Leazes_End_Mag

The one thing Rafa wouldn't do in all of this is abandon or let down the fans. He has too much class for that.

Alphonse Aréola being linked to us for €15m in France.

He's going. No doubt about it.

Wish everyone would calm down, everythings perfect and there's no need to worry, simply because Rafa's still here.

We need 2 wingers IMO so i'd hope we'd be trying to sign both Traore and Murphy or 1 of them and somebody else. For all I rate Ritchie, and I would definitely start him to begin with, he struggled with Bournemouth in the PL, and I've not been convinced by Atsu from his time here so far. That then leaves a injury prone Aarons and a out of contract Gouffran.....

Liverpool have apparently decided that they'll now loan Ojo out so no doubt we'll end up with him in order to continue the penny saving.

If they're serious about wanting Darlow and we are about Traore then I don't see the harm in us trying to arrange a player swap deal, although I'm aware that those type of deals are few and far between these days.

Out of all the underwhelming player's we've been linked to, Griffiths is the worst by a considerable distance. He really is complete and utter shite.

Take what you want from this.

If we let Gouffran go on a free and bring Navas in on a free then i'm not complaining. He would definitely improve our squad.

The absolute state of this.

Dani Alves rejected Citeh and now off to PSG.

He can be forgiven for the 1st goal but his attempts on the 2nd and 3rd left a lot to be desired.

Villa owner claimed they'd rejected a 25m bid for him last night. Strange considering they've just sold him for £8m. Turns out it was in January they rejected 25m.

Douglas and Ryder said we weren't interested for the fee Benfica want.

Villa owner claimed they'd rejected a 25m bid for him last night.

No English source has reported it and our local media said we wouldn't bid as high as €15 when that was the asking price a couple of weeks ago.

Rumours going around that Everton have bid 60m for Van Dijk and 40m for Sigurdsson.

A CM should be the very top of our list. Very worrying that Rafa doesn't think so.

They'll let him sign for Leicester before they make a exciting enquiry. In all seriousness though, I wouldn't be shocked if Rafa agreed to stay on the promise of say around 25/30m to spend this summer and then any money made from player sales, outside invsmestment, etc being added to top up the pot. The issue at the minute is that we appear to be unable to close the deal with any 3rd party investors and there's minimum interest in any of our players so we're stuck in a very dangerous position where we're looking at deals for what would probably be 3rd choice targets rather than 1st.

I'd rather have Traore over a new contract for Gouffran.

The way that we're doing business this summer, i'd say he's being proven right so far.

The north east has lost a massive person today. He never stopped smiling or fighting until the very end. As a dad of 2, I can't even begin to imagine how his parents and loved ones must feel right now. RIP little man. An inspiration to us all.

We may not be that far off them unless we start investing. We had some absolute dross in our starting 11 last season, never mind squad and we're already penny watching.

Hamburg style riots if no enquiry is made.