Stottie

Great video Sewelly!

Not that we'll buy him, but presumably the going rate for Chicharito will only be a few million more. That would be much better value.

Or acknowledging the fact he had some very good games for us when we finished 3rd, 5th and 7th. Not to mention scoring 2 important goals in 1-0 wins to get us into Europe. Imagine a CB doing that for us now. Yeah, for quite a while it was a case of him looking like a strong and quite capable defender who'd be pretty good if he'd just cut out the mistakes. He would have good games against the likes of Henry. He never grew out of making mistakes though. They only got worse, and to state the obvious, the closer you are to your own goal, the bigger the liability of any cockup you make.

If you presume Laurent Robert was playing at his best, there's two goals straight away from absolutely nothing!

Good to see some ambition from Everton and good luck to them. They're certainly showing us up. Looking at the Southampton prices, you'd have to think they could get a mint for some of their players. Lukaku played 500 more minutes than Remy last season, over 20% longer, so Remy for the price the CL clubs can get him for is a bargain and a half.

Stoke's people seemed to think Demba Ba's knee would explode but its still going strong. We should make a bid!

With Shaw in particular, the English player premium is there for everyone to see. Lovren and Schneiderlin aren't English though, and their valuations are also very high. Lovren looks like he'll go for more than Cabaye. I rate Ricky Lambert though and he's a great striker for 5M. I think he's a much better footballer than he's given credit for. Maybe his price should have had a premium too!

P18 W3 D7 L8 16pts That's Southampton vs. the top half of the table last year. Four of the points are off us in tenth place. Versus the top four it was P8 W1 D2 L5 with only six goals scored. They had a great season and played some nice stuff for sure, but those valuations of their players are way out there. Their manager too will have to up his game at Spurs.

LVG certainly seems to have the media on his side, but we'll see how things go when the season starts. They look a couple of players short at the moment. Given that players of the calibre of Fabregas and Alexis Sanchez have come to the Premiership, their transfer activity has not been impressive. Their commercial revenue should mean they can afford anyone's wages.

With a very decent looking replacement already signed, this could be good business. I think we need someone who can defend more than someone who can add to the fret down the side. Debuchy is also headstrong and dives in much more than he should. He looked a much better attacking player at the Euros than he did for us, so it'll be interesting to see what Wenger can get out of him.

Nice of him to turn up in Citeh's colours.

to tmonkey's post about the improvement in keepers. When I've seen old film of Bobby Charlton specials, my main impression has always been that a modern keeper would have stopped a lot of them. On a similar tip, if you watch old cricket matches from the 50s definitely and possibly as late as the 70s, a decent hit maybe only six feet wide of any fielder was four runs. The fielder will kind of bend down a bit, but it's all kind of "jolly good stroke".

On that youtubes it looks like he can put his foot through it better than his brother.

I can understand Everton, but it's impressive to fall behind Aston Villa and West Ham, the way they been doing recently.

Not Liverpool, please!

Given the noises the club have made since, I think we may no longer be the "stepping stone" we were when we got Cabaye. Remy came last season, but the groundwork for that was done the season before. "Come and join our merry team that doesn't try in the cups and doesn't want European football!"

Lots of attacking options there. Good to see that Sterling has come on and will be going on merit, not the name of his club like when he won his first cap. I think Lambert is under-rated as a footballer. He's an English center forward so the assumption is he must be one-dimensional. Anyway, lots of players comfortable on the ball and a good bit of pace, even without Feo. The squad looks pretty weak defensively though, with Johnson starting, Jones and Smalling as backups, and Gerrard and/or Wilshere as the screen. It's not their natural game. Gerrard could be seen floundering behind Gouff a la Barry vs. Ozil for our goal at Anfield yesterday. I tried to come up with an English DM worth taking but the best I could do was Jack Cork. He's canny, but you can't just throw him into a big tournament.

fwiw, Remy and Cabaye scored 21 out of our 43 league goals, so that's just shy of 50% too.

Just a thought, but does anyone reckon Liverpool thought they were still in it regarding goal difference simply because they have us as last game? The team that even Moyes put four past. Would they have continued to attack Palace on the assumption they could get another +6 or +7 in their final game if they were up against another team in mid-table, say Stoke or Swansea? If goal difference was seen as a goner (and maybe it should have been 75 minutes into the Palace game anyway), any team with a brain would shut up shop and take the three points at 3-1, if not already at 3-0. Palace's second was scored with Liverpool's defence completely out of position. If the lost two points do end up costing Liverpool the title, maybe our shitness will have had some say in it. As a comment on the coverage, Brenda also sounds like he's getting criticism for being too gung ho against Chelsea. In the match I saw, Chelsea scored when Liverpool's "third center half" fell on his arse trying to control a square ball in his own half. That, by definition, is not gung ho. After that, the match was just a failed attempt at doing something of note against a parked bus. I think you're supposed to wait more than two weeks before you rewrite history.

Load of guff that. They lost to Chelsea at home and drew with a team in brilliant form away on the back of a crazy amount of wins. The big bottle that history should remember is Fergie gifting it to Citeh when seven points ahead (same games played) with seven games to go. Ferk, they were even 4-2 up against Everton with ten minutes to go when it all started going pear-shaped. It doesn't fit the big Fergie narrative though, so all we get is Keegan and possibly from next season Brendan Rogers. Lets brand them losers instead. Just as a parallel, Clarence Seedorf may have won the CL four times, but he was also in the Milan side that threw the game away in Instanbul. Shit can happen to anyone.

Quarterback fumble.

Given Moyes' record at signing defenders, it's funny that they've sacked him before he could buy any. You can't blame him for not buying any already, because Smalling, Jones, Evans, Rafael are all full internationals. Seamus Coleman 60,000 Sylvain Distan 5,000,000 Phil Jagielka 4,000,000 Leighton Baines 6,000,000 Lescott bought for 5,000,000 sold for 22,000,000, which covers the cost of the above. Rogers paid 15M on Sahko alone. Yobo cost 1,000,000 and made nearly 200 appearances.

Kompany LOL

Ferk 2-2!

Fourth most goals conceded now. Next season looks like its going to be a repeat of last time.