Tiresias

Stoke fans booing Aaron Ramsey

on 5 live they were floating the idea of john terry taking over from steve bruce as player manager

See swansea have signed that bloke from that Narcos tv show

Joke's on them, I used numbers from my bank details rather than my dob

That does seem soft.

Willian is hardly an attactive player to watch but he is very efficient and effective imo. Underrated. Ozil however is s***. Maybe Silva is in decline now I will accept hear a bit less, but then still see plenty of times he runs the show. I think Coutinho has drifted in and out of plenty of games though.

Lyon - PSG - Corinthians - Nice Random Brazilian career blip

It's definitely too low now players are regularly going for around 100m, but think that for example, Eriksen, De Bruyne, David Silva, Hazard, Willian and probably a few others I think are probably better attacking midfielders in the league...it's just a bit mental that sort of price still and I kind of don't want to normalise this.

Coutinho always seemed very good player, but this is madness, only a few years ago he'd be worth £20m max. He never seemed barcalona quality either I didn't think.

This is my point though, clubs may accept the higher wages in exchange for lower fee.

Our defence looked absolutely fine against Spurs last week, even after having to replace two of them. I wouldn't say absolutely fine, both goals in an ideal world would be preventable. However I agree, Rafa has worked on players fitting into system regardless of how much game time and we looked still fairly solid and should be alright. I was glad Mbemba didn't seem to make any glaring mistakes, if he can work that out of his game and got that consistency could still do well, but will I think rely on if Rafa feels he's listening to what his instructions are and stays disciplined.

Reckon we'll shift a few before window shuts, we are desperate to sell which means while the wages are high we will probably let them go for low prices, so if clubs compute the wages into the overall price should be sellable. If we don't accept making meagre profits though we won't cut that wage bill.

I think we'll play them very different to Palace did and will sit deeper and defend comfortably a lot and if it goes like last season at their place win it. The new striker they have is perhaps the main factor as to why they may break through this time.

Arsenal were constantly linked a while ago, reckon they'll sign him, may be a replacement for Cazorla (whom they have really sorely missed)

I'd try swapping ritchie out for Murphy if I was Rafa, Ritchie was pretty disappointing and want that speed on the counter

Fucking ditched the European Football Show didn't they. Probably should have bothered to watch it more

@Zonal_Marking: Trevor Francis just pondered whether Pepe Reina would go forward for a Napoli corner then said "it's not in the Italian DNA". They're 2-0 up

If Manquillo can do reasonably well on left then will be needed, doubt Rafa will rush him back though

Get rid of the winter one while they're at it too

Thank fuck for that

Remember when we thought we might seriously be trying to sign him and players like him

He ended last season well too imo. Think Rafa has drilled in to him getting end product away and there was a few times when he got a decent shot or cross away well after it looked like the opportunity had passed. Look forward to seeing more.

Don't rate Hughes as a manager so can believe he is better than record suggests. Injury record is more concerning

Don't want Wiltshere, hardly tore the league up with Bournemouth and injured half the time. I also can't see too much reason why he would succeed here and not at bournemouth, maybe Rafa's more positionally disciplined style would get him to do more, I dunno?

Can you do it anytime though or would ref have to pause game to allow gloves to be swapped (protective equipment yadda yadda yadda), or would you need to wait for a break in play a la a substitution? The time wasting potential...