Midfield_General

This man is 33 years old. 7 years younger than Cristiano Ronaldo.

Saints promoted as runners-up to Sheffield United, getting pipped on goal difference on the last day of the season because we never win the league, whatever division we're in. Coventry to lose to Ipswich in the play-off final. We'll narrowly beat the Skates at theirs, and smash them at ours. Everyone will make a big deal of the Charlton games because of Jones but we'll beat them comfortably home and away. Leicester to start on -12, never get going and finish outside play-offs, causing their fans to go into meltdown over their ownership. Oxford, Wednesday and the Skates relegated.

Armstrong's reported to be on £60k per week. Even if he took a 50% pay cut, £30k per week would still immediately make him one of Rangers' highest paid players. He's also valued at around €13m. Rangers record transfer fee of all time is £12m and they're really excited by the prospect of a 'cash injection' from their new owners of a laughable £20m, which they'll expect to cover 4 or 5 signings. Half their regular starters last season were signed for less than £1m and they consider £30k per week to be very big money. They're not in a position to afford any players of ours for whom there might be any other real interest from the top of the Champ or the bottom of the PL. That's why the Downes rumour yesterday was so ridiculous. This is going to be a recurring thing with any players that Martin wants to take, or with most of our players who people think would do well in Scotland. The transfer fees and wages they're able to pay up there are an order of magnitude less than the top of the Championship, let alone the Prem. We've got bang average players like Armstrong and Aribo who have got used to being paid sixty grand a week, and elsewhere in the Championship there are no-mark players like Mike Tresor and Zeki Amdouni being signed for transfer fees of £16m, £17m, £18m. Rangers can't get anywhere near that. Rangers are a big club in terms of crowds and stadium etc, but they are small fry when it comes to spending power. A £12m record fee paid puts them in and around the same bracket as Swansea, Stoke or Cardiff. And they paid that 25 years ago when they were much more of a force than they are now and before they went bust.

So what's a pixie?

I got tear gassed in Marseille at England vs. Tunisia in 1998. The planning for that match was like it had been scientifically calibrated to guarantee as much crowd trouble as possible. England, with their notorious hooligan following, have been drawn to play Tunisia, so let's play it in Marseille, which has the biggest North African population in France outside Paris, including 128,000 Tunisians, and where half the police are of North African descent. Chuck in a baking hot day and a 2.30pm kick off time allowing plenty of time for a load of wankers to get tanked up and boom. Carnage.

If we’re just going to hoof it long and lump it into the mixer then maybe, but I’d hope Still has got a bit more about him than that and I very much doubt that’s how we’re looking to play if we’re serious about promotion. Onuachu can’t press for shit. He’s blowing out of his arse after 30 minutes. He’s basically just an expensive misfit, and if someone’s willing to buy him then we should just get whatever we can for him, get him off the wage bill and move on.

What a transfer window that was. £22m on Sulemana, £18m on Onuachu and £8m on Orsic, to fit the style of Nathan Jones who we sacked eight weeks later. £48 million pounds.

Well with that whopping £20m cash injection from their new owners who can stop them, we might as well just hand him over. £10m buys you Eli Junior Kroupi or Lewis Dobbin. Not an English 26 year-old first team regular with two seasons of Premier League experience. That's embarrassing, even for Nixon. On the Rangers boards they're saying that even at £10m he'd be well out of their range. Downes as a realistic target for them is a laughable suggestion. They might as well say they 'want to raid' Arsenal for Declan Rice, because it's about as likely to happen.

So you're saying you'd prefer to sell the shit ones and keep the good ones. It's pretty radical thinking.

Tavernier’s been there donkey’s years and Martin actually played alongside him during his short playing stint at Rangers so they probably know each other fairly well.

Horrible, horrible attempt to play out there. They could have easily cleared that about six times.

'Wolverhampton Wanderers and Southampton are waiting for a sign from Lazio before making a concrete move for goalkeeper Christos Mandas.' 'That’s according to Il Messaggero, via La Lazio Siamo Noi, who say both sides have show ‘concrete interest’ in the 23-year-old.' 'They’ve shown concrete interest in the goalkeeper according to Il Messaggero but are waiting for a signal from Formello before they ‘manifest themselves concretely’.' Presumably he's useful against teams who look to get it in the mixer.

What actually was 'Death Metal Football'? Presumably it was meant to be about high energy, pressing, aggression, making life horrible for the opposition. Given how much they went on about it when he joined, did we ever see even one instance of it under him? We definitely cut out the suicidal passing at the back and went more direct, more often, but did the energy and aggression levels really rise, given it was meant to be his thing?