Midfield_General

No. The Scottish PL isn't even rated in the top 30 leagues in Europe, and they can't even win that. They have a big ground and a lot of fans, and their two-horse race league means they get into Europe, but so do Total Network Solutions. In the wider context of the game they're mid-Championship level in terms of pull and spending power. Look at the signings they've made so far that they're getting all excited about - Rothwell for £500,000, Fernandes from Peterborough for £2.9m, Aasgaard from Luton for £4m, Max Aarons on loan. They're mid-level Championship players.

Difficult for your captain to 'lead' if he's not on the pitch

Fuck sake, Saints. Presumably that means he's staying captain as well then, which basically means he's starting every week. So either THB and/ or Simple Jack must be close to being off.

It is. It’s completely made up.

Re the rumour that Ramsdale's not necessarily itching to leave - If we're really offering him £100k a week to stay, then that's a good start as it might mean the decision doesn't just come down to money (which is obviously usually all that matters). There's no reason to disbelieve that he might like the club, have his family settled, think that the offer on the table to stay could work financially etc. So if the money can be put to one side to an extent then I guess it would simply be a question of whether he feels the other aspects of any offers that come in for him are significantly better than giving us another season would be. There's a slightly plausible situation where if his other offers are from say, shite Northern teams like Burnley or Sunderland - where it would mean Prem football but uprooting his family again, having another horrible season and getting hammered every week with almost certain relegation at the end of it, for a similar amount or only slightly more - he might just think that it's not worth it and give us one more year to see if we can get straight back up. With three relegations on his CV already you can definitely see a scenario where a season of banking a hundred grand a week while winning most weeks and challenging for an honour, albeit in a league below, might actually be more appealing than uprooting everything to go to a PL struggler just to get battered and relegated again. It might actually be better for his prospects of getting into the England squad to be in a winning team and would probably be more enjoyable. It might at least give him something to think about. What would presumably be game over though is if someone half-decent and based in the south comes in for him. A West Ham, Fulham, Brighton type club, so he doesn't have to worry about relocation or relegation. And sadly I think there will definitely be at least one of those, if not more, by the end of the window, because he's shown he's good enough for most teams in that league and I think at least one of the more attractive ones will come in for him. It would be great if Bournemouth weren't interested though as it would at least take the most obvious one out of the equation.

Sounds like this one is in the bag. Congratulations @CSA96 for breaking the story!

Fergus29 certainly seems to be a big fan 😉

FT: 2-2. They were better second half once Brugge took their foot off the gas but it was very noticeable that it really doesn't take much for that crowd to turn. If they're ready to boo them off in a pre-season friendly, then if he's not winning every week they're going to be on his back very quickly in the games that actually matter.

True. But when your first Champions League qualifier is in two weeks time, it helps 😉 Edit: 1-2. Shocking defending and goalkeeping from Brugge.

Rusty off to a good start. Their first friendly of pre-season and they were 2-0 down after 15 minutes and have just been booed off by their own fans at half-time 🤣 Fans already questioning their fitness, marking, closing down, defending and the fact that Martin's decided not to wear their precious club suit on the touchline. He has got a big, big task ahead of him.

Or a law firm specialising in defending the Mafia.

Solak said that he’d approved the signings of a defender, attacker and creative midfielder without the need to sell anyone first. We’ve got the defender and attacker now, so hopefully should start seeing some links to creative mids next.

And De Bruyne. Quite impressive for the same club to fail to recognise the potential in not one but two of the world's best players.

Excellent. 23 years old, full German international with three clubs apparently interested. Let's start the bidding at £20m

Spot on

Macca's ony got a year left, and at his stage of his career no-one else will be matching his wages even with a relegation cut, so I very much doubt he'll be going anywhere. As you say, if we get a proper new number 1, Macca's absolutely fine as second/ third choice until his contract expires next year.

And right. And high to the left, and high to the right. And don't forget the straight ones.

If Fernandes and Dibling both stay then we really would have no excuse not to be challenging for the league. I think it’s rather unlikely but we can hope 🤞

Would be a great signing for them on paper, until he lets them all get unfit and then makes them all look stupid with how he tells them to play. But it looks like he's getting all his affordable mates back together, so hopefully the call for the Wee Man™ is coming in 3, 2, 1...

'Welcome to Leicester Danny! Must be good to have escaped that madhouse!' 'Ja' 'Oh and by the way we're broke, we're starting with a 12 point deduction, the owner sold the club yesterday and the new Chairman has said he's not convinced you're the right man for the job' 'Scheiße'

Very sad news. RIP.

Mad that anyone responsible for signing off the design could see that and think it was alright. The overall concept is great and with a tiny bit of thought it could have been a classic, but the whole design and execution of the sleeves is just so shit. I can't believe how hard they make it look to design a football kit every season. It's such a basic thing to be able to get right, half the people on here can do it perfectly well. Ah well. If we win in it no-one will care. But so near and yet so far.

I personally hope not, but yes, he could well be. Who knows though. It's still very early days and until some of the bigger sales start happening and we start to get an idea of how Still wants us to line up, it's very hard to tell.

Yeah Armstrong's the one who, if we play him in his best position coming in off the right, gives me the most confidence will get goals out of who we've currently got. I personally wouldn't read too much into his WBA loan spell because by all accounts they were playing him down the middle which anyone who's watched him enough knows he can't do. I'd definitely keep him. Stewart looks to have a bit of quality but you just feel he could break down at any time. With Archer, the jury is still totally out for me and it would be an enormous risk to rely on him to lead the line, and BBD I just think is an embarrassment and he'd be the first out of the door, regardless of whether or not he's scored a few at this level before. He's abysmal. I'd still like to think we're going to spend some proper money on an established, obvious first-choice striker. Going in with that person, Stewart, Armstrong and Downs, and getting rid of Archer and BBD would feel to me more like the behaviour of a team expecting to challenge for the league. And I agree with you about the supply being critical. Until we see how Still wants to play, who stays, who goes etc it's almost impossible to predict what the team will look like at the start of the season, but it definitely feels like there's a lot of work to be done.

The risk at the moment though is that even with Downs arriving you don't look at any of our striking options and think 'yeah he's going to be the main man to score the goals to get us promotion'. Every one of them still feels a bit 'might be alright off the bench for the last twenty minutes'. It's only the beginning of July though, so let's see where we are at the end of the window.