S-Clarke

Anyway, yeah, we shouldn't buy Butland.

Given that they spent £30m on former Middlesbrough Championship player, Martin Braithwaite, I'm sure we have a chance.

And he's only gone and scored. Barca need to sort their shit out, that club is run like a circus.

Coutinho is playing against his parent club? Who the hell is on the Barca board negotiating that sort of deal...? That's bizarre. Didn't a similar thing happen at Monaco a few years ago with Morientes? Vaguely remember similar.

Stoke fans will be happy to see the back of him if their forums are anything to go by, happy to take 3m. There has been talk of him going to Leeds for 8m and some fans are ready to drive him there. He's certainly lost his way, looks very similar to Hart and Forster to me. That's why we'd be daft to go near given the situation we have with Forster.

What the hell was up with Pique there, has he been told not to defend?

Really isn't any tactical thinking there! Just give it to Messi and let him run seems to be the approach. They have some great players in De Jong, Griezmann etc and they just struggle because there's seemingly no tactical shape or manager philosophy for them to adapt.

Why do Barca have a habit of appointing these random coaches these days? You'd think a club of their fame and standing could attract any manager in the entire world. This isn't the first time they've had someone not really known who failed - Martino was another, a few years ago. They had Valverde too, not massively high profile and he failed too.

I'm of the same view to be honest, probably a controversial view but never mind, world is about opinions! What is the reasoning behind the forth official wearing a mask, the subs wearing a mask, but the players and rest of the staff mask free? What is that achieving exactly? Same as all this social distancing in the changing rooms, both teams not entering the pitch at the same time - they share the same frigging pitch for 90 mins and are on top of each other? I don't get it, honestly I don't. I doubt we'll see any return to normality for high profile sports such as football until everyone has had a vaccine, which I'm sure will be compulsory. Digital NHS passport anyone... anyway, not the topic for that!

Proper game this is!

I wouldn't touch him with a barge pole. McCarthy is better than him, so is Gunn probably. Lost his way in a similar way to Hart and dare i say it, even Forster. Probably won't even regain the level he was once at. He wasn't even a regular for Stoke at the back end of last season as they'd had enough of his mistakes. Think it was the Leeds game where Stoke were thrashed 5 or 6, he didn't get a look in after that.

I have a feeling Wesley may be the only one we could get a 'potential' fee for, something in the region of 5m would be fine I think. Club need to lose their pride and accept the loss.

There were some little links to him as well, I remember reading some articles where his odds were discussed, even after Claude went iirc. He was doing a great job at Hoffenhiem at that point too. It's ok, we got the up and coming Pellegrino instead.

If Ralph was now at City, Utd, Chelsea etc they'd all be chatting about his involvements with RBL, no doubts. Keep him under the radar here, no problems with that!

Great to see Leipzig through to the Semi's! Exciting team really, and a lot of credit has to go to Ralph for what he built there. Julian Nagglsman has taken it on to another level, but Ralph put down some great foundations there.

Agreed, should be accepting something like 9 or 8m for him. Something is better than nothing. I know we probably want our money back, but that is simply never, ever going to happen.

Rebranded friendly's 😉

Yuck, another loan. Not going to help us!

What they could do to ease congestion is remove those pointless international friendly breaks...

Thanks for the update - can't fault our club, it seems like they are actively trying to address this. But like you said, it's all driven by outside regulations and rules as well. (and it's not a static picture either). It's tricky. There will be winners and losers with any method to be honest, fairest way to me seems to be an open ballot to all ST Holders, weighted so that people who didn't get chosen first time have a better chance next time etc, attendance from previous seasons etc. Makes the most sense, but they've also got to consider bubbles of families being together. I know I wouldn't be able to go with friends like before as none of my usual crowd are renewing, so I'll probably be standing on my own socially distancing if I did renew!

That would be the worst first game of the season! Always keen to avoid the newly promoted clubs at the start of a season. They always play with a little bit more of a bounce and can catch you off guard - even Norwich beat Man City at the start of last season. Give us some games against West Ham, Newcastle, Burnley, Brighton, Sheff U etc to start with please!

From the outset I've always felt we'd let PEH go and asses what we have within, before we do anything else. I think we'll need to see Reed and Lemina leave before we bring in another midfielder. There's also the possibility Jankewitz becoming more involved in the squad and there could be a feeling that the club feel that signing a replacement now will block his emergence. He's very highly thought of not just at our club but in European circles. So, unless both Lemina and Reed go for 'decent' fees then I don't believe we will add another. The PEH money has paid for Salisu and KWP and we'd certainly need to raise some significant funds to sign anyone else.

That was heart-breaking for Atalanta. To be fair they didn't really deserve it on the 2nd half showing, whilst PSG huffed and puffed a bit Atalanta after about 55-60 mins had completely left the game to compete and were pretty much 2 banks of 5! First half they were really good, they counter pressed in packs and got a lot of joy out of it. Then they probably just tired themselves out.

Lots of positive chatter about this guy, he's not been playing at the top level for long at all, so his rise has been phenomenal. I can't say I've seen him apart from a few youtube vids and la liga highlights, but he's pretty capable in those. He's the profile of centre back we've not really had since VVD went. On top of all that, he seems to be pretty grounded and very greatful for where he is. Doesn't seem to come across as a big headed moron (like a certain Hoedt). He certainly seems to have high ambitious but he's going about it the right way. Lots of ticks to this signing from the outset.

Yeah, the instalment plan is simply that - over 3 months, interest free. So it's not the 10 month one we used to run, so I can appreciate that still isn't very affordable (having 100/200 quid payments coming out every month for a couple of months)