ponsaelius

Fascinated that Saudi Pro League average attendances, despite all the signings (and Al-Ahli being back in the top flight), are down from 9500 to 8500 this season. Football loving nation indeed.

We won't have got a fee. It'll just have finally reached the point where it's worth it for Manquillo to write off the last 6 months of his wages here to secure a long term deal in Spain.

I like Kalvin Phillips and think he'd be a good stopgap but if City are genuinely asking for £7 million loan fee plus an obligation to buy for £30-40 million then that is an absolute piss take tbf and we should stay well clear. He's been a total flop for them, had injuries, and is now approaching 29 in the summer. They'd be making a profit FFS at that valuation - which is absurd particularly in the current market vacuum created by FFP. He's a career reconstruction job and any club that takes him off their hands is doing them a favour. A small loan fee with a reasonable fixed buy option in the summer would be more than fair.

This is all we have to play for now this season really. They better fucking turn up.

Has there been a season with more kicks in the bollocks than this one? Absolutely relentless. As soon as it showed 3 mins I was absolutely convinced they would score with the next attack.

This season has been a complete joke for the most part. What a waste of time.

I don't agree that the domestic market is bad value. In a world where every signing is ultimately a gamble that can leave you hamstrung by FFP, signing a player for £30-35 million from England can be much less of a risk than a punt for £15-20m from Europe. More likely the player adapts to the area/team/culture/physicality and it is easier to do due diligence on player's background through existing agent/player networks (Tonali cough cough). But perhaps more crucially there is a safety net in terms of resale value to the host of other wealthy PL clubs - both if they flop and if they excel. Foreign players (Europe/South America) there is undoubtedly better value to be found - but it's also just as likely you get a flop that you may end up giving away for nowt. It's about being open to all markets, but including a significant amount of domestic players in your recruitment is not a bad thing. Certainly not anymore considering the quality of English players and the overall talent level in PL/Championship.

Saka got 25 goals/assists in the league alone last year. He is on target for exactly the same again. You can't really get a more consistent output. Arsenal's bigger problem is at CF.

Firmino went on a free, so that wouldn't be much use

Boring as fuck. Both a ground I've been too and a pretty tricky game.

I wouldn't want to sell Longstaff but the issue with FFP is it actually encourages clubs to sell homegrown players for accounting purposes. A big fee for Longstaff (25 mill say) would free up breathing space for a load of signings. There's no doubt the club are going to consider the sale of pretty much all of our players depending on the interest and fees involved. That's the reality of where we're at.

Worth it if it meant we could have 6k there but obviously should not be the norm. Just let people make their own way to the match.

I've seen a lot of the mackems have made out this was the 'first of the new derby' because of our ownership. Putting aside that daft argument it actually did feel to me noticeably different to all the other derbies in my lifetime. The tone was set from the first seconds when they gave the ball straight to us. It genuinely felt like a cup match against a lower league side, with us dominating the ball on opposition soil, killing the contest and ultimately winning with ease. It was a very weird experience tbh. I was nervous obviously but it definitely didn't feel like it had anywhere near the jeopardy of previous years because of the gulf in class. This inevitably also changed the feel of the atmosphere as well. Our support enjoying a lot of rather nerveless triumphalism, their support stoically singing 'sunlun till I die' for 90 mins as if the on-field result was secondary to off-field matters. Unless there is drastic changes in ownership or Sunderland can establish themselves as a mid-table PL side it could be decades until we have a normal derby again.

I liked Colo and would have been interested to see him in a good team but Schar is a better defender and footballer. Colo had basically years where he was a disgrace performance wise which massively soured the good years.

Can see why it's taken a bit of time given it's only a one year extension we're offering. I think it's the right deal TBF.

derbywinner as one word, delightfully teutonic

As always either a home draw against somebody absolutely shite or an away game at a ground I've not been to.

Tbf to the lad he is only 18. They played like the team of kids that they are.

They're a massive soft touch, which played into our hands. A Championship side of their level can make a real game of it against PL opposition if they're physically imposing. However they're a team of rather feeble kids, with no physicality in midfield, and no CF. It's the one thing that made me relatively confident rather than shitting a brick. However I was surprised by just how easy it was. If Joelinton stays on I think we win by 4-5 tbh.

Barton was shite/unavailable most of the time here, a key reason we were relegated due to his indescretions, then spent most of the promotion season unavailable. He had 6 months of good form in his entire time here in 2010, and while his attacks towards Ashley were accurate they were largely fueled from the fact he knew he was going to get binned off. The irony is that Ashley gave him the biggest contract of his career, on money far beyond his actual ability level.

In terms of Italian football both Ultra by Tobias Jones and Juve! by Herbie Sykes are really good.

Marske have withdrawn from the NPL. Looks like they've saved themselves as a club at least - and will be able to restart at a lower level next year. Likely a return to the Northern League I'd imagine.

Has he? He's been very consistent on his opinion on FFP for years.

Howe has been unlucky with injuries and suspensions, there is no doubt. We banked in the summer on adding depth at fullback, making sure we had four hard working wingers who we could run into the ground, and a midfielder who could cover both #8 as well as Bruno's role (in theory). Clearly the idea was to maximise the resources, facilitated in part by actually selling our one wild card, to double down on our style of play and make sure we had the depth to push it across multiple competitions. Ultimately we have tried to reinforce what worked last year - rather than look to enhance/augment what we've got and give us something different to win games. Whether that was signing a number 10/wide attacker who can play between the lines, a designated defensive midfielder to give us more control in transition, another striker who could offer more out of possession than Wilson etc etc - these were options that were available to us and we chose not to go for. I think it's not unreasonable to say at this point that it has backfired. This is partly through sheer bad luck in the case of Tonali and Barnes in particular. But our inability to change it up or find other ways to win games has made this season's crash far worse and also I'm afraid made Howe look increasingly naive. We've ran players into the ground and made injuries worse, which has increasingly made our fundsmental style of play ineffective, which has now increasingly made players devoid of confidence. Confidence that has been rattled further by crashing out of the cups and leaving the season effectively over by January. It is a vicious spiral and I think, mitigating factors accepted, Howe has to take blame and be questioned for it. Both for his input in transfer decisions (we know he will have had some) and how we have adapted this season to very different circumstances.

I'd agree with that. Some of his best play comes from carrying the ball infield. This has also been the case when he has been on the right (thinking of the Man United assist). So if kind if makes sense that he's looked better over on the left in this system.