Finnegan

The one thing about this announcement and it's timing is we're going to end up with another Steve Cooper situation where we can only hire a manager that's desperate because anyone with quality will want to keep their distance. Only now we're not in the Prem.

I'd absolutely have him here but he's just taken them to the brink of Europe with a squad that's a lot of rubbish. He's not going to a Championship clown car.

The meltdown on here if Southampton get Will Still and we get Russell Martin will, genuinely quite literally, overload and bring down the site.

If we do this I'm officially quitting. I'll go join @Daggers at Kettering before I pay money to watch Jeff Schlupp lining up alongside Jordan Ayew and BDCR in a Leicester shirt.

It's probably just semantics but I suppose it depends what you mean by "leadership." What we definitely did lack, still lack and do need is players of the right personality. I liked a quote in an interview with Dr Ian Graham the other day talking about Liverpool's transfer philosophy under Klopp, he said Jurgen liked "fighters, not winners." Obviously slightly wanky and subjective but you know what he means, the actively looked for players who were hard working, team focused, would put their body on the line and it's something you recognise in Liverpool and their squad. Pearson clearly used to value this highly, we used to very specifically target certain personalities. We don't anymore and that's problematic. I think Coady was perceived to be of that type but I'm not entirely convinced, frankly. He seems more like the happy go lucky class clown to me, I don't think the squad needed a cheerleader, it needed some absolute warrior to follow.

I don't think Coady was a brilliant bit of recruitment and I think he's a good example of our wider scouting team being poor at identifying "established" players (I think we're good at spotting a young player who can be developed and up-sold) but I do see the logic of signing him. We were looking to sign some leaders and fairly strong personalities. I think that's something we still need. It's just we misfired somewhat, he certainly wasn't a Huth, Morgan or even a Wasyl.

Would be a fairly smart free transfer given our need for, ideally, a couple of centre backs if we're able to have a clear out.

If Partey really has done what the world assumes he's done then keeping him around and playing is a decision Arsenal Football Club are clearly making way, way above the Head Coach's paygrade and I imagine anyone in the job would be forced to sit there and justify it as the face of the club to be quite honest. That stuff is just how a coach chooses to handle the media for the benefit of their squad. It's almost certainly a better approach than throwing your own players under the bus publicly and the results seem to show that whatever approach he's taking with squad management it's obviously working for Arsenal? Funny, was watching that Warnock - Pep interview Sky did a few days ago and whilst they might have very different styles of football, they were both agreeing that one of the corner stones of good man management was not selling our your own players in public. I highly doubt Arteta, in the privacy of their dressing room, is always that complimentary.

If Leeds do that then I want Rudkin to be literally waiting on Daniel Farke's doorstep when he gets home with his p45. Think the criticism he gets is quite over the top and his reputation for failure in the Prem is a bit harsh. Norwich aren't exactly renowned for splashing the cash following promotion. His Leeds side were entertaining to watch and I actually think he'd comfortably keep them up if he stays, especially with a bit of Red Bull assistance to their recruitment both in terms of finances and footballing intelligence / philosophy. Think their high energy, high work rate pressing would be way more effective at staying in the Premier League than anything Leicester, Ipswich or Soton offered this term. Obviously if Leeds are getting a cash injection from RB and they think they can find a genuine upgrade on Farke then fair enough but if it's stylistic or based entirely on his reputation at Norwich then I think it's really premature if they get rid. I'd take Farke over 99% of the realistic names being touted for our job at the moment to be quite honest. That's not me saying he'd be my dream hire but given the reasonably limited imagination of our owners then we probably need to be realistic about who we'd wind up with.

If Arsenal had any sense they'd sack the manager that's finally stopped them being a laughing stock, got them back up the table, managed two second place finishes in a row and had them in a Champions League semi final? I can't get my head around the criticism of Arteta, he's done really well there. Jurgen Klopp is celebrated as one of the best managers of his generation but he consistently "failed" to catch a Pep Man City side. There's just a finite amount you can do to best Man City across a 38 game league season, short of them imploding, isn't there? And is anyone going to say with a straight face that they think Arsenal have a squad as good as Liverpool or Man City's or the resources to properly close the gap? Think he's well and truly delivering par, frankly. Any Arsenal fan that thinks they should have been in a title race this year is a bit delusional and has massively under estimated Liverpool and Slot.

They go about it far more quietly than Brentford and Brighton but their recruitment is generally pretty consistent. Huijsen isn't "gone", that makes it sound like he's run out his contract. Huijsen is being cashed in for a massive profit after one season. It's a huge win. Well done them.

I'm CEO of Please Not Dyche™ Ltd and even I couldn't say with a straight face that he's worse than Ruud.

Funny, when I turned up the queue for the craft beer van was non existent and there was a huge queue for the other one. I assumed it would be Chang which tastes horrific so just went straight to the front of the craft queue and got a generic, slightly hoppy home brew lager which was OK.

When the **** was that.

I actually think he'll be less useful than last time to be honest. I suppose it depends what coach comes in but what made Kasey effective under Maresca was the number of the right bodies we got forward in threatening positions in his system. Mavididi, KDH, Ndidi and Vardy/Daka all threatening the box, tying up defenders gave Kasey some freedom to drift in to spaces off the ball which is one of his best qualities and what got him his few goals. The extreme likelihood is that a coach is probably going to come in and play a far more conventional system in which case we'll actually be relying on our wide players to be the main providers of goal contributions and if that's the case he isn't good enough at all. He'll mostly be used as a defensive impact sub helping to close out games and I don't see the point in keeping him around for that when we likely aren't going to be able to shift BDCR and Ayew and people will still pay a few million for McAteer that'll represent pure profit. I'd definitely sell. It's funny @Stadt mentions Perez because, tbh, one of the few ways I could see McAteer working is as a defensive foil for a more attack minded, overlapping full back if a coach comes in that takes a shine to Woyo. McAteer holding the ball up for Coulibaly to overlap and then covering the space against counters is probably more actual threat than McAteer attacking himself.

Mate give over. I love his work rate and enthusiasm and he's not an awful finisher but he can't beat his man, he's not really quick enough to be a winger and he near exclusively sends the ball backwards. He's a strange one because he's got a few decent qualities but they seem largely wasted in the actual position he plays where he lacks the key skill of being able to actually beat his man or carry the ball at pace. Two years on and I still think the best use of him is probably as a box to box pest down the middle but he's played there about once? Alternatively, he'd be better off the shoulder trying to get in behind than being stuck out wide and no manager has ever tried that despite our lack of depth up top. He's just absolutely not a winger at all. He's largely dreadful at it and contributes hugely to our inability to advance the ball up the pitch.

JR: hey Martyn, how about Geoff Horsfield?

Shinji

He's absolutely awful. We've got no idea at all how to build. And I don't just mean that in some wannabe Pep way. Every team has to be able to build, in whatever style. You have to be able to get out, you have to be able to progress the ball. He's got no idea how to coach that. We're an absolute mess. If an individual doesn't break from the midfield carrying the ball we simply don't progress up the pitch. Thank **** for JJ pulling his socks up today and just ****ing going.

Holding up next seasons Bournemouth kit

In before we win a pen and Ruud subs Vards off before he can take it and reveals his long term revenge plot for taking his record.

There's something really grotesque about Alan Shearer writing an opinion piece calling the richest owners in football buying a trophy an "underdog" story.

Just been on the train listening to a couple of Ipswich lads. Pretty funny, even they've heard of Jon Rudkin and that he's shit now.