ponsaelius

Diaby would have been a great signing like. Can't see how Villa don't get another one here so we will need more goals.

Think all our midfield has been sloppy tbh

Bench looks mad strong now. Really are a defender away from having great depth. Villa team also looks very good on paper.

We currently have around 30k season ticket holders. You really think we'd easily sell another 35k after the inevitable price hike next year? No chance IMO. 65k would be absolutely fine going forward. Another 13k STs sold through the increase and the rest going to general/members sale. Any more than that and it will be to the detriment of the atmosphere and leave the ground looking silly for things like League Cup ties.

He only landed yesterday evening, though. And they want him to play tonight. Hardly much time to put something substantive together. Plus if he'd signed for Real Madrid he'd have just got the 'Comunicado Oficial: Harry Kane' with two lines of text on a web page.

Yeah Martinell is no more of an Academy graduate than Yakubah Minteh would be for us. They signed him for £6 million as an 18 year old. Great piece of scouting but not an academy player.

They genuinely should. The club were advertising for media and video staff recently, wonder if he would have applied.

Full backs seem to have gone from being the key attacking weapon for teams to being out of vogue again almost overnight. Not sure I vibe at all with this weird 4 CB thing. Pep is a freak and a weirdo and needs to stop spreading his perverted ideas around our beautiful game.

Wonder what happens when this game ticks over to 2:45. Does the blackout count?

An England-Australia semi final in football? Feels wrong tbh. Down with this sort of thing.

I disagree, personally. Obviously there is semantics of where you say is the 'centre' but SJP is closer to the traditional urban centre of Grainger Town/Monument while that area is further away and definitely feels more peripheral. Obviously redeveloping it as has been intended for years naturally draws it closer to the city by expanding westwards down the river. But that is part of my reservations. Any new development there will feel a modern extension of the city in regenerating old industrial land - while SJP feels right in the heart of the historic core because it actually is. This is personal preference to what I like about football stadia - and my natural apprehension to any new build.

Basically heard the same tbf. I'm sure some in the council have even been informally suggesting the Arena/Forth Yards development area as a potential stadium site off the record. The site is a nightmare to develop for the intended mixed use/resi regeneration because of all the contamination in the ground and the patchwork ownership situation. It seems almost impossible to bring forward without some levelling up funding. A developer with unlimited resources to consolidate the ownership situation and remediate the site actually makes a lot of sense. But apparently they're not interested and are determined to develop the existing stadium. I'm not a fan of a stadium down there on a personal level. Some of my least favourite grounds I've been to are new builds on peripheral development areas disconnected from city centres. Nearly always seem completely soulless no matter how much money is thrown at them. I know it's not miles away but it's still more peripheral than the current stadium. Indeed much of what would sell it as a project would be that it would underpin creating a new area of the city there.

I just don't think we were ever going to be realistically making more than 4-5 first team signings, 4 being the most likely number. We've been pretty consistent now at limiting it to that each window, and I think it's right. There's an optimum level of of upheaval which works best in improving your squad without it becoming a problem in terms of integration. You also risk at spreading too thinly if you sign too many with our budget. I think one more big signing at RCB, and probably just Manquillo to leave will be us done. I'd like a left back too but not sure that will happen if we get a CB.

Exactly. It's never going to be a football documentary in its truest sense like Next Goal Wins, Diego Maradona, Sunlun Til I Die etc. It's basically a very a well polished PR exercise. Doesn't make it not enjoyable though if you take it for what it's worth.

Yes that's why I only said the former would require playing elsewhere!

You'd really hope it's just a case of sorting out distribution and they'll release it wider eventually. I had my Korean friend hyped to watch it, I'm amazed if they don't get it out globally.

Nah knock down and rebuild there's ways to either use more or less the same plot more efficiently - or build further up the hill on Castle Leazes. The former just has the issue of where you play in the meantime.

Really enjoyed the focus on Longstaff and his cup goals. I'd almost forgot how great a moment that was, arguably the highlight of the season. Sort of gets lost because of losing the final and the success of the season ultimately being defined by the CL qualification instead. Was really interesting to see how despite what was being said externally, pretty much the whole club was aligned on aiming for CL from November onwards.

Yeah I got the impression filming only really kicked in properly around December time based on that episode.

With the constraints to extending, both in terms of navigating impact on listed buildings and constructing directly on top of the metro station, the cost of expanding East Stand and Gallowgate could genuinely run up to 400-500 million I reckon. By comparison Anfield Road End is costing £80 million, while their Main Stand cost £110 million a few years back. They have added around 16,000 seats across those expansions - which I think we'd be really struggling to come close to (probably more like 10k max). I don't doubt we could extend, it's just the value you're getting out of it that is the issue. I can definitely see the club thinking that they could build a new stadium for that kind of money. Spurs stadium cost upwards of a billion, but I think about 40% of this was spent on land acquisition rather than build costs. We wouldn't have anywhere near those associated costs.

Got no time for Bayern as a club generally but would quite like them to win the CL now tbh.

He gave the most incredible politician's answer to a question on Saudi kits. Was almost impressive the degree to which it went around the houses without really answering.

League starts last year: Foden 22 Mahrez 22 Grealish 23 Bernardo 24 You can see how methodically they are rotated in those positions.

Trying to suggest he didn't play that much football is mad, too. Pep rotates all of his wide players freely, none of them will ever start or even play in 38 league games. Bernardo only started 24 league games, Foden even less. The only ones that play every game if fit are Ederson, Rodri, De Bruyne and Haaland.

Grealish was excellent for City last year. I was previously doubtful of his ability at that level but it's disingenuous to suggest that he didn't play consistently well in what was an all conquering side. He barely had a single bad game.