S-Clarke

Or did they really miss out on Larin, for just 15% of the cost of Lankshear? I know who I'm having as my number 9.

Fill the squad with experienced players like him and we'll have a good time. His experience shone through today.

That was a really positive performance, one to blow the cobwebs away for sure. Once we settled, which took us about 15-20mins, we pulled Millwall all over the shop. The 3 in attack (Azaz, Leo, Larin) caused them absolute mayhem, Azaz particularly kept picking up clever pockets of space. He was immense once we got him into the game. Larin, as we all noticed last season, is deceptively quick. His movement in between those two centre halves was so sharp and quick, Millwall's defenders aren't the quickest - but they're not mugs, but he spun them a couple of times. His second goal though, fuck me, just outrageous. I was pleased to see Leo back in his groove, he was much more like the Leo I remember. Running, committing players, carrying the ball forward etc - made a huge impact today. He seems like such a top bloke as well, he's got a real connection with the squad and seems a really likeable guy. Bragg struggled for quite a bit of the game, but he grew into it once we had a bit more time in the middle. JWP didn't do any extraordinary, but he kept the ball and was always available for the ball - so it helped us slow it down and dictate it a little bit in the closing stages. Toss up for MOTM is between Larin, Azaz and Keven all 3 9/10's - I'll give it to Larin as he got the goals, but Keven didn't look out of place at all - in fact, he read the game like someone above Championship level. One of the best debuts we've had in recent years. When you look at the team playing like that, with the attack and then the options from the bench (Fellows etc) you do feel excited for the coming year. My dream would be to have THB right side and Keven left sided CB, that would be truly ridiculous.

I think we're paying them £2m

I think you need to look at this another way. When we were in the PL it's fair to say that he wasn't at the elite level we all craved for It was a fair argument that we felt we could potentially do a bit better, or at least add players around him so he wasn't in there on his own. But you need to realise where we are now, in the Championship, miles off of that PL team he was regularly part of. It's not fair to judge him based upon our expectations from then. In terms of where we are today, he's a great signing for the fee. He's clearly more than good enough for this level, and when you combine his set pieces with the arial ability of Larin and hopefully THB, we could be a big issue for teams. The only fair concern people have is his lack of physicality and that we haven't really replaced Charles 'lung busting' midfield runs in that sense, but we'll have to see how that pans out. No, he's not a world beater and he never was - but for where we are now, we'd be stupid to turn our noses up at this opportunity - certainly for the fee in question.

Bolton are sniffing around him apparently. Let me just say to anyone from Bolton - he's a world-beater, if you can get him for £1m then you've got a steal. He's a potential superstar.

It's like groundhog day with this guy. This must be his last chance. If he fails here, which looks likely, the only person mad enough to take him on would be that Forest Green Rovers owner. They're perfect for each other in fact.

I like the additions of 'experienced' players like this. Nothing wrong with 'yoof', but getting some experience down the spine of the team is also necessary (good experience, not Stephens experience) This guy has good top flight pedigree in Germany. Spors has certainly earned our trust with the Jander and Leo pick ups from Germany, but let's hope he's not another Downs.

He's certainly not been side-lined due to his ability at WHU, something odd going on with Nuno. (Baldie) He started well there a few years ago, popped up with a good few goals at the start of his time under Moyes who seemed to know what he was all about. I mean you cannot really complain about getting him for under £1m, that's frankly ludicrous really for a player of his ability. No, he's not a world beater, but if played regular I do believe he's better than this level currently.

Hopefully they don't introduce that ban at clubs over here, the only reason I go to games these days is for the pre match, half time and full time light shows and the Coldplay-style mobile phone light shows.

I've always really liked Azaz, but he's one of those players who some fans will always label lazy as he can hang on the edge of games. But that's what these sorts of players do, they can sometimes have 1 or 2 moments in a game and that's often enough to win you a game. He's seen as a Tadic style player by some supporters, I remember being surrounded by people in the stands who used to berate Tadic as being lazy - but they're totally missing the point.

I saw a clip from their game at the weekend, pass, pass pass between the back 4. the defender gave it away to the oppo striker, and they were fortunate the oppo striker couldn't hit a cows arse. The bloke doesn't learn, I assume that was 'brave'.

Nothing against Stewart, as I'd have been happy to keep him as a squad player/rotation with Larin. But why is he continuously being seen as a coup for any Championship side who signs him? What am I missing? The guy didn't play football for 2 years, back to more regular last year but still in and out through injury and protecting him. It's not like he's ever scored 20 goals at this level. He may do it at Swansea, but I don't think he's ever done enough at Championship level to be considered a 'wow' signing for anyone?

