Finnegan

Bit like some muppet reeling off every one of Patson Daka's positive underlying stats and refusing to acknowledge he doesn't score ****ing goals.

But we don't know if that's the reason do we? Fans have been jumping to the conclusion that Winks has a bad attitude for about a year now and I don't know that there's a lot of evidence for this other than the internet collectively looking to turn everything in to a soap opera. All we have is Ruud implying he wouldn't move closer to the training ground or agree to stay there. But, again, forget your fandom and your own personal love for the club for a second. You're commuting to your work place from your home, getting there on time for 9am every day, leaving after 5 every day, doing everything reasonably expected of you. Then along comes a new boss who thinks his staff should live closer to the office so that they can pull overtime and extra shifts for no more money. Despite that, he's actually freezing you out at work, isn't giving you anything to do, you're being held back from actually achieving your career goals and - worse still - he's favouring some absolute incompetent who is objectively worse than you AND who genuinely did refuse to stay and fight last year when the company was actually in trouble? Oh and if you don't comply he's going to go public and tell everyone you aren't committed enough to do it and you should because you're well paid. Would you agree and how would you feel about it? Honestly, Winks was one of our best players at this level last time out, he got absolutely shit on more than most last season by two ****ing dreadful coaches and we've all collectively agreed to scapegoat him and make him a villain and I personally think I missed that memo. I don't get it?

I want to see them in different roles though tbf. My only real disappointment so far in Cifuentes is Soumare starting at the base of the midfield. I feel a bit for Winks, I understand him being disillusioned last year and not wanting to buy in to Ruud and Cooper, I understand him telling Ruud where to stick it over his off-field requests when he had no intention of playing him anyway. Winks has spent most of his career with managers not giving him the chance to play in his best position becuase he's not 6' 2" and a unit. Would like to see Cifuentes have the courage to not only play Winks but play Winks as the pivot and build the defence around that consideration. You don't NEED a big lad sat in front of the back four. Our best midfield, on paper, for me at the moment is Winks sitting, Skipp B2B and Bilal attacking. That's defensive enough for a league in which we'll dominate posession in the vast majority of games.

Ayew, natural finisher, Jordan "scored double figures once in my life and it was in Ligue 1 over a decade ago" Ayew?

"Wycombe Wanderer's young Ivorian striker has today confirmed his move to South Wales."

Besiktas have sent personal terms to his agent and are willing to trigger his release clause, allegedly.

Pace in behind is a large part of how you stretch a defence. One of the biggest differences between Daka and Vardy or Iheanacho playing last time out was how much Daka moved the defence around without the ball. He had and has the pace to drop right in to the midfield to be the first receiver from Hermansen or take a pass from Vestergaard (forcing their centre backs and defensive midfielders to make decisions on tracking him), then spin and go and in a few seconds be heading behind the defensive line. The verticality he can bring to our play just with mobility and work rate pulls and stretches their defence back and forth and forces them to make decisions they don't want to. Ayew holds the ball up better but he also slows it down and offers very little challenge in terms of his movement for defenders to cover. If Fatawu and Mavididi are to overlap beyond him, he's definitely the best "false 9" we currently have but that's not saying a lot. A new striker definitely should have a decent amount of pace. If a team is going to park the bus, you need all the movement you can get to force them to stretch and come out of position.

**** me, bet Rudkin reads this and gets excited that McBurnie is available.

TEMU Dusan Tadic

Mavididi and Fatawu looked so fit and fast against Fiorentina that it did give me some hope. Ayew could be like our ALDI Bobby Firmino, doing the grunt work and holding the ball up for the two on running. They scored 18 between them in the Championship last time, though, so that'll have to improve if we don't have a striker kicking in much.

Erm, think you're safe from Cambodian terror attacks tbh mate.

Harsh

Scenes if he somehow actually hit the winning run

Couple of individuals might have let themselves down but to even get to thus point is nuts.

He tried that again

Needs to eek it out for 17 runs, play smart? Nope swing away

Jesus

Absolute cinema. This is nuts. England are absolute chaos to watch.

You can see what's happening can't you. We've identified him as a target but we can't afford to bid until we get rid of someone, so he's holding off from moving to Swansea because he'd rather come here but we have no cash and we move so ****ing slowly its going to take us weeks to sell one of Hermansen, Bilal, JJ or whoever to make the cash. He's eventually going to give up and sign for Swansea because we take too long (Swansea will later sell him for 10-15m profit.) Meanwhile, we'll leave it til a few days before deadline day to give up, panic, and make a quid-pro-quo PSR diddle deal with Leeds where they finally match Bilal's full release clause of 30 odd because in return we agree to buy Patrick ****ing Bamford for probably two to three times more than we could have gotten Kone. We'll give him a 5 year contract, despite the fact he's in his 30s, he'll score only a couple goals more than Jordan Ayew this season and we'll never see the money back.

Can't see this happening at a league game. It's not legal is it? Tbh, FIFA are pretty hot on this, I'm surprised you can get away with it in a televised friendly. Probably helps that Thailand is a much wealthier country than Cambodia but yknow. Still.

Only one?

Fiorentina threatening to actually turn up. Some serious squad value just came on to the pitch. Kean was so good last year.

McAteer is going to be 28 and we'll still be calling him a youngster