HarvSFC

Not a single player came out of yesterday's match having played well, or to the ability that we now know they're capable of. Redmond, Smallbone, Romeu and KWP especially came out looking bad. Redmond, Romeu and KWP, we know can be a lot better, Smallbone, I'm not sure what he brings, looks like another Hesketh. I'm not saying he should be sent to League One, but those who have been dismissive of this also forget how instrumental playing in that league was for Schneiderlin and a number of our other players from that team who then went on to the international stage. We haven't done a lot in the season break when compared to other teams with the information that is publicised - signings (say this every window now) and pre-season matches. Hopefully we haven't made mistakes once more and this is just the usual first match hoodoo, rather than now needing to play catch-up.

Big fat Moss can’t run over to the monitor, let alone keep up with play.

Football is back!

Lemina's starting as he means to go on.

I don't know a lot about that Emmanuel Dennis, but just looked at his scoring record and it's nothing to shout about. Never hit double figures in a single league season, playing in Ukraine and Belgium. Comparing him to Wesley, who was also from Club Brugge and had a similarly average scoring record and he cost £22m and has ultimately flopped so far.

I think now that it's been leaked to the media, we'll pull the plug on that one.

But, yeah, if you can't work out a system that gets the attacking talents of Sterling, Kane and Sancho (this is a top quality, dare I say close to world class front three) firing, then there definitely should be questions asked of the manager. Southgate is still living off the World Cup, which was fantastic on the face of it, but we did have a very favourable draw and there were clear mistakes made in the losses against Belgium and Croatia back then.

Hojbjerg doesn't even start for Denmark. 🤷‍♂️

Always struck me as an old fashioned limited thug of a player in the middle. Could add some steel to our centre, but he's really reckless and quite dirty, probably why Leicester would let him come to us, if they do.

Yep, agreed. We had our best period in recent years when we had the ethos of only signing players who would improve our starting eleven. It was when we got into the Europa League and tried building a bigger squad and fleshing it out that we got a load of average players on good wages, when we could have one star player on their wages with better sell on value to boot.

Clubs are starting to get busy now with six days until the season's start. Wolves have brought in two this weekend, Newcastle bringing in Wilson, Fraser and Lewis, Sheffield United bringing in Lowe, Bogle and Burke, West Brom - Diangana, Button and Robinson, Leeds are reportedly close to a couple more £10m plus signings

Yeah, Redmond, Djenepo and Boufal looks like as good depth as we're going to get for wide options, but if Boufal goes then I feel that we're going to need to replace him. Even though the latter two were non-existent once football restarted and we hit our best form.

West Ham have a fan base that can never be pleased. Complaining about a lack of investment despite reportedly putting in a £27m bid for Tarkowski and just last year they spent £24m on Fornals, £45m on Haller and £22m on Bowen. £36m on Felipe Anderson the year before that. The Allardyce saga as well, who wasn't playing the "West Ham Way".

Forren is now playing.

The club only found out today that Salisu is a Saints player, Fabrice is right.

Oh, ffs. Although, I can only read the headline, but ffs.

Looks like the Schneiderlin who played for us from that video with the bonus of set pieces.

Strange, as Manji has a usually stellar ITK record.

Much like the Matt Targett transfer last year, some affiliation to a player who has been within the academy setup for years and broken into the first team, but ultimately isn't good enough if we want to show some ambition again and progress in the Premier League, rather than settling on what we have got and he would have been a downgrade on Hojbjerg/Romeu/Ward-Prowse like Targett always was for Bertrand.

I didn't explicitly state my "fuck you" towards Swansea City Association Football Club, either.

I’ve just remembered Swansea’s off pitch “tactics” in that all decisive relegation clash. Yeah, fuck you Swansea.

Because the last time he was number one, it was a horror show, whereas McCarthy does very little wrong and is a much more competent shot stopper, and given our defensive frailties, we now need a good shot stopper. Fonte, Alderweireld, Wanyama and Schneiderlin aren't in the team to protect Forster anymore. A good half year at Celtic doesn't make him good enough for us either, Elyounoussi looks good up there too.

Mario Lemina - Drink driving. (Looks like we've had a few of those)

Redmond now uploading training Instagram stories following silence.

Only us and Norwich running a net spend profit, says all you need to know. Luckily we now seem to have good football personnel within the top of the club as that's all we can rely on.