He's got to have his medical yet...

Meanwhile we were denied the opportunity to compete for £200m+, a promotion - which put the club in a position which impacted the value of the club longer term, limited our growth and we still have a 6 month (potential) ban from football hanging over our manager. We must have done so many financial dodgy dealings and transfers, pains me to say! Oh wait, we just sent a kid into a bush with an iPhone. Yeah, makes sense.

Looks like the Boro Media and their press luvvies are still in full flow on this. In the grand scheme of things, this is so irrelevant. I have no idea what we've done to deserve this level of attention because a kid stood behind a tree. It feels like we're in some sort of weird parody.

The EFL couldn't charge the manager directly, only the FA The FA are the authority with the power to charge the managers/coaches of English clubs. But if they ban him from football, then it's basically another football club punishment too on the back of the 2 we already had.

I know I said this before we were booted out of the playoffs, but I cannot see the manager getting banned. Touchline bans at most, surely. If they do ban him from football, and we are forced to appoint a new manager and upset all the players/plans, whilst we have already started pre-season...then football is over for me. It'll be done.

I didn't ever have the privilege of watching Keegan play for us, or experiencing what must have been incredible excitement at the signing of someone of his stature at the time. I envy those who were around! He was a great football person, loved everywhere he ended up. I heard that he was ill but I didn't expect an announcement so sudden. RIP. Football has lost one of it's greats.

One way to spend all your Morgan Rogers riches in one go.

But there still aren't FA Rules for spying as a specific thing. This is the common acting in good faith/bringing the game into disrepute rule, which Leeds and Bielsa also did breach at an FA and EFL level. The FA can only sanction him on a rule they hold, and they don't have a rule for spying.

So he's breached another rule which seemingly has an entirely open level of punishments which can be applied, sounds fair. If he's banned from football for this then the whole thing is corrupt. It cannot be anymore than a personal fine and a touchline ban at most. Otherwise they're saying that a manager headbutting a player is less severe, makes sense. He should have done that instead, one way to have ensured Hackney was out of the 1st leg.

Makes sense, he's not necessarily a transfer target - just part of their multi-club player merry-go-round as he's at Strasbourg. He was previously at Brighton. The link with Brighton/Chelsea is all a bit fishy too.

It felt like the football was the sideshow to it all last night, the entire thing was built around the pre-match concerts, half time show, full-time nonsense and Argentina's dirty tactics. The match was a distraction to all their corporate Americanised bollocks. This is why I hate American owners taking over English football as they are right now, like the Wrexham lot, as you see the same nonsense being brought into the English game. Football is about football, not concerts, fireworks or light shows. The right team won last night, has there ever been such a poor showing as Argentina showed? They didn't even try. All they wanted to do was foul and throw elbows at people. They had no intention of playing football and I'm so glad they didn't win it. Spain played the better side, clearly, but christ they were boring - very predictable and slow. Overall the World Cup is what we all thought it would be, Americanised nonsense. But it hasn't been 'all bad'. You've still got the Cape Verde story which was great, England winning at the Azteca in the early hours of the morning and - although very much an anti climax, our best finish since 1966 and some sort of medal. So it's not all bad, but sadly it was all punctuated by the Americanisms and Celeb culture more than the football overall. p.s - How much did Ronaldo and Ronaldinho get paid to do that?? I felt sorry for them, it looked terrible.

Tuchel was brought in to get this team over the line in big moments, in the big games against the big sides. And he spectacularly failed in ways that were actually worse than Southgate. I know he has claimed he didn't want us to stop attacking, however the message being sent when you put on Konsa to replace Gordon is enough to change the momentum. It was a negative change, switching to 5 at the back. We were already struggling to get out and we just gave them the game at that point. The additional subs thereafter, O'Riley in CM and Burn in as yet another CB were an absolute panicked mess. We couldn't get out, we needed legs, Saka, Rashford - but we got Burn and O'Riley. When you look at that Argentina team, Messi aside, they aren't a France. We didn't need to surrender as we did, and that's exactly what we did. It was the same against Spain when we equalised, it was the same against Croatia in 2018, it was the same against Italy in 2020. Big games, big moments, take your chance and then just stop playing. It's a mentality thing, but the coaching staff have to help with that - and bringing on Dan Burn and Konsa doesn't help with changing that mentality, as that screams ''protect what you have, don't go forward''. The Mexico game will be one of my all time favourite world cup memories I think, but for a tournament as a whole we have been pretty poor I have to say. The Tuchel experiment has failed in my eyes.