The Kraken

Also in the first half of last season we had Dan Fox playing left back and Lallana in front of him, which left us ridiculously weak at times. Lallana's fitness levels weren't quite up to it and he was fairly regularly subbed off in the second half (still is somewhat, to be fair). I remember a couple of games of the Fox/Lallana left side combo and it was just a nightmare. The transformation of Lallana as a player this season is incredible. He was always talented, of course. But he's added so much to his all round game now that there's no trade off to be had, he offers the skill and creativity while also putting in a bloody good shift and doing the defensive side.

I thought it was installed but never connected; the costs of maintenance and upkeep never justified it?

I thought it already had undersoil heating; installed when St. Mary's was built.

I think I need to have a regular beef with somebody. I think I previously bored other contenders into submission and never replaced them. Maybe I'll hold auditions.

Goodness me, that's some good revisionist theory.

Accepted! £20 it is. Am I too late?

I only hope we haven't gone to someone like Macron or Errea. Awful kits.

With the continuing uncertainty and the escalating price, I'd guess that figure will dip under the 20k mark for next season. This season has shown that getting a ticket on a match by match basis wasn't as difficult as first thought.

Not really, no. Stones didn't make his Everton debut until this season, under Martinez. And Coleman was 20 when he came over from Ireland.

I'll give you odds of evens. What's your stake?

Buy 47 million scratch cards.

The other 39% can stay, we need them to keep the kebab shops open and clean public toilets.

Apparently I should be a labour voter. Although, perhaps more worryingly, I side with the BNP on 61% of issues...

Me too. Too early to make the call though, need to see who is staying, worst case scenario from press rumours we'll be playing the entire U21 squad next season. So maybe Omar Rowe.

Whoops. Poor old Strawlock just got totally found out.

Can see why Lampard is going, he's basically the Gerrard replacement. Apart from Henderson there aren't many other options at defensive midfield; Wilshere, Barkley, Lallana, Milner, Oxo and Sterling are all more attacking than defensive. Gerrard and Lampard have similarly changed their games to move into more of a sitting midfield position. It does show the lack of quality in reserve though that we still have to rely on both of them. Step forward Jack Cork, please. A spot in the Euro squad is surely a realistic target for him.

Or maybe some people had different opinions to the mainstream in the first place. Couldn't be, could it?

No-one is saying that Osvaldo and Mayuka should still be here; but in Osvlado and Mayuka we have nearly £20M worth of strikers out on loan. Yet despite that leaving only an untried 18 year old as the real backup to Rickie Lambert, no questions have really been asked in the press as to why we didn't bring anyone in to replace those we shipped out. A perfectly valid question that plenty on here have also asked.

Lawron

Any reporter that knows we've still got Mayuka on our books has clearly done some research. There's been various threads on here lamenting the fact that Sam Gallagher isn't ready for the Premier League yet, and why we're in a position that we have to play him as we have no other options. So it's entirely fair comment for a journalist to at least notice that the the question isn't even being asked of MP, as far as I'm concerned.

Even if he didn't have massive funding behind him and had to come through on his promise to run the club within its own means?

That is a weird way to gloss over what could be construed as destabilising the new regime.

It's all very hush hush, but I've seen 2 or 3 rumours now that it's Umbro. Only from facebook and the twittersphere though, so very much to be taken with a pinch of salt.

I don't think you have to do too much research to know why Osvaldo isn't here. It's pretty common knowledge. However, I don't see much wrong with the comment that we have a couple of strikers out on loan yet a dearth of available strikers actually here. Especially when it's not without precedent that some training ground bust ups happen without players being shipped out (Chico Flores this season for one).