Viana

I wouldn’t say his career has been defined by blistering speed, and in his latter years he’s been elite without ever being defined by his athleticism. As long as you can keep up with the pace of the game - which Bruno can - he’s grand.

Never hurt Modric or Kroos.

I’m pretty sure Honigstein said last week they had a verbal agreement with him.

Darren Eales loved a cryptic tweet to announce signings at Atlanta. He even did it to tease his departure. I’m surprised he hasn’t done similar here.

Yeah. I appreciate familial pressure but to entrust such a huge career to your brother with no experience seems ridiculous.

Part of me thinks Kane is the dog that caught the van here. I don’t think he wants Bayern, I think he wants out of Spurs but still in the league, that way he gets both the goal record and trophies.

I’m surprised we haven’t seen a dip into South America. Valentin Barco reportedly has a 10m release clause. I’d love us to go for him.

I’ll always enjoy Norwich’s head of recruitment calling him an angry little fat man when they signed him.

I assume a Chelsea fan. The same club that will quite happily negotiate a loan deal for a young player provided they sign it one year contract extension. I do think the Kudus situation highlights a potentially subtle shift in how Brighton will do business. I don’t imagine Caicedo’s agents imagined the club would ask 100 million for him, but the Premier league is quite a volatile market. Players that sign for them will now know there’s a chance of a big move but it’s not entirely unfair to suggest the Brighton our pricing him out of a move to Chelsea. I don’t blame Brighton for demanding top dollar, but it will definitely change how players approach negotiations with them, including I would imagine any contract extensions that come up in the near future.

I like Ange but some of his best work usually arrives after being able to overhaul the squad. Not convinced he’ll be able to do that here.

He’s a cripple m8, finished club. Ratio. Jokes aside, any risk starting him?

It was symbiotic. He cost £40m and it showed at times, but he also had the perfect foil in Patrick Roberts.

Diaby has a lot of positives to his game, but I also think we’re at a delicate point tactically. Intensity is our identity as Howe said. We’re about hard work creating the platform to be decisive, but that requires input from all eleven players. If you drop Diaby 15-20 yards deeper and you ask him to press like Almiron is he getting 15-20 goal contributions like at Leverkusen? One of the big critiques I saw of him referenced his lack of involvement defensively. If Unai Emery can accommodate that with his system that’s great, but that’s why I say we’re at a delicate point. We can all see where the opportunities to improve are, but finding that improvement while also not compromising the robust system we’ve built narrows the scope of potential players significantly. We’ll have to change our style gradually, which is what make Howe’s job so tough and why I think they’ve gone for young versatile options whenever possible. We can’t afford a 55m gamble from the Bundesliga because if we try to sell him back you’re lucky if you’re getting 20m back.

West Ham are essentially doing what people have accused us of doing.

Who’s Darren?

Focus on the league.

The synergy between username and post is quite frightening.

She was only reliable for Liverpool stuff and that was because she was (allegedly) dating one of the press team.

It’s unclear how much money he has access to.

He screams Colorado.

Rafa is great at conveying tactical concepts but I don’t know if I’ve seen evidence of him building someone’s confidence. I think he inspires through his ideas and just assumes elite sports people have the mentality or they don’t. Eddie doesn’t seem that way. Whenever I’ve been frustrated with Murphy it’s because he’s lacked confidence or conviction.

Huge season for him. He’s up against big money signings, in-form teammates, and he’s on the older end of the scale for players in his position. Good luck young man.

I never saw them finishing in the top three this season anyway, but their squad is in desperate need of some quality. The young players have potential, but the older members of the squad just don’t offer enough. Pritchard looks finished.

Home form was a big issue last year. Doesn’t look like much has changed.