Stottie

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.

The media is reporting that he is prepared to "mentor his successor". So that the idea is that the FA would want the same again after a spell of Big Sam football. What a clusterfuck.

Pity about the Townsend relegation clause because he must have been worth much more.

Just a rough mockup of a bold/simple one. Lots of room for tweaks and improvements. It would be better with even stripes and a font with equal width characters for starters. For iconic images, how about the Angel of the North with the Shearer shirt on? Can you do the bridges over the Tyne with the keep or do S&N have it?

Arsenal activated Luis Suarez's clause but Liverpool didn't sell. I've been a bit skeptical of them since.

On a contract till June 2018, so the price sounds unrealistic. Full marks to him if he's prepared to drop a division.

He's only played about 3000 total minutes in the Premiership, so under 35 games of game time. I think he looked very promising under Pulis but has since been undone by Warnock and Pardiola. It doesn't sound like the King has used him very much down the middle.

Big wages probably, but Bony and Benteke would be 25M or less, if that's what Deeney costs. With regular games in a team with Mahrez and Albrighton, either would be a good shout for 15, enough for top half dozen scorers most seasons. Both are young enough to return to previous form. Bony only played about 12 games' worth of minutes last season.

Pelle for 5M is great value! Troydini to cement Leicester as a big man/little man, two up front long ball team. Their last 10 games were more about their defence than attack, so my suspicion would be that they need to mix it up more from now on.

I Yeah with the "territory" point. I'm sure HBA copped a lot of criticism for the same thing, especially at the end when Pardew would throw him on for the last 10 minutes. I think he cuts inside too much. In the brief time I saw him playing on the left, he did it there too. I say this because I think it makes him predictable.

Gayle looked great to me, genuinely fast, a bit tricky, and a good finisher. So much so that I hesitate to turn to stats, but he has fifteen PL goals in 2700 career minutes, err, thirty games. Yet Pardew plays Conor Wickham.

Christ, what a berk.

I thought he was poor and only got plaudits because expectations were rock bottom. As with Krul, I think the level of coaching has partly been to blame. I happily get rid and promote Darlow to #2.

According to the player himself, we went as far as offering Aubameyang higher wages but he chose Dortmund.

Look at his starting position on most of the goals and where he's scoring from. He must be beating at least 1.5 players per goal. That's including the pens! In addition to Pardew, I blame the mongs on MOTD who would blame him for every move against us scored from his side of the pitch, creating an echo chamber of criticism. Colo too for the factionalism in the dressing room. I don't watch it any more, but does MOTD do the same with Mahrez?

Roll on August 6!