SteV

Bringing in a player on a wage massively above everyone else is one of the fastest ways to help ruin team spirit within a group.

Everyone in football knew this would very likely be Southgate’s last tournament, he virtually said as much himself. If you had aspirations to succeed him, signing yourself up to a multi-year contract shortly before, would seem a very strange way of improving your chances.

Willock’s “injury prone”?

Can’t wait for Friday’s to once again be filled with his charming smile as he tells everyone “we’ll have to wait and see” about Player X’s participation at the weekend, knowing full well they will be perfectly fine and doing 90 mins+.

How much is this kind of shite worth? Are Geordie Jeans still going? https://x.com/cpcompany_1971/status/1811309896966533425?s=46&t=OQLMckSuatbpqWF13Al4mQ

Running a B&B in Amble *may be guesswork

And one of the losses was to Saudi 😂

So finding someone better is going to cost even more. Unless you’re an established CL team, finding a quality backup striker to an elite level one, is one of the most difficult positions to fill. Spurs struggled for years to find any kind of backup to Kane, Levy probably absolutely fumed at the amount they wasted trying. Eventually they kinda solved it with Son, although that might have been more luck than judgement as not sure that was actually the reason he was bought.

It you want someone better than DCL who is happy to be backup, you either have to pay a fortune in wages or get lucky/good with your scouting.

If nobody is willing to pay £30m, I’d suggest taking the best offer they can get is just as plausible.

Why would you not want the money though? It makes no difference to you whether the seats empty if you’re not there. Press a few buttons on your phone and you’re quids in. Probably just an education thing. ‘Too much hassle’ mindset.

More ITK’s than the boardroom here! 😂 Any reason why they waited a bit before announcing, or was it just a case of it taking a few days to get everything official after it all being agreed?

Officially ITK.

Common sense really. All major clubs that ‘sell out’ will get pelters if there’s clearly empty seats.

They were/are. I read of people who it happened to. One kid had his taken away (tbf he seemed like a complete knacker, so it was hard to make head nor tail of the story he was telling).

Which is ridiculous. Once you’ve done it the first time, it takes 30 seconds to transfer it. Even if you’ve got no mates, just sell it back to the club. Takes 2 mins to get 30-40 quid back. Pure laziness not to do it.

Yeah, which is fair enough really. It’s no good people hogging ST’s and leaving seats empty on a regular basis, when there’s massive demand for them.

Canny brutal that. Although I imagine the supply/demand ratio is off the charts.

Don’t disagree on the value point, but there’s probably very few players we could realistically get (if Bowen is even realistic) that would be better than Bowen.

Understand the reservations about value from the likely price tag, but there’s no question Bowen would be a massive upgrade to the starting 11, which is what people have been crying out for.

Not good enough to take us to the next level (title challengers) = absolute bum Jesus Christ.

It’s usually about a month before, so possibly next week.

Agree that Chiesa’s looked a shadow of what he was in this tournament. Very small sample size mind. But (IMO) has a playing style that would put him off a bit of a cliff (elite level wise) if his physical attributes were significantly on the wane. I’d be wary.

Looks pretty horrific, but it’s only really the hamstring injuries from last season that would concern me. I do really like him though. The game away at Wolves last season changed completely when he went off for them.

Not at all.