Gloucester Saint

Very much this and @Matthew Le God above this, taking as low as £10-13m doesn’t make sense on so many levels. I think he could still do a job in the PL without the kamikaze tactics and the right partnership, and IIRC he’s just started a family so moving to Glasgow might not be top of list for him however much he likes Russell Martin. Having paid £18m, Saints will want at least around that back, and isn’t Rangers record fee £12m? He’s under contract for a while too. Ipswich is the one team that could challenge that, but with McKenna favourite to replace Frank at Brentford, all bets might be off there.

Or at the Ukraine war where Putin has run rings around him nor his inevitable very public falling out with Musk. Easier to energise his ‘base’ as a Hail Mary ahead of the mid-terms on immigration, but I’ve a feeling the country will fight back further against him and LA is just the start. Could be an angry summer over there.

Their fans don’t think Rowett’s formation has got quite as much out of him, forcing him to cut in rather than being central, although came good again towards the end of the season.

First football memory (sadly too young for Keegan/Ball/Channon magic 1980-2) was in France on a holiday watching Robson’s fastest ever WC goal v France and I remember them scoring and Robson’s header for the second. Took some interest in the rest of WC 1982 including the Keegan/Brooking fitness saga, Schumacher’s assault which outraged my parents and the wonderful Brazil team. My club interest didn’t emerge until 1983/4 and 1984/5, so Euro 1984 didn’t really engage me but WC 1986 in Mexico (not realising they hosted again since 1970 because Colombia couldn’t build the stadiums) I was fully immersed and with my Ladybird guide to the tournament and stadia. I remember the Portugal defeat (the scorer fell on us over-running the Milton wall at Nick Holmes testimonial v Benfica the following year), Wilkins red card and then the essential 3-0 over Poland, Lineker’s hat-trick, congas on the terraces. Beat Paraguay and then the infamous Hand of God followed by probably the probably the best goal I’ve ever seen. Euro 1988 was the marvellous Dutch team, England were woeful, Robson did his shoulder and Lineker had hepatitis. Italia 90 was iconic as other posters have said, Euro 92 Shearer’s miss v France and the infamous Lineker substitution v Sweden which astonished a country. USA 94 was alright, finished my GCSEs so plenty of time to watch it. Hagi, Stoichkov, Valderrama, Baggio, final spoiled it a bit. Euro 96 and France 98 were both great.

Zia Yusuf himself will need to answer that, but he’s going to find it hard to row back from what he posted on Thursday. Farage wants the organisational skill as does Tice, and he is a clean donor unlike Banks or Candy. However, the tensions with their other MPs were clear from the Burkha question in Parliament and Farage knows full well that the social media wasn’t all from bots, a lot of it will have been from Reform members and voters.

Alan Nixon so probably wrong, and given we paid £18m, he’d be going for more than £10m. Aribo is far more likely IMHO.

Jon Gittens was 1991, IIRC he made his second debut at home to Liverpool in a televised game on ITV we won 1-0. Didn’t hold his place and went to Boro on a loan-perm for roughly what we paid. Very sad how young he passed though 🥲 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Gittens Maskell was Jan 1994, made his second debut again v Liverpool and scored in a 4-2 win on Sky famous for MLT’s hat-trick with Mark Wright conceding a penalty for handball. Again, that was as good as it got. George was a bit earlier than those two, featuring in the superb early 80s sides and returning 1985-7. His sale to Millwall was a surprise at the time (they had two seasons in the top flight) that wiki isn’t wrong, easily the best return of the three https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Lawrence_(footballer,_born_1962)

Absolute mess - and that tweet will be thrown back at them numerous times over the next 3-4 years. Banks probably as their new Chair with more allegedly shady Russian blood money, sorry investment, on board.

Scored in the Europa Final, integral in Gerrard’s title winning team, pretty popular. Might be on if they can agree on wages. Fee probably what we paid them given he only has a year left https://www.panafricafootball.com/post/joe-aribo-seeks-rangers-return-eyes-southampton-exit

Boris Johnson on the other hand… Mind you, if all of his children joined him, it would exacerbate MAGA concerns about immigration…

‘Rack and Stack’. As long as we get a good fee and decent PSR profit I’m all for it.

