LucaAltieri

Can't pick between Chelsea and Arsenal. Pretty sure Liverpool and City will bottle it.

The Timbers had a good shout last year. Easily one of the best teams. I thought they'd destroy RSL and go into the MLS Cup final. I'm not sure how their trades went in the off-season/if they retained the core of the team but I think Zakuani is a massive waste of money. I hope they don't end up relying on him.

Also played the loan market really well and signed a few players who ensured promotion. The emergence of Andy Carroll also helped obviously. Harewood, Van Aarnholt, Kizanishvili, Hall in on loan plus Best and Routledge, combined with what we kept, pissed the league. Mostly this. We were in a position to gamble on a few kids. The biggest beneficiaries of that being Carroll and Danny Simpson. Had we stayed up the likelihood of either getting games time on a regular basis goes down. With Carroll in particular that let him push on and be sold to ultimately finance our transfer dealings for a year. If we went down again it would almost certainly mean more game time for the likes of Sammy Ameobi, Vuckic, Tav, etc. The extra experience might help one of them turn into something useful, and will definitely increase their re-sale value of an otherwise worthless assets.

Leeds situation was unique, in as much as the players Ridsdale brought in were 'leased' and not owned by the club IIRC. They've never recovered from that. Look, I'd rather we didn't go down, but we have too many s*** players on ridiculous wages, and getting relegated would be the ideal opportunity to offload them and start again, as Newcastle found out not too long ago. You should be begging for it, tbh.

Rumours of Cambiasso moving to MLS. Another fucking 33 year old.

I have full faith in Pulis. The mackems will be gone with games to spare.

was that meant to be read out in an Obi-wan type voice ? Preferably.

Mackem on Facebook at it again. "Spurs are playing like Sunderland at the moment. Great football until they get in the box." the delusion is strong in this one.

Sounders 0-2 Defoe. FFS.

Yeah, my friends in Sao Paulo haven't delivered shit. I flew in for your wedding, asshole!

Having played with mine a bit now, I love it. It's a really nice ball. It just feels really comfortable to knock around. There's also something about the paneling that makes it easier to control. Might be the dimples? I don't know. But I have no complaints.

Mackem on facebook taking the piss out of Boro's half empty stadium.

Fulham are irrelevant. Hope we beat 'em. Palace could go any way, tbh. I'd still like to see us win but I'll be happy win, lose, or draw.

In fairness, The Union vs. The Revolution isn't exactly a blockbuster event. Ranking it as follows is probably right: 1) Piss up 2) Free t-shirt 3) Philadelphia/NE playing soccer

Sunderland are your shot at the big time, otherwise you're doing ok working somewhere near the bottom of the football leagues.

If in some parallel universe you possessed some minor amount of footballing ability would you ever play/manage/coach/otherwise work for Sunderland AFC?

Don't mention that cunt's name ever again please Too soon?

7 & 7 from Remick and Yedlin. The universe is now balancing that out with low scores from Nagbe and Morales.

Top of the league.

And there's that extra fitness. I'll take it.

Sigi focused a lot on player fitness in the pre-season. Looks to have paid off. Getting towards the end of the game here we're looking in much better shape than SKC.

Coincidence. I believe it was put to a public vote. EDIT: Actually, it was just the name that was a pubic vote. The colors were still announced before the XBOX sponsorship, though.

Sounders looking pretty nervy in the final third. No composure whatsoever. No sure it's worth bringing Dempsey on. He's not on form and hasn't played with half of the current team because he was too busy warming Fulham's bench.

Collin doing his best to get sent off. On a yellow. Remmick has started pretty well. Expecting to see him push forward a bit as he's starting to get settled into the game. Needs to be careful, though. Has already let Dwyer in a couple of times.

Probably play-offs bound but I don't think they'll win it. The Eastern conference is piss poor & I think there are 3 or 4 better teams in the west.