Lighthouse

He was 30, had been playing below his best for a while and wanted to go back to NL. It was either that offer (which is probably nearer £12m when all the clauses have paid out) or keep him here against his will until his contract ran out. Seems sensible to me, we're only having this discussion because Moi has turned out to be utterly useless.

I’d take £8m, he only has two years left on his contract and he would go for even less next season or free the year after. If he was that decent we’d have more and better offers.

I've still yet to see any reasonable explanation as to why people think this. A ref giving into pressure, making a split second decision at OT is one thing but I don't see why an official in a quiet room, watching a replay 3 times from different angles would deliberately favour the 'bigger' team.

I wasn’t including Vince in those wickets, that’s already a given.

Looking at that, you wouldn’t say it’s a definite dive. It was a debatable penalty, so the original decision should stand. We’re in a situation now where the VAR officials are sending everything down to the ref to look at because they’re scared of having to decide for themselves. They need to have the conviction and authority to say either pen, no pen or inconclusive, in which case it’s the refs original call.

I'm not sure how any agent can be semi-retired. You've either got clients or you haven't, surely? More to the point, I don't see why a 'semi-retired agent' would have the inside track on all the major transfers in British football or what he gains from posting everything he hears on twitter. Seems like just another sad little man after some attention to me.

Hence the 'umpire's call', there wasn't anything in that replay to definitively say it wasn't a penalty, so it should stay with the ref's original call. If there was clearly no contact, then it's a definite no penalty and should be overturned bu VAR, without the ref also having to watch the replay. It should work both ways. If the ref had deemed that contact wasn't enough for a foul, then it should stay as no pen, unless the VAR deems there to be a clear and obvious foul. VAR should be used for the howlers, like Gabbi's disallowed goal. Not the 50:50 stuff Sky spend 15 minutes debating at half time.

You just know we’re going to be 45-2 in reply.

There is, they already speak to each other via radio and face to face if needed. What else do you want? That goal was disallowed because a linesman (in front of 40,000 Man Utd fans) saw Bertrand offside and stuck his flag up instinctively. Used correctly VAR would have cleared it up in less than a minute. I've seen the replay of that USA penalty yesterday, what a mess. It took 20 seconds to look at that replay and say yes, there was contact, so umpires call and the penalty stands. The whole farce of the VAR looking at it for 2 minutes, then the on field ref doing the same needs to stop. We need officials we can trust in the VAR room, not just someone saying, "I'm not sure, come and look at this," on every decision.

We don't know which are our top targets, second choices and which are just agent talk in the media. According to the media we had a bid turned down for £25m for Promes, who was then sold for £17m six months later, so something is obviously not as it seems. Carrillo is a completely different player and just some bizarre attempt to appease a manager who should have been sacked. Moi was a replacement for Tadic and as far as I am aware our first choice. We got Armstrong instead of Maddison.

I'm discussing money and one way or another we've p*ssed it away spending way over the odds on sub par players.

Personally I don't believe that. I think any bias is entirely subconscious and attributed to intimidation in the heat of the moment, something which VAR will help to rule out, as incidents will be viewed in privacy and with far more time available. If you do believe there is a deliberate bias towards the big clubs, then any decisions which go against us also penalise their rivals. In other words, if Liverpool get a bullsh*t penalty it will really annoy City and Chelsea fans.

I don’t get why they’ve decided to do that. Playing to the whistle really isn’t a hard concept.

Exactly the kind of thinking that got us into the problem we’re in. Forster wants another £20kpw? No problem. Monaco want £19m for Carrillo? Here you go Elyounoussi wants a contract we won’t be able to shift to anyone else in Europe? Bob’s your uncle. Stephens looked okay in a defensive team for 4 months? Have £50k a week!

I reckon we could have signed Elyounoussi 3 weeks earlier if we'd offered him an extra £20kpw and Basel an extra £2m. Infact if we'd chucked an extra £2m at every transfer to, "just get it done!!" last summer, we'd be £10m worse off.

This reads as if it wasn't the case before and it's some sort of miscarriage of justice. I'm not sure if you're being facetious or you genuinely can't tell the difference between Field and Farrage/Robinson. The former is a person who has affected entry into a private function where she was unwelcome, with the deliberate intention of causing disruption. Whilst Field was physical, he hasn't caused her any actual harm. The latter was a person in a public area, basically minding their own business and was unprovoked. The milkshake also ruined their appearance and costs money in dry cleaning.

Was it assault? No Does he deserve to be suspended? No Was it necessary on his part? No Was it a sensible thing to do from a political PR POV? Also no Storm in a tea cup - not really news.

He can’t be worth £50m, a year ago he was being kept out of the team by Daryl Janmaat.

I used to have a Screwfix catalogue, which made do in an emergency but these days it’s been replaced by an app, which I find less effective.

You’re probably thinking of Iago Falque, or ‘Flakey’ as I called him. Played in a home defeat to Leicester when we got promoted.

Alright, calm down. You’re talking about two people and they aren’t idiots, it’s just an opinion.

I had to go and find the highlights to see what all the fuss was about because I just can’t bring myself to watch it. It’s awful, the goalkeepers especially are like watching a jellyfish trying to catch a cannonball.

We are talking about the same incident right? 1:10 It's an absolute stone waller. The rules of the game haven't changed, there just wont be any getting away with incidents which should have been. At the risk of incurring the feminist wrath, I'm going to suggest the standard of football and officiating is far higher in the Premier League than the women's WC. As such we will see fewer incidents like this taking forever to sort out. VAR worked pretty well last year in the men's WC, I think after a few games it will probably be alright.

What do you mean, "this"? It has absolutely nothing do do with Adams. "This," isn't anything, other than proof that Shane Long failed to make the same impression in the Premier League. Austin and Ings were both capable of 15 in this league without their fitness issues.

It was quite blatantly a penalty.