Lighthouse

Bayern will be looking to replace Robben sooner rather than later. As to the original question I'm going to have to say Ripley, simply because I have the pleasure of never having seen him play for Saints.

Gabbi was basically the replacement for J Rod but we decided not to sell the latter in January, presumably because of Austin's injury. What we need is someone who can play more direct in a supporting role, as Mané did.

So after the easiest start we could possibly have hoped for, we're going to be about 14th in the table by the end of this weekend. Long, long season...

Dear Sky Sports Forster Best regards

Hoot dropped, Long on his own up front again.

I'm not for a second defending the ancient colonialism of the Brits and the French. As you say it's all history but the first Gulf war is recent enough to be relevant to this. I agree that the vacuum was partly the fault of the war but the Iraqi government we helped install may have survived without the Arab spring. After all that started in Tunisia, a country in which we've had no military involvement. There's no reason to think Iraq and Saddam wouldn't have ended up like Libya and Gadaffi, with or without our help. Or Egypt, Yemen, Syria or Tunisia for that matter. Really, you're buying that? They may or not have been slant drilling, as might every other country in that region. To me he just sounds like Hitler, talking about defending German people when annexing the Sudetenland and the Austrian Anschluss. It's a plausible cover story and nothing more. Saddam invaded because he owed Kuwait a lot of money from the Iran-Iraq war. Which is also why they had American and French military hardware.

Speak for yourself, 6 blanks in 8 games (against 7 crap teams) is awful. It's becoming a joke now.

I went with the free hit to get Lukaku and a few others in for this weekend. Made him captain, at home to Palace... 0-0 it is then. Long barely scored a hat-trick last season, let alone in one game.

Okay, so we're picking a convenient point in the long running conflict in that region to say, "this is where it started because it's the west at fault."?

TBF they do have the best collection of slow #10s in the league.

He can't get a game in the Championship, let alone at this level. It would be sad to watch really, he was past it 3 years ago.

Likewise, great player for us but he always struck me as being a little... dim to be honest.

A friend of mine once described the coffee at Stoke as tasting, "like first aid kits". I can't say I've ever eaten one as such, but I don't imagine he was far wrong.

If you're going to say the rise of ISIS in 2014 was a result of the war stared 11 years previously, then you have to also say that war was a result of the first gulf war 12 years previous, which was initiated wholly by Saddam and received almost worldwide condemnation.

To me it just highlights that half the teams in that competition are absolute dog sh*t.

I can't believe anybody who has played Premier League football for 2 years or more would ever have to work again.

You mean after the 2001 and 2003 invasions? Okay, I thought you were being more recent than that. Well, nobody has brought down any skyscrapers since then so that's something. Most attacks seem to be low key, low tech, (relatively) low impact, which is an improvement.

Yes. You only had to see the Ross Kemp documentary to hear about the horrific atrocities being committed in ISIS territory.

By definition, surely you have in fact seen all our goals, or did you leave early against Wham?

No he doesn't he chases them and forces them to run a bit more than they would perhaps have liked to. It would be worrying if all his running around actually lead to some goals. Mané worried defenders, Long does not.

No he did not. Aguero will scare the sh*t out of their defence, as will Ronaldo, Suarez, Lewandowski, Aubameyang, Neymar, Cavani, Morata, Kane, Messi, Higuain and a few others. Shane Long runs around a lot. I'm sure the Utd defence had to run a bit more than they might have against Rasiak or Le Tissier but I am fairly sure they weren't scared of 5 goals a season Shane Long.

Thoughts for this one? I'd be tempted to chuck Virgil back in if fit. If nothing else for his presence on set pieces. In search of goals, I'd be tempted to try something like this: Forster Cedric - VVD - Hoot - Bertrand Lemina - Romeu Davis - Tadic - Gabbi Austin

Well you'd know.

2017 Saturday afternoon At home Not playing West Ham Goals from open play... 0

Starting off well, high tempo, better team so far. Nicely set up for another 3-2 defeat. Usually there's a brace from RVP, Martial or Zlatan, so probably Lukaku today.