Fabrice Fernandes no.1 fan

Don't see the sense in this, we played two months ago and a dispersal order was needed in the city, especially an evening game! Overall quite a dull pre season lined up

Dawson seems to just be getting better with age across all formats. With England lacking a spinner at the moment, his name should really be in the conversation

It is all part of the fun, I like the shirt and will buy it later in the season when it is discounted, so who knows what sponsors will be on it by then! I have the sash third kit from a few years ago and the sponsor has peeled off, so sometimes it doesn't even matter who they try and plaster the shirt with.

Don't understand the fuss about the stats the club have put out. He's done that at two clubs with much smaller budgets and resources than ours. Hopefully he can do the job for us, but basing that on his record doesn't seem fair. For context Pochettino's record at Espaynyol before coming to us was 53 wins, 38 draws and 70 losses. Jones' record at Luton across two spells was 141 wins, 83 draws and 79 losses. Based on those stats Jones was the better hire, right?

Think it depends on Rice and where they choose to re-invest. If I was West Ham I'd play a midfield three of Downes, Soucek and Paqueta and focus on upgrading the players in front of them, because neither Ings or Antonio can be relied upon really, so in that scenario he's not coming to us.

Sadly deleted, interesting that we've had absolutely no sniffs of the away or third yet

Rice and Lavia would make a very very strong midfield pairing. Rice has the ability to screen the back 4 that we really didn't have this season, and Lavia will love playing on the turn with Saka Odegaard and Martinelli making runs beyond him. Just make sure we get a good fee.

Could've stopped that sentence there really

I really don't blame Elyounoussi personally for his performances. He's technically a good enough footballer, but is so obviously physically not up to the standard we've needed. That was clear when we loaned him to Celtic and he suddenly found form, he was back to being quick and strong enough, because the opponents were slower and weaker. Sure he'll find a team in a league that is more suited to his style and be back to scoring and assisting.

I like this thought. We appoint Russell Martin and then he spends the next two weeks spending one day with each player on their chosen holiday. I can just see him, adjoining room from JWP on his family holiday, chaperoning Ballard's lads holiday, slamming tequila with Lyanco.

I was thinking this, all those brilliant back post headers from Rickie, maybe we shouldn't have cheered so loud...

Probably contracts they've had in place for a while with things like the "Premier League Cup" in Asia. I can't stand it when teams play teams from their league in pre-season, it ruins the fun of it for me. I want to beat a Spanish team where I have no idea if they've played their actual starting 11 or if they're actually set for relegation, not just see the same teams over and over again.

I fear intelligence and common sense won't win, or even make an appearance

Really good piece to look at some good options for us. I think the difficulty is that we don't really know who is staying and who is going! A front 4 that includes Sulemana, Alcaraz and Tella would be brilliant, but they could also all easily be with other teams. I certainly think we need to be looking at the Swansea left back. If we can get him in, and keep Perraud or get a suitable back up, with Livramento and Bree at right back I'd feel comfortable going into the season.

The bottom right away kit is something I'd like to see us do, a dark blue with yellow accents. Reminds me of the 09/10 away kit which is a classic in my eyes despite being different to a lot of our kits.

Me too, the obvious thing to me is that we've coached away some of his raw instinct. When he arrived he just constantly took players on and in his first few games scored two of our best goals from that season.

Don't worry chaps, they played the stadium within the last 10 years so you're still on topic because I'm sure Brandon Flowers said the screens needed re-doing and he wanted to form a Chapel Kop

Agreed, there is very little benefit to them, they never show the game, they sometimes show the team lineups but not always correct, and they fail to show replays, not really sure what purpose they serve nowadays.

So they have the pattern ready...

A midfield of JWP and Hojbjerg, no-one send any clips of them playing together at Saints, teams might start to realise they want Romeu instead and we can't get any money for JWP

Statistically the worst keeper in the league, and he might win save of the season, amazing

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/65789316 Any of this lot worth a look at?

Back towards the start of the season, this was put out by the club. How many of the eight players interviewed will be able to feature in the next edition. A really great idea at the time, but in hindsight, sadly it'll be 2 or 3 of them in the next iteration

Having watched the "Pitchside Unseen" video the club put out, it looked like Caballero was pushed to the front to take applause from the crowd after the game, the same as Walcott and Ely who are also definitely on the way out. Interestingly, Caballero was wearing training gear with his initials on it, the same as coaches, rather than with his squad number like the rest of the players

Maybe we should aim for a full academy/stolen from another academy 11 next year, let Mark Wotte's dream come true. Could try and get something like: Isted Chambers Stephens Jones Targett Walcott JWP Smallbone Lallana Tella Ballard