Lighthouse

I still think Cardiff will be in the 32-34 points range.

I think it comes back to the old Stalin quote; one death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic. Begum’s child is no more or less deserving of a chance at life than any other. The mere fact that you had heard of him makes it sad in your eyes but that’s not necessarily the case for everyone else. I’d say it’s just a brutal reminder of the facts of life personally.

Whenever I’ve see him previously he has always looked energetic but with little end product. Getting sent home early from Reading because he wasn’t getting into their squad is hardly a ringing endorsement either. The assists against the 2 Scouse teams are the only moments of note I’ve actually seen but yesterday he seemed to have improved on that.

Carrillo is barely a Championship standard player. Boufal is a show off with a bad attitude. There is no reason to think he will get anything more out of either of them, than he has so far managed to get from Cédric, Gabbi, Long or Hoedt.

1. Just how bad does Long have to get before you’d say he isn’t good enough? He’s a 2 goal a season striker who runs around offside and falls over in his marker farts too hard. 2. What about it? It’s terrible. Neither Long nor Austin is a Premier League player.

Having watched it again on MOTD, that’s 2 blatant reds for Spurs.

Must be more to this behind the scenes. Can't just be results.

Didn't have the tiniest inclination to go today, then a friend said they had a spare ticket and I was pretty much bullied into it. Funny old game. First half we were absolute dog sh*t. I'd give Austin 2/10. 1 point for each time he touched the ball. The supply to him was poor but wow, we were static. Their defenders probably wanted another jumper on, so little work they had. Second half, what a difference. I don't think we really started to look good until Armstrong replaced Long but Spurs just never showed up. I don't rate Sims but I'll give him credit for a very good second half performance. Friend... What can I say, looked like 2 reds to me, for the headbutt and the foul on Armstrong. How Sissoko and Romeu are equally worthy of a yellow I have no idea. Cardiff must be sick. Those were their winnable games and they're still 2 points and GD behind us.

A draw or worse for Cardiff is all I care about really. I've given up hoping we get a result so Cardiff not winning is basically a good weekend for me.

Any agent worth his salt will insist that it's both.

Had we not conceded with the last kick of the season against Man City, the prize money for finishing above Huddersfield would have been more than anything extra we might have received for Tadic. It's small change really and wouldn't have made any difference to our transfers in.

Tadic was clearly frustrated under Puel and far from his best under MoPe too. As easy as it is to blame the managers, he needed a fresh start and so did we. In theory, selling a 30 year old for £10-13m (depending on the add ons) and replacing him with a 24 year old for £16m is pretty decent business. People are only complaining because Moi has turned out to be useless, which has nothing to do with the Tadic deal. As with everyone else we’ve sold, I have no problem with the price or the fact that we sold them. It’s the replacements (or in the case of Gabbi, Cédric and Fonte, the lack of replacement) which have been the problem. I do love the irony of everyone being outraged that Gao apparently just wants to siphon money out of the club and now this. Are you all upset that Gao isn’t making enough money out of the Tadic deal? Also, we’ve just sold Gabbi for basically the same price and everyone seemed pretty happy with it. He needs to move on, doesn’t really fit, we got him off the wage bill etc. No doubt if he gets a couple of goals against Barcelona in a year or two, everyone will be outraged that we sold a world class player so cheap.

He never played with such freedom and confidence here, a clean start has done him the world of good.

The same summer Man City bought Jesus for £27m, Gundogan for £20m and Sane for £37m. Chelsea bought Kante for £32m. Utd bought Mkhitaryan for £30m. The Mane fee was comparable with any of those and as I said, he only had 2 years left on his contract.

Mane had 2 years left on his contract and this was before transfers went insane. Back when De Bruyne was 'only' £50m. Tadic was 30 and wanted to leave. Nobody else would have bought him and Ajax couldn't afford any more. It was basically that or being stuck with an unhappy player, who had been below his best for a couple of years anyway. Can't we just be pleased for him? He never acted like a tw*t when he wanted to leave and it was the right time for both parties to move on.

The verb tense is key here I think. Bertrand, Yoshida, Ings and Lemina have all been out and we're still above Cardiff WITH Bamba. Now we have RB and MY back, things are reversed somewhat and in theory swung in our favour. Ings may be out but Bamba was Cardiff's top scorer too I think. Redmond and JWP would both win Cardiff's golden boot as it stands.

Arsenal and Everton.

We have plenty of players who aren’t right for this squad. In fact we’re barely into double figures for players who are. Bottom line is we got rid of the only experienced RB at the club and unless he went full on Osvaldo in training, I can’t figure out why.

Worried? Fulham are gone, they would need Champions League form to stay up.

Fulham concede 2 goals for the 10th game in a row.

Not a bad end to the 'no one gives a sh*t' derby.

Without wanting to count any chickens, if you were realistically betting on Cardiff I'd say 2 points from their next 5 games looks about right. That still puts them below where we are at the moment on GD. The long odds are understandable IMO.

Looks like Boufal has been dropped again. Must be yet another clueless manager who doesn’t know how to get the best out of him.

I’ve no doubt that’s what RH hoped for. Offloading players in January and just hoping we replace them is stupid from the club.