CB Fry

I think your obsessive deification of Sam Gallagher is only marginally more deranged than your spiteful sniping at Dusan Tadic.

If we consistently have two or three players good enough to be sold to top six clubs for £15-£25m every single summer then I think we'll consistently finish at least mid table (or better) every single season. I think that's a far better plan than only signing players who are prepared to commit to six sodding years with no prospect of ever progressing to a bigger club.

13th this time last year but 17th and stayed up on the last day. Not quite sure how that qualifies as a decent second half to the season. Clearly worse than the first half of the season.

If we sign that guy I think I will invite some friends around for drinks, maybe make some fruit punch, provide some buffet food and play some music on my stereo system. Also there will be cake.

Except he's been late for things before and been punished before. He won't go in January but probably will in the summer provided someone actually comes in for him, which may require a little bit more of a contribution from now until May. The events over the weekend will have no bearing on those outcomes. The £100m thing was about no one going in January which no one will.

Therefore us winning it would be pretty bloody magical, then.

Presumably Les knows Shelvey from his Charlton days? I imagine John Jo sees Les as the father figure responsible for kick starting his career or something.

Top, top manager.

That Turkish ex Basel manager with the nice hair we nearly had before.

Dear Jeremy Please, please, please make Diane Abbott Shadow Foreign Secretary.

No more imaginary than yours.

I did think that about Newcastle too, though. Depends how much Lerner is prepared to fund. If they are going back up I can't see Garde doing it, they might as well go for a meat and potatoes manager - Pearson/Steve Bruce/etc to clog and clunk them back up to the top flight like Chris Hughton did and big Sam did with WHU. As it stands they look just as likely to end up in L1 in three years as being back in the Prem.

Sorry, they were still talking about Villa at 8:40 at which point I'd finished up in the kitchen and bailed out. True story. At least we're not them by the way - their chief exec has been in radio interviews giving it the full Rupert saying how successful the commercial side of the business is doing and how shirt sales are up. Shambles.

You said imagine what could have achieved with some stability and I did.

Or, we got relegated under Adkins and he fails to take us up in the two following seasons we give him to get back up. Still, five years of stability.

Over the last five or six seasons I think we have proved comprehensively that stability is massively over-rated.

We are a topic of conversation on the Five Live Monday Night Club, so probably will get fifteen minutes of discussion between now and 9pm.

The only comparable manager is George Burley in terms of significant sums (for the level we were/are at) and freedom to build his own team.

LOL. Alpine Fox currently having at meltdown over on LeicesterWeb.

A player from Twente. That's what we need.

He's not Walking Away from Saints:

Except the article doesn't say it, you need to work it out from the salary quoted. Ridiculous click bait headline anyway.

Why are you asking that question like it is some killer question I'm avoiding? Who knows? Leicester are second with a team containing a grand total of zero players costing ten million. Koeman has a squad chock full of ten million quid players which Stoke don't have, or Leicester, or Watford, even our old chums Everton don't have many, stonking fee for Lukaku notwithstanding. He's had the tools to get us into the Europa proper and a respectable mid table finish. If we'd have signed two more £10m players this summer the only guarantee is that the same dins on this forum would be demanding we spend even more this window to "push on". Have a biscuit for your question though. I'm on the rack and no mistake.

Sunderland and Newcastle have a huge positive net spend over the last five seasons. Five seasons. Count them.

Strange how selling all our best players has suddenly morphed from being a terribly bad thing to a "once in a generation" situation we are supposed to have taken advantage of. Bizarre. I'd say Newcastle finishing fifth under Pardew with an exceptional crop of well scouted players and a positive expansive style is pretty comparable, or Boro under McClaren, or Fulham with Mo pumping in money all over the shop, or Villa under Martin O Neil finishing 6th three seasons in a row, or plenty of other clubs who have a moment in the sun. Guess what, all of them had "a platform" to build on/push on/kick on/etc etc etc and none of them did. We're really, really not unique. Not sure why you think that I think we have "done well" this season, obviously we haven't, and I haven't said that we have. Middle ranked club doesn't stay at seventh forever shock horror I can't believe it.