Gottlob

Yep. I don't know why so many people still don't get this. Al-Rumayyan is the type of guy who'll spend well over $3 billion solely in a bid to secure Augusta National membership. He's a reasonable man and I'm sure will have tempered expectations for this season, but if he was planning on attending the Champions League final in Munich as the special guest of honour next year and we don't make the grade, you'd better believe that using your own terminology for a second, he'll eat Eddie Howe's asshole alive, and then probably run down the chain of command until his appetite is sated.

I went to a baseball match in America once and really enjoyed one of those Philadelphia cheese steak sandwiches. Is there any chance that in a new stadium there'd be something like a sandwich stall where we'd be able to get one of those Philadelphia cheese steak subs, and then go back to our seats and eat it with enough room to neither infringe on the next person's arm space or get any of the juice on our trousers?

It's a shame it has to be this way, but the best we can probably hope for now is that he heals up well, comes on as a sub for a round of applause in the last game of the season, then proves fit enough for us to sell on in the summer for a handsome profit. It's like Lord Byron said, 'Fare thee well, Nick Pope! And if for ever, still for ever fare thee well'.

You wish for my own sake that I was on the wind-up!

He was excellent for three of our goals yesterday, but Adam Armstrong scored another cracker for Southampton, so right now I'd say they're running neck and neck. Can you imagine these two studs playing together? But given his form so far this season, it is fair to say that swapping Gordon for Armstrong in the summer, even on loan, wouldn't have been the right move. It would have been like robbing Peter to pay Paul. If we still want to snag Adam Armstrong on a cut-price deal, I reckon we'll have to use Harvey Barnes now as the makeweight.

When I posted previously about Anthony Gordon he was indeed our seventh-choice wide player - behind Almiron and Murphy on the right hand side and Saint-Maximin, Isak and some combination of Joelinton and Willock on the left, which is not to mention Elliot Anderson - and heading into the summer I saw a player low on form who could have used a confidence-boosting spell in the lower division. If you see the wonders which Eddie Howe has wrought with Gordon I ask couldn't he have achieved the same sort of results with Adam Armstrong, especially since as I've already mentioned in some of the aspects of his game as well as the general vicinity of his height he bears a marked resemblance to Sergio Aguero? But you can all continue to laugh, knowing that your laughter and japes bear the stench of gallows humour given that the opportunity to sign Adam Armstrong (for some cash plus Anthony Gordon on loan) has surely passed us by now that he's back banging those goals in for Southampton. Regarding the left back conundrum, I've also been a longtime admirer of Jeffrey Schlupp. Granted that stretches back to the time before time, which is to say pre-Saudi takeover. But if we could schlepp Schlupp from Leicestershire in the January transfer window way up north, he might still be able to get his Swedish spark out just in time for the sledding season.

It's alright saying that now that it hasn't happened, which you might say is like being a 'wiseman' after the fact. But I hearken back to the early summer of '23, when Anthony Gordon was still seen as a player out of form and it seemed like everything was possible.

Calvert-Lewin is a load of shite. The striker situation should have been sorted in the summer with the return of Adam Armstrong and Anthony Gordon probably going the other way on loan as a makeweight. As it turns out injuries and his own commitment and good form have made Gordon a crucial part of the first team, but we all know how much a side suffers from a lack of focal point up top. Adam Armstrong is a proven goal-getter albeit at a lower level of the game, he's home grown and wouldn't mind playing backup and he's also just one centimetre shorter than Sergio Aguero.

That's the last thing I'd want as my abiding memory of Paul Dummett.

Anthony Gordon had played 800 minutes of Premier League football and scored no professional goals when Eddie Howe was appointed Newcastle manager, which belies the idea that he'd wanted him for years and finally got his man. Since Gordon became a Premier League regular at the start of the 21/22 season he has managed a goal or assist every 421 minutes, whereas Adam Armstrong in at least an equally poor situation for Southampton has managed a goal or assist every 389 minutes. Far from being overburdened with pressure, rarely can less have been expected of a £40 million player who apparently wasn't supposed to start games, provide any assists, or score any goals. He's currently our seventh-choice wide player, which is generous because he's unfairly limiting the appearances of Elliot Anderson. And as a Scouser he's probably already past his physical peak, just like Robbie Fowler, Michael Owen, Wayne Rooney, Neil Mellor, Jack Rodwell, and Ross Barkley before him.

It's easy to make glib comparisons. Some people might say that as a wide midfielder, he plays like Adam Armstrong stacked on the head of Shane Ferguson. Others might argue that all big clubs make signings of this ilk, pointing to Jack Rodwell at Manchester City or Ross Barkley at Chelsea. For my part though he reminds me of one of Bobby Robson's earliest signings, who arrived at Newcastle already having made quite a name for himself, by whom I mean none other than Daniel 'The Wolf' Cordone.

