Ric Flair

Hopefully Alves and Evans get 60 minutes to show what they can do.

Rafiu Durosinmi from Viktoris Plzen. Had suggested him a year or so ago before he got a bad injury but he's returned and still looks ideal. Contract up next summer and would be attainable for £5-6m max.

Norwich look like they're building a young squad like Sunderland did. Not quite sure how they manage to spend the money they do but think the wages must be reasonable and sell well year on year.

Yeah one of their analysts absolutely rinsed the lot of them 😂

What an experience! Most of it was coastal path on the way out and then from Saunton back to Woolacombe was chaos as my GPS went wappy and was all over the shop with cows, sheep and ravines. But got the fcuker done. Loved it

Reminds me of Barnes honing a craft over a year or two of the side foot low finish. Seemed to practice and practice it for ages and eventually became lethal at it.

Daniel Karlsbakk

Aluko is a defender. I was talking about midfielders and wingers who will get chances across 4 attacking positions. Aluko should also get chances but we currently have 5 full backs and 6 CBs not including him. Jayden Joseph also looks capable.

Alves, Monga, Evans and Page should all get good opportunities this season. Discounting Reid who should be told to find another club and Bilal likely off. Across the 3 positions behind the striker with Mavididi, Fatawu and McAteer will see them very much involved. Page likely to challenge for a CM role too and Evans possibly CF.

Unfortunately its irrelevant how long the manager has been here, he has a DoF who has never been able to move players on en masse which we need in order for our manager to get players in. This is the summer of 2022/23 all over again.

Major job on his hands because he's otherwise relying on his boss to make his job easier for him by selling some players to enable him to buy. That's critical because otherwise he's got the same squad of players complicit in relegation and unrest between management and players and it will make his job all the more harder. Enzo had the right environment where he was backed strongly in the market and the licence to make it clear to a set of players they were either with him or they wouldn't be involved. Marti needs to do the same but faces a harder task of sticking to it. We have a massive amount of players with a year left on their contracts and we are utterly abysmal at moving those players on. Often asking for unreasonable fees and them stinking the place out for them to then leave on a free. Good luck Marti, if you pull this off you're a genius. Plenty of talent to work with from the academy so it's not all bleak but needs to be able to freshen it up. The spine of the team needs additions. If he makes Coady captain and keeps him i'll be disappointed but let's see what happens.

Should have come back to us

For sure. I think we/he needs to quickly get sorted on who he wants and who he doesn't and tell them to find new clubs. Enzo did that and I think it helped us start well. I think we're playing catch up, I'd tell Coady, Faes, Soumare, Reid, Justin, Ndidi and possibly a few others they have no futures here.

Agreed. Cifuentes has a huge job on his hands.

Notoriously unreliable website.

Yes I do

Heard good things, shame they couldn't work it for him to get the full 45 mins but hopefully he gets 45+ mins on Friday

Signed a new 5 year contract when our average wage was over £90k a week....

With a 30-40% pay cut from relegation he's probably still on £60-70k a week which we cannot sustain and he'll leave on a free next summer. I'd take anything over £3-4m for him.

Attempting a half marathon route tomorrow morning across Woolacombe/Croyde/Saunton and back. Looks extremely hilly.

Monga will push Mavididi and Fatawu on either wing. If El Khannouss goes then he may well play in the 10 role. I think Alves will get good minutes covering those roles too. More often than not he made a difference coming off the bench for Cardiff vs starting games. Aluko is also ready to start, as is Nelson obviously. Evans and Page will hopefully get a good amount of appearances too. Sheffield Utd and Sunderland both built their teams around a batch of young players/academy players and it has to be number one priority for us.

5 seconds off (22.04) finally breaking the sub 22 min 5km, was scuppered by a pedestrian down the final stretch but still don't think it was 5 seconds worth. The pursuit continues.

Disappointed Aluko didn't get either half, he's been our most impressive defender this pre-season. Hopefully he impresses Cifuentes in the coming weeks.

Motsi considered part of the U21s this season do you think or still a bit too soon?

A left footed 8 type 😘