benjii

Well, no one asked him anyway.

I'm sure he has signed the deal. I also think it may have relegation break clauses. Or maybe it doesn't. I don't know. Neither do you. Not sure why you're so excited about it anyway though. Let's assume the deal is not contingent on staying up. That means we've basically signed him on a perm. If we had announced we had signed him on a perm last summer, would you be saying it was a bad signing because he might get injured and we might get relegated? That's true of anyone and, frankly, we were crying out for a decent striker signing - which we got.

I noticed that in the highlights. Got the motor running there!

That article doesn't confirm what has been agreed. "Ahead of a permanent move" is somewhat vague. You really think there are no caveats?

Who's to say the permanent transfer is triggered even if we've been relegated? Does anyone know what the contract says? If not, I wouldn't worry about it now and just be pleased we've signed a good striker for the moment.

https://quillette.com/2018/12/03/the-ideology-of-corbynism/ Decent summary of this dangerous man and his cultist followers, albeit doesn't even touch on any detail on his ruinous economic proclivities.

If Pellegrino was still our manager we'd still be waiting to get off that coach in Swansea. Hughes clearly instilled more fight and grit in us last season. He changed defensive shape and we got a bit more solid. He threw on strikers away at Swansea and one of them got the crucial goal. Anyone think Pelligrino would have thrown on the extra striker at Swansea? Saying Hughes did nothing for us last season is churlish self-deception. That said, he's not a very good manager.

It's not a "free hit" at all. We've already lost to two of the worst three teams in the league and we'd better not lose to the third one.

Not really, Armstrong could barely walk!

Barnes is illegible to play Premier League, I think.

Smart moderator.

I'm concerned that football is promoting unattainable body goals for young lads to be honest. Should probably ban the whole thing.

Redmond's cross not good?

Largely at fault for the first goal but, yes, he's a decent defender and pretty solid.

Lots of comments about the manager and the team work already so I won't cover that but a shout out to Vestergaard. Thought he was excellent today and showed lots of mettle after his 'mare last week.

We had a song. "Interesting possibilitieeeeees Interesting Interesting possibilities Interesting Oh, oh-oh Interesting"

It would be die Klackerhoffenmaus. But the correct name is die Alpenfannyklackker.

"Anyone who actually watches the games and doesn’t just look at the stats/league table saw this coming a mile off. Same crap every week and today is no different. The players look like they’ve given up, the fans have given up. The atmosphere is so flat. And that’s all down to Puel. He’s a boring tw** who was a cheap option last year. He’s done nothing other than bore the pants off everyone each week. My god even Sam Allardyce would produce something more interesting to watch! "

I would expect the referee to be overawed by the occasion.

Pretty damning subtext to a lot of those comments. It's clear the whole organisation has been in collective inertia since Kat started looking seriously to sell. Hopefully the recent activity is a signal that Gao actually has the awareness, clout and resources to make an impact.

Yeah, their attacking options are very good with plenty of variety. Anderson Snodgrass Arnautovic Antonio Hernández Carroll (occasionally) A bit of everything there - trickery, pace, power, finishing. They should be competing for 7th.

Probably the best drug-taking ever. Certainly wasn't smocking it. Winning bigly.

You reckon? If we've got a manager who wants to play a high-intensity, aggressive defensive strategy and likes to get the ball forward quickly in transition, and our only other fit strikers are Austin and Gabbi, I would say it's quite a big loss.

The decent half!

Yes, I agree. I think 32 or 33 should be enough to stay up, provided we don't keep giving 3 points to the likes of Cardiff and Fulham. I would say 7 wins and a few draws should hopefully be enough, or 6 wins and a bunch of draws. The old 40 point mantra is bull. We've got Cardiff, Fulham, Huddersfield, Wolves, Palace to play at home plus Burnley and Newcastle away. At some point we will beat a mid-table team too. So it's doable, although we don't have much margin for error left.