Geordie_once_removed

I don't know much about him but he seems like he could be a starter this season and the new Aaron Hughes/Robbie Elliot in a hopefully much improved team next year.

Really? I've always had a lot of time for Everton. For me the ideal 3 to go down are the most likely (besides us). Norwich (no bad blood, I just think I'll impact them the least), Burnley (for the banner and the dodgy way they were bought) and Watford (Southern, sort of London nothing club who fire managers as soon as they change their underpants).

I think we're probably saying the samething in different ways. If we survive I'm sure he'll have played a key role, so will have been a 'good' buy.

When we signed him I thought we'd paid 10 million too much. After two games I'm inclined to think it's more like 15. Not terrible but the definition of limited. I said to a mate when he signed that I thought he'd turn out to be a good, bad signing. As in that he he'll help us belly flop over the line to survival and won't mind warming the bench next year, but by God we were done over on the price!

I'm putting personality aside (though I'm sure as soon as he became our player a lot of the twatishness would suddenly become more palatable).

I'd rather him than Lingard. I just don't think you can expect Lingard to re-bottle the lightning that made him so impressive last season at West Ham. Alli has more potential and is a bit of a better fit for the players we have right now.

It's looking like Chris Wood-esq signings (on similar contract length) are our best bet this window. As long as we avoid any Samba at QPR silliness, they and the few bits of quality in the current crop, plus three other sides being turbo dog dirt should be enough to see us ok. They would then become back ups as we get targets up our list in the summer and leave the club by the time we're growing past them. Very weary of us spending big on our 4 and 5 choice targets and sig ing them up to 5 year contract, only for them to not work out. We really could do without a big bucks version of Henry Saviet.

I'm growing to almost like this transfer. As people have said he's potentially perfect in that he'll give us a focal point for Trippier's excellent deliver and need no adaptation time. He's also quite a streaky striker who scores in fits and bursts. Hopefully the change and challenge of coming into this team will send him on one of these. Between now and the end of the seasons we only need him to score and make a difference in maybe 3 or 4 games. I can easily see him doing this.

It's clearly underwhelming. But it's also a (relatively) smart piece of business for the rest of this season and next for the reasons people have mentioned but also next season you'd imagine he'll be happy enough to be back up.

Coutinho to Villa makes sense in terms of the team. He plays a similar role to the one Grealish played for Villa and like Grealish, to a degree, he needs a team built around him (this is one of the reasons I'm not so keen on him). Villa's struggles were/are in part due to not replacing Grealish with a like for like, instead they have tried to have this creativity more distributed, this hasn't quite clicked yet. Coutinho could allow them to 'revert to type' a bit more. Makes sense for the player and the team.

Certainly sounds very plausible. As Xi has tightened his power I can well imagine how his personal views, or people's beliefs on what his personal views are, would result in actions like this. A loss of 100€ million in the context of the Chinese economy isn't much, especially as there will be many ways to offset this 'loss'.

I might be adding 2 and 2 and getting 5. But it could be to do with the Evergrande Group and more generally troubles in the Chinese property market. It's not been covered as extensively as it might have been, but there are rumblings that the issues there are similar in magnitude and potential impact to the stuff in the US that led to the 2008 crash. Don't ask me anymore I'm already pretty much out of my depth in writing this message!

Bereton-Diaz would make such sense. I think he'd represent a very low risk transfer (assuming you didn't pay silly money for him in the first place) as even if he didn't work out you'd still get decent money for him from another Championship club, or a lower league Premiership club. He might also sort out what to do with Gayle who it is clear has no future with the club as he could be quite an attractive make weight in any deal. Finally I think it would send a nice message to everyone about what we are after, young keen to improve players as opposed to the type of player that QPR and Everton signed who have dragged them down.

I only watched the extended highlights of yesterday's game. There were a couple of points where our defenders were miles out of position, especially the centre-backs. I can't see Leicester not capitalising on that and scoring. I feel the best we can hope for is a score draw.

I put a 6. Yesterday's draw, while disappointing due to the foul on Wilson at the end, is a huge result for us. It allows the new manager to make a few really needed changes (Clarke, Darlow and Ritchie out Dubravka, Schar/Fernades and Lewis in) but doesn't damage our mindset too much. I can see a win against Brentford and a few unexpected points in that nasty looking December. Add a centre back, a midfielder and a striker in January and we'll hopefully be ok.

Agreed. He is exactly the type of player I'd like to see us go for. Coutinho is exactly the type of player I'd like to see us avoid. He's just too specialist for our needs at the moment and I could see his arrival really compounding the chronic lack of balance we have, as we'd cycle through endless systems trying to get the best out of our marquee signing. Then he'd get injured.

I take your point and I did say 'just about', clearly the fat man would have had to either lie through his teeth (not difficult for him) or shifted his approach to running the club to get him. I was as much talking about no directly footballing things. We can all agree there was a distinct lack of imagination under Ashley and so is as much the Howe would have occurred to the dulled imaginations of Ashley and co. as he is British and available.

Is the answer "Treat the ball like a Covid ridden snotty tissue?"

The issue with Howe for me, and apologies if it has been said by someone before, is two fold. 1. I feel he would have just about been attainable under Ashley. So to end up with him after we've made something of a Fautian pack with this takeover is disappointing. Robert Johnson didn't sell his soul to be really good at the recorder did he. 2. We could easily end up with a Nuno at Spurs situation, with it being pretty clear he was quite far down the list and his authority and therefore ability to change things severely diminished as a result.

Unlike us where our board is an actual dictatorship ?

Howe would be very disappointing. Not that he'd be bad, but he would have been achievable under Ashley (at a stretch). So to sell your soul only to get Howe... well it's not exactly the most appealing of Faustian pacts.

So to get rid of Bruce et all and appoint Rodgers et all. Would most likey cost around £30 million. These figures are grotesque.

For me he is exactly the kind of player we should avoid. He's barely played over the last two years and to do well needs a team built around him, which given he is 29 doesn't seem like a good long term plan. I'd like us to adopt a Leipzig type model. So spending big on younger semi proven players.

I agree and this is why I've signed up to the trial. Jury is still out as there have been some fairly mediocre articles about players that feel little more than promo pieces written by agents and one God awful article by supposed secret owner. On the other hand there are some good articles, a good example being an analysis of what the promoted teams will bring in terms of tactics. Will be interesting to see what their match reporting is like and the analysis of clubs transfer business is.

When neither he nor Lascelles were selected I thought Southgate had made a mistake. I've changed my mind a bit on not selecting Lascelles, mainly as Maguire has done so well and I get Southgate's system much more now (though I'd still have taken him over Jones). Not taking Shelvey remains in my opinion a big error. He'd not start for me, but take the Colombia game for example, bring on Shelvey instead of Dier in that situation and I feel we could have seen out that game a lot more comfortably. His defensive work is underrated and his passing ability would have pinned Colombia back a bit, especially with Vardy's pace and runs up front.