Bazunu and Smallbone are unlikely as RoI players, but AA and Aribo are the two I could see Martin coming in for if the new investment means they could afford them. AA would score plenty in the SPL and enjoys working with that manager. Aribo would win over their fanbase quickly pre-season.

Saw him linked with West Ham. I thought we’d get £30-35m but if Chelsea get involved that might push it up. That England cap and goal has helped.

THB linked with Chelsea….no idea if the original source (Alex Goldberg) is reliable

Which is why the likes of the Newcastle North Chair threw it in last weekend in protest at that somewhat increased level of coordination and discipline - you can’t keep a loose coalition mavericks and Tory rejects together intact for very long. Especially when what unites them is all about what they don’t like. I can only imagine what some of the online racism we are now hearing about was like given the type of party they are. https://www.itv.com/news/2025-06-05/why-has-zia-yusuf-quit-reform-uk

And was always going to happen by the summer. Trump’s blown his fuse faster than I thought though. Not sure the Democrats would welcome Musk back but he could turn the GOP against the budget - it doesn’t need much at all on the Senate numbers - and finance opponents in the mid-terms to hand both Houses back to the Democrats and make Trump totally lame. Quality day with MAGA USA and UK imploding spectacularly in public.

When he’s also a major donor - £200k last summer - a verdict of ‘not worth my time trying to get Reform elected is damning. Lowe sticking the boot into Farage as well.

Good luck to him there, genuinely. That league needs the Old Firm battling it out and Rangers actually winning it more than once a generation. It’ll be even better if Bloom’s investment in Hearts gets them competing at the top and maybe Aberdeen getting bought to build on their cup win and illustrious past. He needs to get an Old Firm win under his belt early on. Wonder if he’ll come in for Aribo? Joe would earn more at Galatasaray but he is a favourite at Rangers, Saints won’t ask an unreasonable fee and one of our highest earners. Great way to get their fans onside.

The people who vote for them must have come down in the last shower. Naive doesn’t come close. Who is defining world class FFS? And why would say the IT or computational equivalent Pep Guardiola say decide he wants to do free work experience at Maidstone FC? 1.6m people in Kent, plenty of bank details and benefit records they can plunder/sell to Russian donors, sorry, I meant access. @sadoldgit there’s some nice places in Sussex who won’t vote for shysters like Reform, I’d move if I were you before their ‘world class’ IT wizards steal your information.

And in Kent, thats pretty much word for word what Musk and his McDonalds crew sent around for Trump https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jun/02/reform-uk-to-pilot-doge-style-scheme-to-examine-council-spending Well done Kent, take a bow. You must be so proud. Ed Davey is spot on at the end. If you’re looking at DOGE and thinking that’s how we get our bins collected and potholes filled, you are learning the wrong lesson. Unfortunately, Reform’s voters generally didn’t pay much attention either in school or on their apprenticeships. Too boring, a bit like all of the council meetings and forums they’ve cancelled where key decisions need to be made. And boring like Parliament where Farage and Tice never are.

Reform in local government proving the same grifters as when they were UKIP in Thanet. Similar story in Kent CC too

Private Eye reporting also that the DT had to print the 9th prominent correction in as many months about a blatantly incorrect story (about Miliband and Net Zero this time) to prevent them being sued. Plenty to pick holes in with the government, not sure why they need to resort to 🤥 If their American takeover doesn’t happen very soon, I think the doors are closing because they are a colander financially as well as a very pale, culture war shadow of their former selves.

Aaaand as a predicted widely….they’ve fallen out by the summer https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0j76djzgpvo Trump yet to reciprocate but he can’t help himself and it won’t be long.

Even that looks nice though, albeit not as lovely as the 76/77 variant. Compare it to last season’s vile effort compounded by the very tacky logo.

My old man always said Ron Davies could head a ball harder than most could kick it at the time. The Man U and Chelsea away displays sounded like centre forward masterclasses.