Gloucester Saint

It’s not unreasonable though, no sign of him being offered nor signing a new deal, and he’s not had a particularly great pre-season under Still. Nor does he look any more likely to be able to play in a central two for Still’s preferred formations. He’s at an age where he needs to/wants to start regularly, especially to stay in the RoI set up, so as long as Saints aren’t silly about the fee - £2-4m seems fair - I can see him departing for the right Championship club.

I think it’ll be Grace Dent if the Celebrity series goes well. I’m ok with them showing the last series, would’ve been unfair on the contestants who bust a gut to compete and in one case win.

Good job we gave Jack Stephens that contract extension - if he joined the Masterchef crew, that hair would be far too tempting to pull.

Grace Dent replacing Wallace’s non-professional chef co-presenter role for Celebrity version, presumably without the alleged perviness…

Trump, Vance and David Duke will be having a good old tug at that image

Quarshie probably starts and possibly Downs? Hasn’t played lots of pre-season but must be fairly fit with the US going quite deep into the Gold Cup?

Which I’d actually be supportive of provided they are of a calibre to hit the ground running relatively quickly. 2, 3 or 4 quality players coming in could make a significant difference to making top 2 as long as we don’t fall too far behind during August and September points-wise. SR have clogged the squad up and spread investment too thinly so if it’s quality over quantity this time then yes from me.

There had to be far more outs than ins, for the last two seasons in the top flight the squad’s been too big to get in one dressing room for a start. I think we will sign more than 2-3, possibly a couple of permanents and 2-3 on loan late on, but need to shift players even so, and not just the two everyone is talking about for big bucks. Aribo - Turkish clubs are very slow but he will go, confident of that all along, still three LBs so either Taylor or Manning are going on loan. Wood - unless THB suddenly goes, and even then I think we will replace. There’s a player there with Wood but fancy Martin might swoop in if the fee isn’t too rich. ABK - who knows. Smallbone on a loan as not sure at all if he can operate in Still’s system as a 2. Unlikely BBD will go though if this hip issue is anything more than a week out, AA won’t get the same wage anywhere else and I think Archer has more to give. Downs only just joined. We need to add some pace and unpredictability in wide areas which might liven up the likes of Archer as well through the middle.

End of March wasn’t it? Pahars came in on that after a scuffle on the work permit.

I’m somewhere in between you and Gio in that I think he’s saying ‘no crisp packet wrists in the first 3 games or we will need to bring genuine competition in. We’ve got a new keeping coach and we are giving you better development that you had 22-24 but no excuses’

London Spirit getting routed by Oval Invincibles again - a fox on the pitch at Lords was the most exciting thing.

End of season trip to North Korea?

And even more so this year I fear. Could be another Brookline-type incident with their players pumped up by the mobs.

I can’t see her fancying a falafel burger any more than Russ enjoying her theories on Trump.

#RylanTV

Wait until the Ryder Cup starts in a few weeks and there’s morons in MAGA hats shouting ‘Get in the Hole!’ at De Chambreau teeing off on a par 5.

The agent is encouraging Tyler seemingly to hit the roof (boom boom).

Robins is doing some good business, top 10 this year, not quite play offs.

I was responding to Nic’s post starting with ‘Surely you meant’ who was responding to yours.

There’s certainly a keenness at the club to recover some money on Gavin as an asset, but also there’s a practical risk element around how much budget Still has to bring in another central midfielder, two/three wide players and a couple of #10s. Working on the basis there of THB staying and TD/MF both leaving. If he wants a couple of standout £8-15m bracket players as replacements to re-invest, assuming we get top coin for those two above, rather than SR £5m kiddie projects, then he might opt to take more of a risk in the keeping department if THB stays to get his higher shortlist wide player/midfield targets. That’s the trade he may have made with Spors and Dragan. Time will tell if it pays off. We’ve all done it at work when we’ve got a budget, you prioritise where to re-invest with most impact. His comments suggest someone like Ryan coming in as competition to me on a free and medium wages so Gavin won’t have the untouchable status he enjoyed under Martin. Ditto Smallbone and others. Jack Stephens - don’t know. Had the feel of a Chairman decision to me.

Nic is the ex-pat in SE Asia I thought. Soggy is in Kent, was Maidstone but now Romney Marsh?

Donley going to Stoke on loan https://www.spurs-web.com/spurs-news/jamie-donley-is-set-to-join-a-tottenham-teammate-on-loan-in-the-championship

Quite, the guy was a lethal mental health timebomb who should have been cuddling a pineapple in a padded secure unit somewhere and would have been if the bark hadn’t been stripped from the trees in terms of mental health care and monitoring potentially dangerous patients. True of Nottingham too. And in the Southport case, the killer was born here anyway!

I suppose the phrase ‘When in Rome’ can be extended to ‘When in Thailand’…

I come off the M5 regularly to go to Malvern and see their stadium (Worcester’s) just off that junction. They’ve re-started the rugby club in the Championship but a tortuous process to get there even with new owners. Quite a big stadium too and weird to see it there not used. EFL and PL are a shambles with due diligence - witness the mess with Saints and Gao - and much stronger powers to take clubs into admin and out of the hands of shysters to preserve them even if they drop a division or so in the process. Wednesday are another case in point. Call me cynical, but I can’t see a football regulator being a panacea.