Impossibly Daft

Fantastic strengths and style of play. Likes to tackle indicates his effort in closing down, which is so important for us. Please God let this man stay fit the rest of the way now. He's easily the least motivated at closing down when compared to Vardy/Okazaki/Ihaenacho/Ulloa. Bullet headers, really good movement in the box, but that's been about it. It seemed to be a lot of getting the hump about not being the centre of attention though, so maybe Benitez will be able to drag the rest of it out of him.

Some sort of Homegrown player rule filler, maybe?

I never said he was fast!

Nah. Slimani just scores headers and berates team-mates when they don't do all the link-up play for him. Ulloa can hold the ball up and does more off-the-ball work. Ulloa's contributions in 14/15 were huge, and in 15/16 when coming on as a sub he scored a bunch of huge goals. Not stylish ones, but if you're in a relegation battle you want the guy who spends the 89th minute scoring, not slagging off team mates. I suppose if Slimani's played as one up front with attacking midfielders doing all the supply, he might score more, but as a get-the-job-done player in a relegation battle I'd go with Ulloa. Irrelevant anyway, linked with Palace.

Ah man. Imagine going from Gayle & Joselu to those two. Slimani is pretty one-dimensional, to be honest; Ulloa would be the one I'd want in a relegation battle.

Clearly well researched... They seem to have mixed up the guy they spent pretty much the whole second half going on about - A 29-year-old English freestyler, with a 26-year-old Jamaican international who doesn't even spell his name the same way.

If they broke it down into two smaller group-stages then instead of breezing through a weak group, it'd be breezing through a weak first-round group, then stumbling through in second place in the second round group? Doesn't make much difference, does it?

It's Matic->Bakayoko Then Chalobah->Drinkwater As the Homegrown Player box-ticking exercise.

Just realised I'd not saved a formation change and it's left Morata on the bench. I'm so bad at fantasy football.

Eh, he did ok with a handful of sub appearances. He was decent enough for a squad player in a bottom half team.

But he died for our sins. There's no saving at that price though

Not anymore it doesn't. Have you seen the prices being quoted nowadays?! You can buy Javier Hernandez for £12m. Different type of striker - but a much, much better one and Leicester already have an identical type striker in Slimani that they spent £30m on last season. Hernandez might cost £12m but I can't imagine he'd want to sit on the bench and be the backup to Jamie Vardy. I think the logic of Troy Deeney is a player that combines the attributes of Okazaki and Slimani/Ulloa. Completely disagree. The problem with the current Arsenal side isn't anything like what people think it is. As opposed to 5 years ago, they now drastically lack technical ball players in central midfield, attacking midfield and wide playmaker. The positionless playmakers that became Arsenal's cliche have almost completely disappeared. Coquelin, Elneny, Xhaka, Ramsey in the centre. Walcott, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Welbeck, Iwobi as wide options. They basically have a load of sort-of destroyers in the middle (save for Ramsey, who flatters to decieve) and speed merchants out wide. I'm not necessarily saying any of these are bad players, but they're certainly not title winning decisive players. If they were to lose Ozil their squad looks desperately lacking in this area. Signing a world class centre back and midfield destroyer would improve them but nowhere near as much as people make out. They more clearly need an injection of flair, creativity and skill. And FWIW, there's absolutely no chance Bonucci would sign for Arsenal. I don't think those midfield options are particularly dreadful, but those wide players...

Some glorious autocorrect, that.

There's plenty of 'name' managers that would struggle (like Sven taking over a playoff-losing team, throwing crazy money around and finishing midtable, Felix Magath's horrendous run with Fulham, etc. ), but Benitez certainly isn't one of them. You'll do well. It's Villa who won't get it together, I think.

Real Madrid, fine. PSG, eh, ok. But Arsenal? ffs.

All the stuff like that being covered by the people they're renting from isn't odd, really, the problem is that you'd expect all that to be factored into the rent rather than making it pennies.

The only similarity is that he's quite streaky and that his subs aren't great, really. Other than that, totally different.

Mitrovic maybe, but not Townsend. Rotting on the bench of Spurs is the quickest way to get an England call-up.

Because Drinkwater and Noble have had good seasons, so it's time to manage expectations

It's not clicked yet. I think it does for a few minutes (as I end up giggling), then I realise it really hasn't. It seems like one of those bits in a dream where you just go "oh, right, ok then". My house is now on the moon. My football team now wins titles. what. One title mate, don't go getting too big for your boots now. Of course not; If anyone writes "pffft who is that? Need a better calibre of signings for the CL!" about anybody on earth or "WE SHOULD BE BEATING THESE!!!11" about any game at all, they're an idiot of global proportions and should be mocked relentlessly. It's just surreal to go from having to do a pub crawl just to find one that would put on the games, to being on every bit of media I've seen today. I think it being Tottenham's game that sealed it means it's not really sunk in properly.

It's not clicked yet. I think it does for a few minutes (as I end up giggling), then I realise it really hasn't. It seems like one of those bits in a dream where you just go "oh, right, ok then". My house is now on the moon. My football team now wins titles. what.

Aww, that kid from the League One season remembers. And is now old enough to buy fireworks.

Didn't Fuchs leave Schalke because he was 2nd choice left back? Didn't even start this season as Leicester's first choice left back, pretty sure that was Schlupp Schlupp started the season but it's not that Fuchs was expected to be a backup just that it took him a little longer to build up his fitness

The run in at the end of last season was some really good stuff too, though Ranieri's been the difference between being able to get results in a bunch of different ways. If Pearson had still been around, it'd have been the kind of season that teams like Southampton and so on have been doing; a brief run into the Top 4 then a slide down to about 6th-8th - not quite the lightning-in-a-bottle thing it's turned out to be, but none too shabby. All the behind-the-scenes stuff was put in place by Pearson & co as well - medical team, etc. He'd do a good job at something like turning Villa into an Everton.

Warm weather on the South coast Nah, it's been pissing it down with rain today. Proper April showers.