Dan

Thought I'd start this years thread. The TV games for August and September are meant to be out today. Below is the dates the Premier League will announce (miss) TV moves.

This does feel quite a similar signing to the Albrighton one in 2014. Versatile, hard-working, albeit fairly limited player but fine for your squad. Fulham fans (was hard to find any) seem to like him which is a good sign. The obvious concern in him is his age and what's tempted him here - have we gone and offered out 'another' stupid contract. But on the whole in a squad lacking bodies, a versatile player on a free who has been steady at this level is fine by me really. It's not the most exciting but that's what you get when your owner, director of football and ex manager make the choice to set you back 7/8 years.

Midfield needs some serious work.

England aren't the only lucky ones. I'd argue the Dutch even luckier - 3rd in a group yet somehow get Romania and Turkey in their knockouts. Luck does exist.

Probably in a front three. I'm thinking maybe 3-4-3. We definitely need to do something about the midfield though. I think Winks could struggle in that sort of set up as well.

So played on the left of a back three for Frosinone albeit is right footed, sometimes played in the centre, according to flash scores. Seems a more physical player than a technical one. Not a bad thing in our situation. Concerns for me are this implies a back 3/5 going forward, which I did expect / fear under Cooper. I don't mind that for occasional games but not as a long term strategy, I can't think of many sides who play well with it in the long run. We're overloaded on CBs even though I do think we probably needed one - but we need probably two out now. The obvious concern to me is the Italians think Atalanta are doing well out of this, doesn't seem to be overly rated by them. Good luck to him but definitely got my reservations.

I can nearly tolerate Gray going for more than KDH due to his age (albeit he became massively overhyped) but Rutter? ****ing hell.

Quite fancy France. They're dull and they're hard to warm to but they haven't been as bad as their lack of goals suggest. They're categorised alongside England and I think they've been quite comfortably better, to be honest.

Kind of fancy Germany, always feel like the teams people warm to for being fun always get knocked out earlier than expected - see Austria.

A system change is England's only way of going all the way. There is no way he can persist with that dirge.

Don't go near him. What has he ever done bar one decent loan spell in the league below?

It's a complete disgrace. Any system that incentivises selling academy players, even when not really beneficial for them really has got to be abolished. You can't blame the clubs for this. It's the kind of loophole this sort of stupid ruling deserves to have exploiting.

Us making silly signings isn't some modern thing idea. Even when we were doing well we still had some absolutely bonkers moves made. This was one of the least logical ever though. £12mil for a goalkeeper to then give Schmeichel a 5 year contract a week later. Who in their right mind pays that much for a backup? Get worried every time I see this thread bumped to be honest as in.. Cooper hasn't hinted at playing him.. right? Ward needs to go. Will forever be associated with 2022/23. 26 ****ing games. I still can't believe it.

Sooner buy an unknown than Casadei or Broja to be honest.

I increasingly think it's all some managed decline. Who even wins at this point? It cannot be an accident that every single aspect of football is being made rubbish. I think the Premier League is going through managed decline so that people accept the super league.

Hermansen, and honestly, it really might be Chelsea again

I've never been to Switzerland. I assume this is probably BCD though.

We didn't get relegated by chance.

I'm not massively. I'd accepted back in January that he was obviously gone and if he hadn't I'd be wondering what exactly had stopped it. It's hard to get that bothered when you can see such bigger problems around the club anyway. This is just the latest symptom of it. We have a blatantly terrible DoF in place who is under no pressure to perform, why does anybody expect anything good to come from us when this is the case? The fans should be putting pressure on the club to address this, but in many instances they actually stick up for it. We've sold better players than him and been OK but can't help but feel that yet again we have come out on the wrong side of the value line - again, this is due to our own weak position, something we have largely imposed on ourselves through ineptness. See also the Maddison and Barnes deals. There's just very little to be optimistic about in general.

The latest victim in both the state of the broken football and the state of broken Leicester. No hard feelings to him.

We're playing FC Annecy according to Twitter.

Get the **** in

Yeah to be fair, Portugal are always dull, France are always dull. I think tomorrows two will be a big upgrade. Think it's a victim again of the format though. From the second matchday draws become too valuable and everyone goes into survival mode.

This tournament really has nosedived.