabbatical for the rest of the season.

I thought your whole policy was to do business up front and not fuck about with a million clauses? Genuine question.

We've actually scored all of the nine goals in our last two games, but won 3-1 and 4-1.

Cannot believe this is only 1-0.

Don't know if it's been posted, but he had a run-out for our U21s today. If it's legit, seems a bit of a weird signing for you. He might be an upgrade on, say, Obertan, but you clearly have bigger issues. You've thrown a lot of money against the wall already - this would take you over 80M this summer/Jan according to Wiki - and you still have issues at the back and up front. How much more can you spend? Not having a dig, I'm just genuinely confused. I don't really see what the plan is.

If we do survive. There will be no money spent in summer. It's being spent now Yeah, this would be one of my biggest worries. You've got to get the transfers right.

Aren't Villa the worst home side in the history of the universe though?

I didn't see your game, but it was ropey as fuck against us. It's clearly part of Watford's plan.

What is your net spend in the last twelve months? Also, what's your squad size? It feels like you've already spent tons, although obviously (a) you'd been scrimping for a while and (b) going down would cost a shit-ton more.

Arsenal will only have the FA cup like and that doesn't infringe too much on league IMO. Not a done thing that yourselves will get past Fiorentina either, possibly wouldn't be the worst thing either as much as I love the EL. Egyptian lad from Basel Parky, can't remember his name. Defensive mid. Genuinely didn't realize that Arsenal were out of Europe. Also, I expect us to lose to Fiorentina. Still, Leicester have hit on a good formula and have been getting the breaks, and we're not far from the home stretch. I think they might do it - nobody else looks especially convincing.

There's still time. Also still time for some of their players to come back from injury. That said, I think the title is anybody's still. Man City, Arsenal and our lot still have a shit-ton of potential cup games, while Leicester have a pretty free run.

Yup, me too. Worst week in a long time.

My Cup opponent has as many points as Roger Kint. Of course, he has Cathcart AND Ighalo. His lowest scorer so far this week is Kane . It was fun while it lasted...

Rinse and repeat, I tell you, rinse and repeat.