Stottie

On paper, very good. It sounds like a few of the lads who've come in can do a job in different positions, which could well be useful both for Plan Bs and for the 46 league games we'll play this season. For the first time in donkeys, we may even have a cup run. I hope we can put the days of Aarons and Sissoko at full back or Perez as a single striker behind us.

He may well do better in a better team, but like Wijnaldum, the suspicion is that our managers and other players were not the only limiting factors on what he achieved for us. He has good physical attributes and can rampage when the play gets stretched, but isn't going to be banging them in from outside the box like Yaya Toure, the league's ultimate rampager in recent years. There is a huge gulf in class between them. Sissoko 30m Wijnaldum 25m Janmaat 7m Townsend 11?m Add in the parachute payment and relegation may have cost us very little. Add on the luck we had in getting and keeping Benitez and this could be the smoothest relegation any team has ever had.

I think he might learn more from watching Roma's midfielders from the bench than from listening to Pardew.

I think the only reason Rafa is with us is the "fallen giant" romance of the project, not the owner or directors of the club. How many times in the history of football has a manager with lots of silverware taken on a job like ours? We should have been able to get a manager of his caliber by being a genuine giant. A team that is consistently at or near the CL places as we were under SBR. Instead we've been hapless and somehow still been rewarded with the lucky jackpot, not a choice between Brucey or Phil Brown or someone. If Rafa Benitez were not our manager, I think it would be ludicrous to speculate about any chance of success in the short to mid future.

If he plays full back and Sissoko is going, I hope he gets to remain a number 7. I love fullbacks with attacking numbers, like Kolarov with 11. It's like an open admission of what they are there to do. The "Palermo Best Moments, Skills, Assists & Goals" video has a Laurent Robert-level thunderbolt about 40 seconds in. I know folks are saying he's fast, but he looks balanced and composed with it.

Poor defender with suspect personality, but pretty good going forward (well, a year ago), so flatters to deceive. He could be useful in certain systems that provide ample cover. Shift the priority to defending though and he's easily replaceable. I would have thought his Dutch international reputation would have got him somewhere higher profile than Watford.

I've never heard of him but his performance data is very impressive. A goal or assist every other game in the Championship for over 100 games, so completely proven at this level. His height is down as only 1.69m, so one in the eye to anyone who thinks that the Championship is a league for big plodders. He hasn't missed much time in other seasons, so tempting to think that the injury is a one-off and not a sign of a poor general condition. 27 and historically consistent at this level, worth a go I reckon.

Rafa's first away win!

If the alternative is Anita, he should be playing.

Meh. So he's a younger Saylor. Great. But without the constant injuries. And a father bigging him up and a connection to the region/club he can leverage for special treatment.

We got thirteen points from our last six games in the Premiership, the most by a relegated team in the Premier League era. Since then, we've bought well and kept our manager, an absolute gem. Anything can happen, but things *should* go well.

Good defensive coach. Lack of organization at the back will get you relegated faster than a lack of goals, so a good appointment for them.

This is what he has on his own Twitter feed!

fwiw, for the Dutch national team he has six goals and one assist in 1850 minutes. He was anonymous in the only game I've seen, the England one. Even if we have to pass on 5 millions euros, it still leaves a profit getting on for the amount we got from our controversial shirt sponsor. So good business.

Rather than the actual fee amount, we got 2/3 more than we paid after one year. We also got to recruit a promising player from overseas, who then got a move to a (cough, cough) bigger club soon afterwards. That's good for the standing of the club for future recruitment. See Debuchy, Cabaye, Ba, Remy etc. It'll be interesting to see what Klopp can do with him. Maybe he sees him doing a role like Kagawa at Dortmund. We were so bad last year that it's hard to know how good he is, but I'd expect Mane to do better for them than Gini based on energy level alone. Spend the money on a new contract for Krul and a CM, please.

What a joke. If there is one thing nearly as big as his head, it's his mouth, so it's only a matter of time before he comes up with some Allardici level comments. You can't even justify his appointment on the grounds of "safe for PR", admittedly important for the national side(*). (*) See Glenn Hoddle.

I hope Mr Ackerman has a house in Spain called Casa Fatsam.

Give it to some caretaker committee for 12 months and then get Wenger if he can't be convinced to join right now. Seriously this is embarrassing.

I don't know if it was intentional, but "let Moussa Sissoko do the attacking" would have been a good approach from Portugal in the final.

Around last November, one of the stats sites looked at Vardy's numbers during what would become his record-breaking streak and said they were normal. He was scoring because he was regularly shooting from good positions. He was shooting more than Aguero. They also looked at Wijnaldum and said he was on a flukey streak. His conversion percentage was unsustainably high. He'd scored 7 from something crazy like 11 shots, four of them past Norwich's keeper. We scored with all six shots on target in that game. While he can deliver more than he did in the shitshow under McClaren, I don't think he's a consistent double figures from CM player. That's a young Scholes or Lampard, someone much more involved in the game.

My impression of Demba was that he didn't like playing second fiddle to Cisse and wanted to play in his preferred setup. He was happy to go and play second fiddle at Chelsea though for more money. That was still better than Owen though, who didn't want to be at Newcastle at all. It seems more common for players from poorer countries to have multiple levels of agents, advisors, and hangers on, so their behaviour is more understandable, if not necessarily forgivable.

Where does he fit in Liverpool's side? I can't see him getting in the team. He's not a high-energy pressing player either.

Krul is the pick of them and will go for little money, so I hope Pardew doesn't get him. The other two are a case of how much we can get in.

11 goals in two games

In their Bohemians preview, .com say Gayle has been wearing No. 9 in training.