Ellis H

“It should not be lobbied against ambition because if we just spend, spend, spend, spend once again, we become accountable to that by penalties, fines and points deductions and that isn’t good leadership, that isn’t being a good custodian of the club, that isn’t taking your role responsibly, you’re being negligent. That is only for one thing, it’s for your ego. We’re not going to do that.“ Is that aimed at Amanda and Mehrdad?

Quite a few will be opening this to say the Rob Lee goal. I certainly was.

Johnson, Odobert and Porro had about 1xg between them which says it all. Can barely remember a shot they had. Isak had 1xg on his own for the goal.

Van Nistelrooy might have a better chance than Southgate. Feels like he went there knowing the big job would be available soon.

If we were offering Gordon to Liverpool and the Bruno clause was active then that’s possibly more other teams not wanting our players than us not selling them. A few new contracts in the coming months would clear it up.

One positive is that we haven’t had to suffer through this to then have Pardew constantly remind us that January is a really hard time to sign players. Howe won’t accept that. It’ll be full on panic stations on February 1st if anything even close to this happens again though.

The wording on SSN is “Fraser joins Southampton on 2 year deal after his departure from Newcastle” which implies we paid him off.

They’ve got Andre The Giant in goal. Need to hit it hard and low.

It’s a lot of money but a signing like this has a few positive knock on effects aside from the obvious ones. It will surely placate Gordon for a start and will also send the message to other players and even fans that the club will spend to improve the team. Another huge bonus would be keeping Howe happy if he’s desperate for him.

The collar was bothering me more than the performance.

They were known in the Championship as a team that will keep possession to an extreme level, making many pointless passes. Their average per game was about 65% I think.

Bowen has just been appointed club captain at West Ham. The 0.1% chance of him coming here has gone.

Tbf to him, this is a man who paid us £3.5 million for Pardew which was the second most they’d ever spent on anyone in their history at the time. He knows all about paying Superstar money for Superstars.

He did the “I’m taking this penalty” thing again earlier this pre-season which is a worry tbh. I like his desire to score but he doesn’t appear to have learned anything after that Everton game. No questioning his talent though.

Can’t be having any Palace disrespect. They saved us from Pardew, which is the ultimate favour.

Doubt the social media team knows much or indeed anything about where the negotiations are tbh, they’re just doing their job.

Palace have already replaced him with Chadi Riad who they bought in May

Can’t remember the specific game but Babayaro was bad enough in it for me to think of him nearly 20 years later for this. Danny Simpson also had some games where the other team would constantly attack his side knowing he would back off and never, ever put a tackle in.

Carl Cort was good when we could get him on the pitch. Did well for Wolves afterwards but again injuries ruined his potential.

No, but I think he’s going under the radar a bit in terms of how handy he’s been for us. He’ll be a good backup option for whoever comes in.

Over the last 2 seasons Murphy has 17 attacking returns in the equivalent of 27 games in the league. He’s not the solution but he’s far from a problem.

“It was also reported that Chelsea had included sell-on incentives and the right to match any offers made for Guéhi in future” From Wiki. They’ll be lurking, as usual.

Something to make you all feel old. He wasn’t even born when Keegan came back in 2008.

They died in February/May 2018 when he was Aston Villa manager. He was pictured having a lovely time in Barbados at the cricket in January 2019 while on the Sheffield Wednesday payroll.

Been reading Schmeichel‘s book (it was 99p, please forgive me) and Ferguson’s reaction here is interesting “In the Premier League, we were overtaken by Arsenal, who found incredible form in the run-in and beat us in a decisive game at Old Trafford, for which we were missing so many players. The final nail in our coffin was a 1–1 draw at home to Newcastle after which Fergie exploded in fury–at Ole, of all people. I was injured and watching from near the dugout when Rob Lee went through on goal in the last minute of the game. Ole sprinted after him, caught up and took him down on the edge of the box. Uriah Rennie showed him the inevitable straight red and he trotted off–after a pat on the head from Becks–to a standing ovation. I never saw Fergie so angry. He detested cynical play. As soon as we got to the dressing room he screamed at Ole, absolutely bawled him out. ‘That is NOT who we are. We’re Manchester United. We don’t do that!’ he yelled, and even in the middle of this hairdryer hurricane I think all of us–Ole included–respected his values.”