Viana

Exactly this, he'd be a huge get for a team in the MENA region. The sponsor deals he'd open would even help his club close the profit/loss gap that so many are burdened by. It's not terribly different to Inter Miami getting Messi. He'll be one of the best players in that league and could easy go for four or five years.

It's all opinions init. De Jong and Muto had the same issue really, both were just a bit powder puff, but De Jong only had six months. Gamez I'll give you because maybe he was just old, but then I couldn't quite think of a proper shite right back during that period. Debuchy underwhelmed, Manquillo and Krafth have been fine. Ramage I'll give you but when I think of worst I just imagine can't trap a ball, panic whenever it goes near them, so yeah maybe him. Was Des Hamilton really shite? But by that same logic I can't put Campbell in there because he was just old. That's why I scrubbed Cacapa too because it just feels like elder abuse. Bramble always had a rick in him, but he had that period with Woodgate where he was pretty decent. With Yanga-Mbiwa, I never saw that and I felt he had that same rick tendency. He actually felt quite meek when he played. If we work on your theory that not playing much disqualifies you, are we talking Santon as a shite left back? Paul Dummet? Babayaro? Go way back to Wayne Quinn? I guess you could throw Paul Huntington in there or Davey Edgar.

Denial is the first stage of grief The thing I couldn't really fathom about the Colback deal is what they expected from him for 60k a week. I was privy to a lot of the Sunderland games at the time through work and at his peak he'd been slightly above mediocre. So much so they kept switching him between midfield and left back. I know talent ID is very hard, but the Ginger Pirlo patter was another thing that baffled me.

Alan Smith isn't a bad shout to replace Hendrick in mine actually. Only ever looked relevant at Championship level and even that was via big slide tackles. I'd feel bad throwing him in just because the leg break clearly did him over. Colback is more an emotive one just because I felt like I always saw him move into traffic when a teammate had the ball. He was the opposite of making himself available and never took responsibility. Hendrick just felt amorphous.

A quick head count shows three starters tonight with Premier League experience, and I'm being generous with that description. They summer business has basically been; imagine we could buy anyone....in the Championship. I do feel sorry for them because I bet the fans were rightly elated when they went up, but I can't see anything but a long punishing summer. Even tonight, they've found some joy in getting their wingbacks forward to cross, but there isn't enough quality on either end of the equation. Ryan Giles was probably one of the better left backs in the league last year, but he's seeing first hand how much better Premier League defenders are at reading deliveries. Meanwhile, Chelsea have Maatsen on the bench who was arguably the best LB in the Championship last season

There's a Twitter account - Pythagoras in Boots (I think is the name) - that highlighted his lack of obvious position as a weakness.

Ha, I'd wager I'm older than you. There's definitely some recency bias in mine, but in all honesty, I wasn't able to see games as regularly in the 90s/early 00s outside of highlights on MOTD or what was on telly. I don't have strong memories of the likes of Marcelino/Pistone/Maric. I've read they were shite, but I saw flashes, so I'm not going to profess I had enough evidence to outweigh the more recent picks. Could probably have thrown the likes of Luque or Bramble in there, but I tried to pick players I genuinely thought to be poor footballers and not those that had a poor spell with us.

Worst signed XI I can remember from my time. Sels Gamez Yanga-Mbiwa Boumsong Lazaar Colback Hendrick Thauvin Obertan Riviere Muto

He doesn't deserve to sit in the U21s. Good player that at worst could be a Championship midfielder.

The lad up top looks like he's made of cement. Rag dolling Diasai around. Luton might run Derby close you know. They're big but there's no real quality in there and they haven't even got a long throw tactic like Stoke had back in the day.

He looked canny when we started to build form under Howe around late January into early February. I thought he’d be the little pressing monster, but I never believed he’d be a long term option. he should destroy the Championship.

Love Roger Thames going in on them

Got a link to the claim?

Lost out on Lazio with +15 CL appearances. Sickener.

They were ready to offer 700m to Mbappe for a year. If Al-Ittihad are serious Liverpool will struggle to turn it down. Say they offer 150m, that's a transformative sum for a player that's 31-year-old. If they can poach Benzema you better believe they can poach Salah.

"The ceiling is caving in on us. These clubs like Newcastle and Man City are open air."

This is Almiron's fifth season with us, in that time we've seen a thorough portrait of him as a player. He's a hard working wide player that can press effectively and has a moment of magic in his boots. The problem is that makes the moments he fluffs it more frustrating, and when he's not operating instinctively he tends to tie himself in knots and make bad decisions. He can go long periods of not being involved in a game, and he's painfully one footed. He can beat a man, but typically he needs space to do it. He's not a dribbler like Maxi or Zaha. Despite all of that he had double figures for goals last season. He was effective. We used that same justification for signing Harvey Barnes for £35m. I appreciate people wanted a new right winger, but finding someone with the blend of speed, industry, and goals wouldn't be cheap. I also don't know many wingers in that mould. I was interested to see FB Ref had Jesper Lindstrom - someone we were linked to - as a similar profile, but I always anticipated Eddie would want a CM and a left winger this summer as his biggest deals. That's not a slight on ASM, but he missed a dozen or so games last year. Miggy missed four. It wouldn't shock me if Miggy comes to life in the Champions League.

I'm curious; how would you have done that with the financial boundaries we are known to have in place?

You don't keep your top star for episode one or two. You save him for the main event. Harsh mate I was just posting a clip.

Celebrity fan Alex Hurst makes an appearance it would seem.

I used to get taxis from a guy that was a Sunderland fan, and even he was pretty adamant that it wasn’t how the media painted it. That her dad was a money grabber. Don’t think you can spin it any other way than he knew he shouldn’t be doing it but still did. I’m also not surprised the takeover has destroyed a lot of RTG. We were always within touching distance of them. A good season was avoid relegation and beat the mags. Now they’re looking like hitting ten years in the EFL and we’re talking about Champions League and trophies. It’s back to the 90s, and dare I say more pronounced. If it was roles reversed I’d be devastated. We spent more on a teenager winger we’ve loaned out than they have on a single player since relegation.

The issue I have with Todd Boehly is that he's a co-owner of the Dodgers. There's no way to know how involved he is in roster decisions or construction. I also believe running an American sports team is very different because the pool of coaches and players you can choose from is a lot smaller. With baseball especially it's a lot easier to apply statistics and quantify how good a player is. You just need look at some of Chelsea's recent signings - like Cucurella - as evidence that some players are made by the system they're in rather than natural ability.

I haven't had to perform mental gymnastics to find positives about the new lads. Ten on Ten.

If you’re failing to enjoy the team as it is right now I think football might not be for you. We passed Villa off the park last week and we’re but a few days/week away from the Champions League draw. Anytime I even come close to being frustrated at this lot I just remind myself I didn’t want to even watch some of the last games under Ashley. I’d catch the highlights. Don’t get me wrong, I’m disappointed when we don’t win or frustrated if we fluff a chance, but that feeling disappears so quickly because it’s just fun again. I lost my voice a bit after the friendly in New Jersey because I just want to support this lot. Even if I thought Bruno was having a stinker I’d rather cheer him through it than criticise him. A lot of the players this daft minority want to criticise are the ones who took us on a mad run to escape relegation and then got us into the Champions League.