Chez

the first of the double barrel names to fall. I wonder how many more we will lose this summer.

plus he's on a free, so an attractive proposition to other teams which will help him get a better salary. He's not as bad as everyone makes out, but he certainly wont be missed.

he doesn't seem to give a fuck. Certainly if the defending at West Ham is anything to go by. Maybe that is harsh.

what makes you say that? Do you think he will get a better offer? Even if his wages are reduced with relegation, he still might be earning more than he will get elsewhere.

Dam shame we didn't sell him to Newcastle when we had the chance. I suspect we'll get buttons this summer in comparison

he missed the international games due to injury, so the injury could have been genuine, but he has obviously got a move sorted and his head is already there.

I think you are probably right there. The thought process though, is if the owner had thrown a shed load of money at it, some of which he got, some of which he got to spend, maybe `his own wife would be prettiest' (to steal Wenger's line) and his head wouldn't have been so easily turned. But our limitations were obvious and breaking the stranglehold of the big clubs is impossible. Not something we need to worry about now.

How Leicester actually won league matters little. The opportunity was there for all sides that season (whether they were flash in the pans or had gradually improved year on year). We finished 7th, but maybe we could have challenged if we had retained the nucleus of the side and the manager. I doubt it, but that's the alternative reality.

Very good question. All the Man City signings feel like a single person (Shields) decision and with little input from the transfer committee (does that still exist?). God knows how much input or say Ralph had. He seemed to bring fuck all to the party, which, when you are bringing in a manager from another league, is half the attraction - can he bring a load of unpolished gems with him. All the January signings, Bree apart, feel like they were found on Football Manager simply by keying in Nathan's various criteria like `height', `aggressiveness' and `stronger foot'. Clubs continually go on about how much time managers put in, but ff it is not scouting players, I honestly don't know what they are doing all day, every day. Managers live and die by the quality of the players and signings made, yet their input seems to be less and less. If I was a manager and I was fired because my team lost every week because the scouts had recommended/signed Orsic, Aribo, Onuachu et al, I'd be pretty annoyed.

we seemed to sign him on the back of one half decent game for Croatia. Proper Karol Paborsky. He is a winger with no pace or tricks. We already had Ely to offer us that (he had one good CL game too as I recall). He looked out of his depth here and I don't blame either manager for not picking him. The scout that brought him here is the one that needs to be called out.

You've got me there. We improved, so whatever decisions we made, must have been the right ones...either that or we got a little bit lucky. No, they were great decisions. By the way, it's more of a `counter fictional story' I was telling than a counter factual story. But continuing my `look what we could have been' tale, we finished 8th the season before (2013/14) under Poch. Had we retained all those guys and added a couple, maybe we get top 4 in 2014/15. In 2015/16 Leicester won the league. Who's to say that could not have been us if our squad had stayed together? But at what cost? Shaw £100k a week. Lallana £100k a week. Morgan and JayRod not too dissimilar. That's £20m a year in wages right there. But so what? Fag packet maths: we spend £50k a week more on our top six players and that's £15m a year extra on the wage bill. Not good news for a club our size, but in 2017/18 we finished 17th. That's 10 or 11 places lower and well over £20m less in prize money. Going cheap can be a false economy. That's the end of my fanciable/mythical story. I will keep dreaming though. You are right though. We could have spent all that extra money on wages and achieved little more, not to mention saddling the club with a lot of debt.

Neither. As I said in my earlier post, `I have no idea how that would be funded' and it obviously couldn't, so they didn't do it.

"The Spaniard has exacerbated these situations with a well-meaning but equally blatantly designed dishonesty, leaving supporters without the answers that explain why he is not involved." Alfie House isn't pulling any punches!

Isn't the York family, the owners of the San Francisco 49ers (who own 44% of Leeds) worth over $5b?

I saw the (recently promoted) Dundee manager, Gary Bowyer, just quit his job. Probably for the Blackpool job so as to move back to down south. I mention it only because our friend WGS is the technical director there and will be selecting the next manager.

Not sure any of these are coming to us this summer. If you have had recent `success' in the Prem, but obviously were sacked, you don't then immediately drop down to the Championship. You sit tight until another Prem job comes along...which it will...because, as we found out, finding a manager capable of looking after a top flight side isn't easy. Chairman want to employ people that have been there and done it.

Sure, I appreciate that, and you are absolutely right, but if we'd given him a five year £100k a week deal a while before United came in, maybe it signals that we intend to really go for it and possibly Pochettino stays. IMO, as soon as Pochettino signalled to the players that he was going, they all realised what they had built together was coming to an end, so they welcomed moves. I think there was a small chance, with Nik Nak and Pochettino there that the players as a group bought into the dream of CL with Saints and stayed for another year.

Perraud wants out? I'm slightly surprised by that. The championship would have been more his level, but maybe he can earn more elsewhere than whatever he will get here when relegated. I am guessing back to France? His stock must still be reasonably high there, with the odd goal here helping to retain his profile. When you say 8 leaving, do you mean the club have told 8 players they are happy for them to find new clubs? Or have 8 already agreed moves elsewhere?

I'm with you here. I think that summer (and perhaps the 6 months running up to it when negotiations really took place) was pivotal. Offer Luke Shaw a £100k a week five year contract and maybe, just maybe, he stays and then Pochettino thinks we really mean business here and he stays, possibly along with Lallana and Lovren etc. Perhaps I'm dreaming, but I think retaining Shaw on a monster contract would have been a major statement of intent. No idea how we would have actually financed that contract and perhaps the others, but for me there was a window of opportunity there to stake a claim at the top table - that probably will never happen again.

Lyanco us a different type to Jos, who was a monster in the air, but slower and not as good on the ball. Agree that he could look good in the championship and he won't be punished as much for errors, but I'm concerned that Lyanco just does not win enough headers and dominate the six yard box on set pieces etc.

Maybe, but we found Diallo, and his all round game is worse, not better. Jwp isn't world class. He's not even good enough to get in the England side, but I'm not sure we'll be watching a central midfielder as good as him in our midfield next season.

Maybe not logic, but he was obviously here, knew the league and the players and got that performance out of them at Chelsea. He was going to cost us nothing in compensation and he didn't expect a three year deal, survival or otherwise. The other options available weren't great and decent available managers were a bit thin on the ground.

Genuine question. Are they poor keepers in the Championship?

One more thing. I am kind of looking forward to being back in the Football League. When we went up to the Prem, I completely switched off any interest I had (and awareness) in the three leagues. I just scanned the league tables and noticed that Barrow are in League 2. I honestly did not have a clue about that. Having to watch EFL highlights will help me reconnect with what's going on in the lower leagues.

Got to say, it doesn't hurt that much at all either. I put a fork in us after the Forest home game...so it's been a long time coming for me. I went to every game home and away in 2005, so had invested a lot emotionally. It hurt like hell to see us fall short after those nightmares against Boro etc when we chucked leads away. I am a lot less invested these days, going to far less games (although watching all of them). When I go to games, I am right back into it and kick every ball, so to speak, but in general I've fallen out of love with the game and refuse to be the football mug I was happy to admin being. I'm looking at the Championship table now and there is one ground I've not been to, Rotherham, so looking forward to that trip, assuming I can get a ticket.