ponsaelius

How did he make a pigs ear of the game against Spurs exactly? Was negative shite from minute 1.

Rafa has made a pigs fucking ear of the first 3 games, regardless of how much he's been pissed on from a height this summer.

To be fair you can't spend all summer ostracizing players then throw them into a team together and expect anything other than shite.

Alnwick Ramage Cacapa Onyewu Babayaro Smith Faye Pattison De Jong De Jong Riviere

There's a difference between not renewing his contract, as De Laurentiis has said, and selling him right now. Their backups are poor, and he's cruicial to the way they play from the back. Selling him without a replacement would be sabotaging a potential title challenge.

No he's not. He's not moving unless they can get a genuine replacement. There might be movement now, but it was always gonna be on ice during the CL qualifiers.

I heard he was leaving from an extremely direct source about a week ago. They also said the club were lining up Shearer as replacement mind, so I wrote it off as drivel.

Bad blow.

You don't think he'd let Riviere leave? He hasn't even been given a number FFS.

De Jong is not even making our shitheap of a matchday squad. He's nothing but a burden, if shifting him opens up even the chance of a new signing then it's happy days.

Napoli have produced one of the most once sided 2 leg ties I've ever seen in these two games. Should have about 8 or 9 rather than 3.

Kazakhstan isn't your standard Eastern European country (it's in central Asia for a start) in that it's oil and gas rich, and has had the same leader since 1989. Astana are owned by what is essentially the country's sovereign wealth fund, and the team is president Nazarbayev's pet project. Even the city of Astana itself is his own idea, being made the capital in 1994 and built largely from scratch.

Praet was a poor performer for Sampdoria last season considering the money spent. I think there is a reasonable chance they'll take getting their money back so there is probably something in it. He can be our De Roon for our Middlesbrough 16/17 tribute act we are putting together.

Oh yes, although I think the inclusion of repeat moves makes it more believable. Toronto FC -> Juventus -> Dortmund -> Stoke

Toronto FC -> Juventus -> Toronto FC -> Stoke I think mine just predicted Giovinco's next move

A major football tournament would be shit in those places anarl tbf. I'm sure Moscow and St Petersburg are fine like, bar all the freaks. The coastal cities like Kaliningrad and Sochi will make pretty good venues too. Russia is decent in the summer. The weather is great, the women are ridiculous, lots of outdoor public space (three cheers to the commies) and the booze is kept artificially cheap to sedate the masses. Not sure I'd be fancying hanging out with the England fans mind.

Well, I was just making a joke but are you suggesting that makes it ok? Of course it's not right. Russia has a bizarre concept of masculinity and a culture that is still really struggling to find where it sits in the 21st century. People do have an over-inflated bogieman complex regarding Russia, however. It's generally safe and certainly has lots of pleasant cities to visit in the summer months, speaking from my own experience and that of friends who live there.

People pop off on their jollies to Dubai, Maldives, Mauritius etc every year where you can get imprisoned or lashed for being a homosexual - and yet Russia is apparently this terrifying no-go zone.

Russia has 11 time zones. The host cities are in 4 of them: Kalingrad, Moscow, Samara and Yektarinburg.

this window is pure miserable

Inter should be signing Patrik Schick from Sampdoria eventually, so they'll want Jovetic shifted again. Definitely a goer, if we are at all interested. Not sure he's ever going to be the player he was as a youngster at Fiorentina but he'd offer us an option.

More jealousy from Mr North Shields Remind me of the rise in North Shields' crowds when a load of NUFC decided to follow them please? It should be a good crowd tonight at Perth for Jarra vs Hebburn! Apparently running a non-league club professionally, attracting great crowds and having a proper commercial set-up is a 'bandwagon'. Shields has always had the potential to have a football league club (they did have, once upon a time) and crowds of 1700 in the Evostik show that potential. It's just a shame we can't have more NE sides climbing the ladder.

Murphy and Merino are squad signings, but who could have the potential to grow into key players long term. I'm happier with signings of that mind. I think this one is more of an obvious squad signing, settling to just plug a gap.