ponsaelius

Yet has won the treble more than any Milan player in history

Heard this lad is absolutely rapid.

I'd probably be happy from now with Botman, Ekitike (or another young forward/wide option) and a top class right sided player. A midfielder of some kind later in the window (might depend on how we see Bruno fitting long term, and even if we get an offer for Shelvey) would then be a bonus.

I think Ekitike is going to be a loan-to-buy job, with much of the fee therefore delayed until next summer. Reims are a relatively small club (not historically - but right now financially) so are probably more open to structured deals like this. It might be why we're so committed to his signing over other options.

There's an article that explains this online somewhere. Burnley's own website incorrectly said he was 6ft3. On FIFA he was 6ft6. Various internet weirdos have pieced it together using other photos to establish that the FIFA height was basically accurate.

We can already see how difficult it is buying players. I'd be amazed if we could get a better player than ASM for the money we'd sell him for. Even if it's possible it's a massive gamble.

Nowt wrong with a plain white t is there, could be top quality.

I'm firmly in the 'we must significantly reduce the age of the squad' camp but keepers are a bit different. I think this should be a really decent signing for the price. He's a great shot stopper, huge presence in the goal, and a good sweeper keeper. A reasonable upgrade on Dubravka, but more importantly a huge upgrade on our backups. It creates genuine competition in that position and should mean we never end up in the same situation as last year of having Championship keepers in goal. Biggest question mark is his ball playing ability and distribution - which I'm not sure there is evidence of him being better than Dubravka on that front. However there is a chance he's better than he looks due to the way Burnley played.

What a waste of time and effort this one was.

If there's one position I'd spend the big money on it would be a right sided player.

Conte changed him at Inter, tbh. He wanted him to play as a deep lying player in a 3 but he didn't have the workrate for it. Eventually he managed to get it out of him and he worked his way into the team during the Scudetto run.

Yeah you can't buy one if you already have a ST so that bit won't show up.

I like the idea just not the execution. Why is the Theatre Royal on twice literally one on top of the other?

Played wide left and centre forward pretty much all last season. Not saying he couldn't play wide right like.

There's probably a small but not insignificant amount of people who haven't renewed or died. I wouldn't be surprised if there's only about 500 'new' tickets out of these 1000.

Selling more individual tickets is both fairer giving more people the chance to go while also probably being more profitable for the club. It increases the value of memberships too which brings in more money. I think it's sensible stuff for the club to keep their powder dry right now rather than lock down 80-90% of tickets straight away. The club is going to change dramatically, and the business/matchday model will be sorted out over coming years when they know where they stand.

The low number on sale will also reflect that they will want to take stock next season. I think the owners will want to restructure the organisation of the ground and pricing structure for various sections - maybe even looking towards an extension or alterations (eg safe standing) to the stadium. The more season tickets you have the harder this kind of thing is to do. It's easy to forget the club has basically been frozen in time for about 15 years in every way.

I bought a ticket for Palace last season on my account, and a couple for Sheffield Utd away in 19/20, so I imagine I will be eligible to at least try. It's surely just going to crash though.

An hour wait to even get onto the site to check if I'm eligible

Medical today

Good stuff - seems to fall in line with the Pope signing.

Pope has been involved in the England set up and with Ashworth's connections there he must have some faith in the way he could potentially play.

I'm obviously not panicking and very confident in the long term future of recruitment but not having anybody new in by start of pre-season fixtures would be disappointing IMO.

The idea that Sterling is not great technically is pretty comical like. He's an absolutely fantastic footballer.

Yikes