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What is all this "VVD money"boll0cks?! Business does not operate like that. We are a football business with all sorts of outgoings, debt and income. The club don't put jam jars on the shelf with sale money and keep it til we need another player. It goes in the global coffers and gets spent in all sorts of ways. The naivety is breathtaking, and that's before minor details like tax, agents, signing on fees, etc etc.

I'm not sure that's the thinking, it certainly isn't mine. Walker for England showed the benefits of playing a mobile full back on the side of a back 3. We have Hoedt and now Vestergaard, neither of them quick. We need pace and mobility either side of one of those and Bertrand is the natural choice on the left imo. Whether Targett is good enough at left wing back is another question though.

This. The fact is he didn't go so wtf people think is gonna be achieved by banging on about it after the tournament is over I don't know. I'm only interested in whether he stays with us this season, and if so, whether he actually looks like he gives a sh:t when he plays.

Internet...I could be wrong but from what I've read and seen he looks slow on the turn. Hoedt looked similar before he signed, and is indeed slow on the turn. With more teams playing inside forwards, the centre backs on the sides of a back 3 need pace - being 6 ft 5 and slow on the turn ain't any use when you have a Sanchez, Alli, Erikson, Sterling etc turning and running at you. Personally I'd prefer 1 sluggish lump at most.

Vestergaard and Hoedt in a back 3 would be dreadful...2 players slow on the turn. Personally I'd prefer Bertrand on the left of a back 3, Yoshida on the right and one of those 2 in the middle. Rest of the team depends on the formation but assuming LeG is right and we play 3421, Armstrong seems like an odd signing.

Agree with you and souness. I was laughed at in the pub for suggesting that we bring on Delph at half time for lingard or alli and try to get a grip on midfield and modric. The game was last with naive tactics.

I know a little about his personal life - there is no issue there. I think he's been badly coached and his confidence is shot. He's on a contract worth £21m over 4 years though so moving him on will be difficult, and any transfer fee will go straight towards paying up that contract. As an aside, whoever gave him him that contract should walk. That, and the Carillo deal, were absolutely shocking pieces of business and with agents fees and wages represent nearly £50m down the pan.

Gunn obviously hasn't come to sit on the bench for 7 years. I was talking about succession beyond McCarthy when he moves on, not retiring.

I think it's more that we're planning for succession, and that the club think that Lewis or Rose are decent and have a future. McCarthy inevitably will move on at some point, Gunn will then be top boy with one of the others challenging is my guess.

Until that injury the club has high hopes for him. Never gonna be the player he could have been sadly.

Beautiful pass. In fact that was a really good passage of play. Tidy finish too.

Yep. Imagine the uproar if we were signing a striker from Birmingham who'd been dropped and scored 6 goals in 33 games in the previous season. Nobody would see such a player as our solution.

Exactly, nobody will take him off us. That contract will cost us £21m in wages over 4 years. Nuts.

So there's a professional hit attempt on the Skripals. Subsequently a random couple are seemingly knocked out by the same product. That product seemingly degrades to the point it is not dangerous in the period since the Skripals but apparently was dangerous here. It was also somewhere sufficiently public to contaminate these 2 but the public health risk is low. It's also in a different town. All odd as f-ck.

Selco kitchens are a bargain and service decent too. Howden are ok but you can get better value. In terms of fitters, Simon Doling is very good. Carpenter, Tiler, Electrician and Plumber (not someone who dabbles in all, but a specialist in all). https://www.checkatrade.com/DolingPropertyMaintenance/

Experienced managers felt that he wasn't good enough to start, or play up front, in a struggling championship team but people think he's good enough for us in the prem. I must be missing something.

I think you're right and I speculated that the delay in the Hughes appointment could have been that the exact nature of his role, and others, was a point of discussion. Hughes has come in as manager, not 1st team coach, so I suspect is much more involved in player recruitment than his predecessors.

Good post Prof. Reed's role seems to be different and I suspect he's now more of a figurehead and director of football type character. We can't forget last season but also can't overlook that he has overseen our rise back to the top, and before last season we were punching above out weight. The bloke obviously has a lot to offer and whatever his role now is, the fact is we're getting on with the business side of the game. I reckon we'll do deals with the likes of Forster to get him off the books and bring in solid competition/succession with someone like Gunn, but with Rose being groomed for a longer term role but number 3 in the meantime. In fact I think we'll replicate that model across the squad as far as possible, ie a number 1 for a position, competition from a younger player, and a youngster getting the off chance here and there and being given time to develop.

We'd be nuts to sell him. Lots of potential and a better prospect than McQueen from me.

Good post. We're not a better option. They're performing better than us, have an owner willing to spend, have a better team, and pay more. It's the latter that's the key though but personally I'm happy that we stick to a wage structure and with ffp we have to.

So you speak for the entire fan-base now? Personally I can't get excited about a kid from div 2 and couldn't give a monkeys that somebody else has spent £25m on him. I'm more persuaded that we need someone proven at the top level to score goals, and a proper CB to reduce the goals we concede. You carry on moaning though mate, whatever makes you happy.

But if we had signed him the usual moaners would be saying that we lack ambition by signing div 2 players so more "poor recruitment". If we miss out it'll be a "failure to sign our targets".

£24/25m for a kid who's had one good season in division 2 is madness. Redmond has shown that being good in division 2 doesn't translate to being good in the Premier league.

But she's a girl Percy, so according to Hypo that automatically means that her opinion doesn't count.

516 posts on what shirts we're going to be wearing. Wow. Seriously, why does it matter to what the shirts look like?