Awful. 'Newcastle calling, Speak the slang now. Boys says "Howay man!" Girls say "Why aye man." Newcastle calling, Speak the slang now. Boys say "Howay man!" Girls say "Why aye man." Slam! Garang-Garang-Garang Gara-Gara-Gara Rang-Garang-Garang (repeat chorus ad infinitum)'

We could easily spend £150 million in the summer on a couple of centre backs, an attacking midfielder, and a centre forward going by our targets in January and the nature of today's prices. Perhaps we'll have more of a structure in place then which will also allow us to pick up some prospects on the cheap, but I think people are overestimating our ability to dispense with half the squad in one transfer window. I'd be sorry to see Fernandez, Schar, and Sean Longstaff leave, and Dummett too though I've never really rated him. Some of the others like Ritchie and Clark have served their time, while Krafth has been a bit of a non-starter.

Every transfer will look better if we manage to secure Guimaraes, who is a big name for a big fee and exactly what we need in the centre of midfield. £10 million for a left-footed, versatile, and experienced centre back who has been performing well for Brighton in that light sounds like a steal, even if he's not among our preferred choices.

Based on his performances last season for West Ham, when his contract expires Lingard could probably have his pick from a handful of clubs with European aspirations. Why come to a club in the middle of a relegation battle for six months on loan and potentially wreck your value?

He occupied their defenders and was a presence up front. At half time he polished off the last of the oranges, and he was a warm body on the bus back home.

A huge result and I thought we deserved it though it was a really scrappy game. Schar was excellent, and Willock showed much more initiative on the ball so at times with him and Saint-Maximin surging forward we actually seemed to have genuine pace in the attack despite the lack of end product. For me Longstaff takes up some good attacking positions and is our best all-round midfielder on the ball, and I thought he was an asset when he came on. Wood looks pretty hopeless. All in all though it was an energetic and positive performance aside from the crucial three points.

He was briefly effective under Benitez when Perez and Rondon had forged a good relationship and Almiron could stretch teams with his pace down the left. That pace and work rate might make him a useful player for some sides, and perhaps our best option still is to play five at the back and stay compact in the midfield while using him and Saint-Maximin on the break. But Almiron is one of the worst attacking players I've seen when it comes to his use of the ball. We've never played him as a number 10 as far as I can remember, and he doesn't have the skill set to make that work in the top flight.

Watford have made four signings for a relative pittance already this transfer window, three of whom played today and managed to look like footballers and athletes. Meanwhile we've been busy convincing ourselves of a job well done after splashing £25 million on Chris Wood. I know that none of the movers and shakers at our club have been in their positions for all that long, but there are deals to be had which don't involve protracted negotiations or acts of desperation for heavily inflated fees.

Chris Wood will slot in nicely alongside the squad full of players who people wanted to see sold if not lynched after the result at the weekend: ageing and one-dimensional but previously capable of slugging it out for a side in the bottom half of the league. He won't improve us in the long run and perhaps the cavalry isn't coming. But right now we don't have another striker, so a few winners is all it will take for him to more than recoup his fee.

Why was your mate getting you to smuggle the rum out of his own house? It's like robbing Peter to pay Paul. It doesn't make any sense.

He's obviously better than what we've had, but I do worry whether his nebbish character and funny English make him a bad fit for our current squad. Like Rafa he seems detail-oriented and a hard taskmaster when it comes to what he expects from his players out on the pitch, but he lacks the same sort of gravitas, seems to rub some players up the wrong way, and could easily become a figure of fun. He'll obviously get plenty of scorn from the press after every disappointing result.

For twenty years Manchester United were the golden goose of the Premier League and were handed all of the decisions every week, yet they still managed to cultivate a siege mentality as though they were the ones being hard done by. What sort of warped mind buys into that way of thinking? We know the answer: Ryan Giggs, Nicky Butt, and Cristiano Ronaldo, bullies, abusers, and rapists. You had to be mentally deficient to play and succeed under Alex Ferguson.

I think people would be more inclined to pledge if they knew they were going to get an area of jurisdiction come the day of the takeover. People would feel more involved if they could pledge their monthly pound knowing for instance that when the takeover occurs, they and a small group of their fellow trustees will have decision-making powers regarding the type of potatoes which might make the matchday chips.

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/steve-bruce-arsenal-post-match-poop-1759595 'I was sow pleased with how we played in the first half, but obviously sow, sow disappointed with how we performed after that. Obviously we put in a few of the new signings today who we'll have to bring up to speed, but the Premier League waits for neither man nor beast and I've been telling the players that. At the end of the day you win some and lose some, but what you don't want to do is give away gowels like what we did in the second half. Not to put too fine a point on it, we pooed worselves the night.'