CB Fry

So blathering on about completely irrelevant housing analogies isn't deflection and changing the subject but me talking very specifically about net transfer spend is deflection and changing the subject. Absolute spend on the team you put out on the pitch is the only metric worth a candle. Everything else is irrelevant. And who said anything about zero wages? That seems to be a different subject you have changed to - almost a deflection in other words. Exceptional, exceptional stuff. Do another house example. It's so on-topic.

What about a team of 11 £100k players with no sales ever - that's £1.1m pure net spend - BRILLIANT! versus a team of 11 £1m players who sold one player for £11m - that's zero net spend - DISASTER! Which one of those would you back to escape from the Championship, and which one might struggle in League One?

Why on earth would we be buying Tadic if we have Chamberlain, Walcott, Bale, Lallana and Mane in the squad already? Ditto Hojberg, ditto Romeu, ditto Betrand, ditto Mane (why on earth did Club A sign Mane?) even Ditto VVD who we wouldn't have bought and wouldn't have signed to be back up to Lovren and Fonte. So well done but just a nonsense comparison based on things that don't actually happen in the real world. If you're putting out a team on the pitch at a higher value versus other teams, your chances are success are higher. What you may or may not have got in for transfer fees for players that are not stepping out on that pitch is a total irrelevence. It gets dins on forums excited though. Sunderland have built net spend on net spend on net spend on net spend on net spend for five (last time I looked, now probably six) years running so they must be, like, tons better year on year on year, right?

Not. A. Relevant. Metric.

Except it's more than is spent by more than half of the division, so it's not chicken feed, is it?

He'll go to Palace, as long as there's a coffee in it for the manager.

We're lumbered with Gardos who is currently just squad filler - he may turn out to be the long term replacement for Fonte (or if VVD does leave next summer) but seems very unlikely now. As it stands our first choice back 4 is top drawer but any major injury to either JF or VVD and we can kiss consecutive clean sheets goodbye. We need one more proper centre back. Maybe we will get one in January, like we acted early up front with Austin earlier this year.

Still believe what?

I wish they wouldn't do it in number order. Unnecessary momentary "who's playing up front?? Fu#*! Oh. Yeah. Fine." syndrome.

It worked on Thursday, mission accomplished as I said at the time but personally still feels deflating to deprioritise a tournament we tried so hard to win, to such an extent that the captain doesn't even travel. A defeat today is hardly going to define our season irrevocably, even a win won't but it would be nice of course.

Yet another tour de force. Saint Nacho will be performing a session at BBC Maida Vale for Steve Lamacq a week next Tuesday. Do not approach him. Please stop sending him underwear.

100% agree. Frankly bizarre we left our captain at home for our first away fixture in Europe proper for a decade. We should have prioritised this over Leicester all day long.

It's a generalisation based on basic facts. Rich and educated voted in, poor and uneducated didn't. Statistically proven. The poor saps in Sunderland or Doncaster or Spalding won't be any better off, while the rich and privileged will be just fine. Based on lots of the reports at the time, the people in those places could barely articulate why the voted out either. I still like your reason the best - you voted out to stick it to the powerful vested interests and to stick it to the likes of Goldman Sachs. Guess what - they will be absolutely, 100%, copper bottomed fine. They'll win Brexit regardless of the referendum vote.

http://www.ippr.org/juncture/a-win-for-proper-people-brexit-as-a-rejection-of-the-networked-world This is a nice read. In summary, educated, connected and wealthy Remainers will win in the new world, and the uneducated dinlows who voted leave won't. It's a far more erudite article than that of course.

If they had that on film, we'd have seen it by now. Just like they had with the Barnsley assistant. Where they had money changing hands in the middle of a hotel. And, hate to explain this, but it's a newspaper sting, it's not real. There isn't a "later time". The Eric Black story is over as far as the Telegraph are concerned as they have now moved on to the thin gruel of nothingness they managed to cobble together after a £500 meal with Harry Redknapp.

That's all you can get out of Harry bloody Redknapp? Their undercover dept is nothing short of a joke.

"Harry Redknapp: officially not corrupt" would be one hell of a story, to be fair.

McClaren and Hoddle (both previously recruited by H Redknapp) will be all over it saying how it was all some innocent mistake and aren't the newspapers terrible.

REDKNAPP INCOMING.

CB Fry will be taking visitors at the Melia Milano. Which looks like it is handily next to the metro stop for the ground.

Reading it through it looks like he's a patsy stitched up by the Telegraph - the paper seem to have used mates of high profile managers to get to them rather than just go direct. It makes sense as an effective sting technique but there's more than a whiff of entrapment going on. Still, he's been busted and he'll be gone by teatime.

Steve Bruce ain't going to be the England manager any time soon, is he?

Come on in Thierry. Your old boss needs you.

Yeah - Looked like mission accomplished to me.

They've landed the big fish they wanted. Barnsley assistant manager suspended for taking a bung.