Lighthouse

Well, we're about to get a second chance to see just how easy it is to get promoted in spite of a manager, so I guess we'll find out.

Up front we have AA, BBD, CA and RS (I'm going to hope and assume PO leaves) At FB we have CT, JB, RM, JL and maybe Welly. I'd say the latter list is considerably weaker at Championship level.

We need to spend far more attention, not to mention money, on our creative midfielders and fullbacks this summer. Fernandes will be off and most likely Lallana and Fraser will too. I'd want better than Sully, Dibling and Edozie, assuming they stick around, to provide the supply.

😆 You so obviously are and have consistently shown nothing but disdain for anything to do with Martin, even things which are undeniably solid achievements. You talk as if everything we did last season was just a default setting, like we were just get given 'winning the playoffs' as an assumed achievement at the start of the season and it was up to Martin to get us above Leicester. We were 'only marginally better than' the Champions over a sustained period of 4.5 months unbeaten. If that underwhelms you, then I wouldn't get your hopes up for next season.

After Bazunu got injured we lost three of our last five and fell away from the autos. We still finished on 87 points, which for reference is one less than Adkins and I don't hear many complaints about him.

Teams around us like champions Leicester, who lost three and drew three in the same period of time? Nobody is calling it a miracle except the people who feel the need to sarcastically undermine what was a pretty good achievement.

16 wins and 6 draws between September and February. 54 points in 22 games. I'd take a similar 'statistical quirk' at some point next season.

Glad Spurs won that, as with no European football next season the misery is just beginning for United.

He got us promoted at the first attempt and achieved our longest unbeaten league run in over a century. Will that not do? We went up by going unbeaten against all the other playoff teams in every game all season. 6 wins and 3 draws, including the playoff games themselves. We were also right in the hunt for the autos with four games left. I would advise Leicester not to sign Lallana, Sugawara and Wood, should they get promoted, next summer. That’s not how I watched the 28 league games we won under Martin last season but each to their own. Apart from all the times he adapted the team to get a result, such as playing Stephens in the ‘Zinchenko role’ to win away to WBA and changing from a back four to a back five when Bazunu got injured, in order to win the playoffs.

It’s like Loose Women with these things. Next week he’s going to have Kerry Katona in there crying over frozen turkey twizlers.

But why would we sell? What’s our motivation to only break even on a player who just signed a year ago and has since added a year of PL football and an England cap to his CV?

I’m not sure why we’d accept less than £30m for THB, which is what we got for JWP, who was on the fringes of the England squad and a few years older. As it happens I’m not convinced anyone will pay that this summer and think there’s a reasonable chance he might stay, likewise Dibling.

How many Championship clubs have won the Champions League?

What would be your preferred phraseology for the 31st round of games being played?

If he shaved his head, wore a dirty vest covered in baked bean stains and shouted, “get it in the f**king mixer,” a lot, might you find it easier?

Neither did Lallana or Taylor, we still signed them.

For me it was his ignorant, patronising comments following the just stop oil protests at Silverstone a few years ago, when he basically implied he didn't care about putting lives in danger because it was for the greater good. Don't care what his opinions on Israel are.

I'm not sure in which world £12m buys Sainz but sadly it's not this one. He's 24 and the Championship's second top scorer with 18. £12m buys you a Man City youth product or a maybe from the Dutch Eredivisie these days, I doubt Norwich would touch anything less than £20m.

I wouldn't pay too much attention. He posted the same thing about Mislav Orsic.

Whilst that does follow logically, the idea of Man Utd in particular being relegated is just sooooooooo f**king funny that I have to go with Dr. K. on this one.

If Cooper was guaranteed to get you promoted then there’d be about five or six clubs every season fighting to offer him £20m for a season’s work. He’s had success in the past but he’s still far from a nailed-on promotion machine, so yes there is still risk attached.

Cool story, but all those players are under contract and have naff all to do with the released list.

I'm not sure what you're really expecting to see. The only first team players out of contract next month are our fourth choice keeper, Lallana, whose body we may donate to medical science, and KWP who's definitely off.

Sunday, 4pm, COYR etc.

That’s very obviously not true though, isn’t it.