Lighthouse

I know quite a few Latvians and only one of them has any interest in football. However they were all going mental on Facebook during the Olympics whenever the ice golf was on. It's like a religion over there.

I'll f**k you up, innit mush!

That's not important any more. How hard would you say you are?

We have reserves?

I'll be in Kiruna in Northern Sweden f**king a reinde... I mean er... working.

Why? Neither are Premier League players, I am expecting to see both leave anyway.

Makes you wonder who the captain would be if Fonte is injured. Clyne is the second longest serving player in that line up.

The 2 goals against the Skates were well worth the transfer fee on their own. Good luck Billy.

I think 'Chewy Luis and the Blues' was the best headline I saw from the WC.

Crawley away please. Winnable game on my doorstep.

http://www.capitalonecup.co.uk/news/article/20140813r2drawdetailsrp-1825941.aspx Pompey are in there but I'm not sure I fancy that with a new team of mercenaries bodged together. Any away game at Crawley would be perfect, anything in London would do for me. Orient or Brentford would be new grounds. Will probably get something sh*t like a trip to Doncaster or Port Vale that nobody will bother with.

I would compare him to J Rod if anyone. He's not an old fashioned #9 but he's got skill, a bit of pace and has averaged 1 in 3 across his Kiev career and for Ukraine. I know who I'd rather spend £12m on personally.

Yes. I was trying to point out the flaw in saying X is better than Y because he has played more Premier League games. I don't care if Long has played 1000 games, it still wouldn't make this transfer good value for money.

Well the papers are talking about Stoke chasing Yarmolenko for £12m, who I regard to be a far better player than Long. Would he come here? I don't know, I'm not a Ukrainian football agent. That's just one name off the top of my head from my limited knowledge of football outside this country. Saints apparently have an extensive scouting network around Europe, so I would hope they are aware of a fair few players I've never heard of.

Kenwyne Jones has nearly 200, surely we are better going for him.

Shane Long for half the price, or someone else much better for £12m. I've stuck by the board all summer, I am pretty pleased with the signings thus far and we got good prices for those who have left. This transfer has a whiff of desperation about it, as though we've failed to secure any of our other targets and have thought, "sh*t we need a striker, now," 3 days before the season kicks off. It reminds me of 2007 a bit, when we got spanked by Palace on the opening day and it suddenly occurred to Burley that a football team may actually need defenders. So he went out and bough Wayne Thomas for £1.2m, a few days after Coventry had a bid of £250k accepted.

Jay was 23 years old and playing his first ever season in the Premier League. Even so, there were doubts over his £7m price tag. Shane is 27 years old, has already played 3 season in the Premier League and proven himself to be distinctly average in all of them.

Bull sh*t

I find 'scapegoat' is usually a term applied to players who consistently fail to perform but because a large majority of people notice he isn't performing, that somehow makes him a scapegoat. Other scapegoats include Jermaine Wright, Chris Makin and Jason Euell.

That is a very poor representation of the two players merits. Lallana's strength was never banging in 20 goals a season, he was a creative player who could create chances in ways few others in the Premier League are capable. Those numbers are also skewed by how poor Lallana was 2 years ago and only scored 3 goals. Long scored 7 and 8 goals in his last 2 Premier League seasons. I would rather take a punt on an unproven foreigner than someone like Long, who has 'proven' himself to be a distinctively average player.

Really? So the club is printing it's own money now, I never knew. I always assumed the money came from people like me paying £40 to sit in a seat for 2 hours, or buying a cheap polyester t-shirt for £50, or paying £60 a month for the privilege of watching my own television. If money is nothing then why not go the whole hog and spend £15m on Kieron Richardson, Darren Bent for £10m and John O'Shea for £9m. Then we can have a squad full of overpriced mediocrity but it doesn't matter because apparently it's not my money.

Shane Long is worth £6m not £12m. If we end up paying that I will feel worse than any of the departures. At least we did the best thing possible with them, however £12m for a striker who scored 7 goals last season is just ludicrous.

In your opinion, which isn't one everybody shares. I don't get exactly what a laughing stock is personally. Will I get random Villa, Port Vale and Middlesboro fans phoning me up in the evening and laughing because there is a mixed section at St Marys? Football is the only sport I know of where different supporters are segregated from each other, it doesn't make all the other sports a laughing stock. If you don't want to sit in a 'neutral section' then don't (not that there is going to be one), I fail to see the issue.

It would only work at games where neither the home end nor the away end is sold out. Which isn't very often.

I think people underestimate just how astonishingly bad you have to be to get relegated. In 2005 we had a team with Bernard, Delap, Lundekvam and Davenport in the back four and still came within 30 minutes of staying up. I'm not sure why Yoshida has suddenly been branded crap just because Lovren replaced him. He was a very competent centre half in our first season up, probably the best of the three and easily better than Claus or Davenport were. I can't really put forward an argument for this team being worse than the one that finished 14th in our first season. Shaw and Chambers weren't ready then and Lallana was ineffective. Bertrand is stronger than Fox and now we have Wanyama and Forster.