Ric Flair

Southampton are very capable of beating Leeds and vice versa. Been really disappointed in Norwich and West Brom but it's not surprising as their form tailed off massively, as did Leeds and Southampton's. Although they did pick up at the end bar us hammering them. Don't really care who wins actually. Ordinarily I'd find it funny if Leeds lost but then I've got to contend with Russell Martin for another season.

I think a bulit of what I've described may have happened with Maddison and Winks. Scratched each other's back to get the deals we both wanted done and sensibly.

Spotted that this week mate! I'd take a chance wouldn't you?

Am I right in thinking you are related to Shane? Apologies if I'm way off the mark. I wish him all the best in the future, it just hasn't worked out for him the last 2 years with injuries. Did the club not even arrange any behind close doors friendlies that he could have taken part in in recent months? That's really poor if not.

I do wonder what promises/assurances Maresca has been given after his meetings with Top / the board. The financial problems don't vanish overnight and I really hope there's a strategy in place that's achievable. If it requires player sales to raise funds for Enzo then I'm hugely wary. This is an area we have been diabolical in. We've moved on only 5 or so players in the last 4 years for any sort of transfer fee that weren't key 1st team players and/or whom we wanted to sell. We didn't manage to move on a single players who's contract was close to expiring either and yet there must have been forecast tens of millions of pounds of such players going as part of the previous x years strategy. It probably rests purely on selling KDH and we're told this is likely to be required just to comply for 2023/24, so what that will mean for 2024/25 squad build remains to be seen. It's hard to see where we can raise serious profit, even selling players such as Daka for £15m would only make us £5m profit and who's going to pay that?

Such a player at any of top half of the PL would go for double or more but I accept such a player of Thomas's calibre wouldn't have played 68 PL games for the big 6 clubs so it's tricky. It doesn't help that we are notorious for paying high wages so that comes in to the equation too. I'd let him go for a nominal fee but with a decent sell on clause / bonuses.

It angers me we didn't get Osorio. We were tracking him from January 2023 and all that summer. His fee was very reasonable for us even in the Championship. Him, Fatawu and Mavididi as our winger options would have been breathtaking.

Player exchanges seldom happen anymore because of the way transfers are accounted for. If you sell a player you bank all the transfer fee (less any outstanding book value) in the year of sale and when you purchase a player you spread that equally over the length of the contract. What you could I suppose agree is we buy Szmodics for £20m and they buy Thomas for £3m and Iversen for £2m. For the 1st financial year we'd be £1m in profit that way (if he signed a 5 year deal). But then we'd book out £4m every year in years 2-5. It wouldn't be advantageous to Blackburn to take both players in a swap deal as they bank less in the year of sale.

You don't take £20m + risks on soon to be 29 year olds though that haven't ever played at this level and have one season of end product in a completely different system to what we play. We shouldn't be paying £20m for any player this summer unless they have phenomenal potential or have excellent pedigree at the highest level. I can't recall the last player we signed of similar age or older for a large fee that did do well for us and that's players with a track record such as Slimani, Perez, Silva etc. I suppose Ulloa is a similar profile to Szmodics in a similar age category but given the financial issues we have and our failures in the transfer market, I really hope we are stricter in our strategy.

As long as Fulham aren't at home when you're there then you should be good.

Just shows the value to be had in such countries. Although we paid a record fee from that league for Kristiansen, it's still possible to get the best players from Scandinavia for less than £10m.

You simply must get over to The Chancellors in Hammersmith for the pizza they sell there (Crisp Pizza W6). Now this gaff is ridiculously popular and it's not always that easy to guarantee turning up and getting pizza but if you Google them you'll be able to plan it. It is the best pizza I've ever eaten in this country. Burgers I'd either go Bleecker St, Meat Liquor (more the experience of the place as well as excellent scran) or Black Bear. Most of these have multiple locations across London. Meat Liquors best venue is near Oxford Circus though.

If I recall we rejected bids in both the summer of 2022 and 2023. It was reported that the bid rejected last summer was multiple millions and even if it was only £2-3m it seems daft we rejected it out of hand.

Another assist for Nanasi tonight

Cannon will be loaned out. Daka may leave too.

I've never been that impressed with Glovers previous work.

Incredible. Him and Nanasi would cost us £15m combined and would improve us infinitely.

Vardy, Daka, Cannon is not a PL quality strike force IMO. The lack of game time he gave Cannon was disappointing, he should have got him ready from the Prem.

Norwich to win on penalties please

Ancelotti's methods allow players to standout. To improvise, to be allowed to go for individual moments of brilliance rather than stay cemented to their responsibility within the system. Which one is more effective comes down to whether the total sum of the parts with extremely technical players, swallowing their egos to become footballing robots (Pep's style) will trump a team of extremely talented players who are empowered to play the game how they see fit (Ancelotti's style). Looking at the records of the teams these two manage in recent years it's very close, Pep probably shades it but you lose something playing this way in my opinion. The magic that got you in to football as a spell bound kid lends itself more to footballing freedom.

Hahaha this is actually happening more and more. People leaving high flying corporate jobs to run street food outlets. The woman who set up Bleecker Street Burger (the best burger around IMO) in London was a lawyer back in NYC and fcuked it off to move to London and sell scran. So maybe KDH fancies smashing a few patties.

Well for a start Hirst went on loan to Leuven and the Championship twice and was appalling, only did he show any sign of being able to put the ball in the net in League One in two spells at Portsmouth and then Ipswich. This was at the age of 23. He is now 25 and finally showed he is a half decent Championship striker and maybe he will in time be able to step up to the Prem. By comparison, Cannon averaged nearly a goal every other game in half a season in the Championship at Preston aged 20. He's then come to us and not played much but shown he can score and assist and at a decent rate. Progression is not linear but based on their respective ages, Cannon is far more accomplished at the level they've both played at.

That squad is capable of winning this IMO.

Gustavo Sa

Wow, that'll explain it then!