Emotic

Apparently looking at Evan N'Dicka from Eintracht Frankfurt. That, together with the Botman and Badiashile rumours, are really exciting - indicative of us looking to replace old cloggers afraid of the ball (Clark, Lascelles to some extent), with young, ball-playing defensive talent. N'Dicka is basically a young, quick Dan Burn who can also head the ball into the net at the other end of the pitch. Left-footed too.

I have this quote seared into my memory, and I think Eddie Howe has too. Finish the season above 12th and someone should print it out and ram it down Bruce's throat. Mediocrity so ingrained in him that he thinks nobody else can do better. An odious human being.

These are the things which are only 20/20 in hindsight though. They might have ended 13th to 17th with Rafa. They'd jump at it now, but under normal circumstances it would've resulted in a sacking and possibly actual physical harm come to him. He should never have accepted that job.

Chris Wood cost more than their entire club is worth.

Looking on the bright side, at least now there'll be a club willing to pay money for all our dead wood come the summer

I myself am convinced that he will in fact be the first official signing of the summer. Howe clearly likes him, he clearly enjoys playing here, his performances have reflected this, and the fans are all onside. Everyone wins.

Sign Philips, Lingard on a free. Or sign Paqueta, Kamara on a free. Sign Patrik Schick, AND get Andrea Bellotti on a free. Job’s a good’un. The out of contract players list this summer is tasty, just have to be competitive.

No club owes any other club any favours. If we beat Burnley, it’s just Newcastle United doing what it’s supposed to do and Eddie Howe being a consummate professional. The silver lining is that if Everton indeed had to wait until the last day of the season to escape relegation, courtesy of Newcastle United, then Fat Frank will never be able to live it down. I hope he gets the sack thereafter and Everton then does a Sunderland death spiral.

The perfect weight of that lob to Miggy, man. Pure sex.

Guaita the Palace goalie congratulating and fist-bumping Almiron as they walked off at half-time was a sweet gesture, I thought. Great sportsmanship.

It was clear that in the second half we were going for a soak-n-strike. It worked too. It’s good game management to adapt according to the personnel you have and the opponent you’re facing. We only failed at that at Spurs.

Just realised that it was Tielemans that got bamboozled by Willock at the halfway line too. Everything about this match was perfect.

I must have watched this 25 times on repeat

Love how happy he looked when hugging Bruno after the match. He must be loving it here.

"No team with 37 points after 32 games has ever been relegated from the Premier League. FACT."

We should just get that Oscar Estupinan from Guimaraes based off that thread

If we can outcompete everyone else for the likes of Kamara, Dybala and Belotti, that's already 120 mil saved on a CDM, No. 10 and striker lol. Hard work convincing them to come here though.

Antony would be a good piece of business, but with Ten Hag seemingly set to manage Manu, he's nailed on to join them. The top names would have other suitors and I think we'd be looking at the "second-tier stars", much like Bruno, who flew pretty much under the radar.

Ederson looks like he'll have face tatts and a forked tongue and identify as a lizard in a couple of years.

Fucking rancid, Manu. So static. Cronaldo phoning it in.

Cheaper for PIF just to buy Brighton at this rate

Would you bin off ASM for Moussa Diaby or keep him as backup? ASM probably won't be happy being backup, to be fair.

We've been loosely linked with a whole crop of young rising stars of the game of late - Noah Okafor, Yeremi Pino, Florian Wirtz. That's probably the game plan. If there were a "marquee" signing, I hope that it would be a world-class striker. A superb forward, a right-sided attacker, a little bit of tidying up at centre-back, some cover for fullback and we are firmly entrenched in the top 8, with a realistic chance at top 5 if injuries are kind.

Bet you that if he gets a spell of flukey wins and his media mates ask him if he could've kept us up, he'd throw in a cheeky "Eee yaa knaw, I could'of, but they didn't give me a chance. But I wouldn't have been comfortable managing a team with those owners at the end of the day."

What's Kalvin Phillips' best position? Isn't he just a deep-lying Yorkshire version of wor Jow? Or does he offer that much more?