Saint Charlie

If Forster was fit then Stekelenburg wouldn't be here. Gazza or KD (seemingly Gazza) is our no 2 in all reality.

When he came off injured against Vitesse I'm pretty sure he didnt mention it and just said something about being pleased to play.

Excellent. Always a threat, especially when conditions suit.

Awful, waste of time. 0.75/10

The last time people looked too deeply into Guan's comments people starting saying Charlie Austin was at St Mary's. He wasn't of course.

This. Such a great player to watch.

Such a weak position from first team down to U18, bar the two number ones we have (one unavailable of course).

Definitely one of few clubs with a negative net transfer spend over the past two summer windows. But we have upgraded our TG, increased our wage bill and have a good squad. Sooner or later we will have a summer where we don't have two £20m plus players that we can sell so will presumably then have built up enough of a reserve to do our transfer business. To have a negative net transfer spend and still have a good squad is to the credit of Reed, the Scouting team and various Managers and Coaches for improving players to the point where CL teams wanted them for top dollar.

He is our second keeper too. Jesus.

2-2 in the last minute. Dreadful defending of a cross and Gazza didn't command the area at all. Shame because would be good to beat City.

Hopefully an impact knock rather than ligaments then!

What kind of injury did it look like?

Pretty much. Their last record signing was Brown Ideye anyway. The sums of money go up, but I would have a £3m Gerard Deulofeu over half those 10m plus buys.

Surely Edwards will earn a deal for next season?

A lot of teams spending bigger with all the money that flows about in the PL. Probably over half of teams have spent over £10m on one player which is a change from a couple of years back.

Rhu-endly could come into the thinking at left back but I personally would give Targett another game, thats what the whole ethos of the club is, not to judge him on one bad game. Besides, Bertrand is back soon and the Cocktail is right footed anyway.

Also their two CBs had barely played in preseason, Coloccini hadn't played at all. He got done too easily for at least one of the Mane chances at the end.

We signed The Cocktail as a backup though.

He would never be a no 10 anyway and certainly not ahead of Mane. He is a deep lying playmaker for me. Just has the negative of being poor defensively so only works when you dominate possession and there is less ball winning to be done.

Why? Surely they won't sell their best player until they have guarenteed the riches of the Champions League, or have been knocked out. No reason for them to bother selling before those two massive games. Presumably that is why he is still there now. By that time (Aug 26th) Everton will possibly have lost Stones, other teams may have had injuries or lost other good CBs so its a risky game unless we are very sure the deal can be done.

Stones will leave IMO. Shouldn't even be a factor. We have known we needed a CB since it was clear Toby was leaving, so we must have a plan.

How did Yoshida not score that header?

Kind of telling that we only have 2 of last seasons back 7 playing at the moment in their usual role.

So poor.

Martina for Cedric. He may be good going forward byt looked shaky defensively and probably only had one more foul left.