Tomaszk

Watched bit of England Spain as well. Wild. England were really poor early on. Formation was nonexistent. Only Neville and Shearer looked good.

I'll be fuming if we take some highly paid shit off them.

Why hadn't we gone up either of the last two seasons, both with excellent Championship teams?

Just take them out the game. Have all their players on free transfers. That would honestly be my answer to them, until they ask to get put back in.

Tried three times with the Wire and can't even finish the second series. So poor IMO.

Before you get really stuck in, bear in mind that the general opinion of the climax to the show was incredibly negative from even the biggest fans. It's a long old slog to get through to get annoyed at the end. I really enjoyed first four seasons, after that it disappointed for me.

Solely looking at football, if Deeney stays away from Watford that's huge and they'll probably go down. He is the heartbeat of that team.

Interesting and good thought about the future proofing he's done. I'm not sure it extends beyond Targett and maybe Mings though. I just think the majority aren't good enough for the prices paid, I do 100% agree what you said earlier about prices being wild. Doug Luiz I'm certain will be trying to get a move, the rest I don't think would be wanted by anyone in any top flight, it's not that they would be willing to stay. Samatta bit of an outlier here, excellent player but signing in January his situation is different, I'm mainly referring to summer signings here. We'll have to wait and see for a conclusion. IMO a surefire sign that the majority were busts is looking how many signings we'll make if we pull off a miracle and stay up. We'll need at least five starting players to not be in the muck again. Probably seven if Grealish leaves.

It's a problem IMO we were so willing to splash out on average players just because the market is crazy. You don't have to partake in silly prices on the average players. Pay silly prices for good players. Targett was the most obvious annoying one as we had evidence of him playing in PL and looking like he wasn't ready to be a certified 38 start a season man. Suso killed us before the season started.

Think that's season 2. Would like to read anything you'd recommend on it though.

This is it. He'll look good when we're good. When Grealish is flying and gifting him the ball on a plate. Does very little when our backs are to the wall. £11-14m is £6-9m too much.

Good grief the norks in Banshee.

One extra thing to add that really helped him early on was Irish fans travelling to the US and giving him the superstar treatment. Made him seem a huge deal.

He's very very good. Or he was, tough to tell right now. After a successful time in Irish/UK scene, came up through the featherweight UFC division knocking a lot of people out inside the first round. That's a surefire way to get onto big cards. At a time when UFC were still very much on the periphery of mainstream sports he started wearing swanky suits to press conference where everyone else was in jogging bottoms and playing the part of a pro wrestler. Instead of giving safe, samey answers to routine questions he slated everyone he fought and all the other fighters he was sat next to. Suddenly there was a character to be interested in. I have no doubt the trash talking used to get in people's heads and they would get so annoyed they tried to hurt him as soon as they could. He's a lethal counter puncher and has a fantastic jaw so this all played into his hands. The pinnacle of this was when he knocked out undefeated Jose Aldo in 13 seconds to win the unified featherweight title. Aldo hadn't lost for 10 years and the build for this fight had been about two years in the making due to McGregor calling him out very early and Aldo picking up a few injuries so the bout got pushed further and further back. Conor spent the whole time hammering Aldo saying he was a pussy and knocking out everyone who he stepped in the octagon with in the mean time. Obviously, UFC were doing anything they could to build him up as he was drawing so much casual attention, so they rocketed him into the lightweight title picture when he probably didn't really deserve it. Rafael dos Anjos was the lightweight champ and broke his foot in their build-up, cue Conor hammering him again saying everyone is scared of him. It was hilarious, it's basically The Rock's act from 1999, and this was even better because it's real and he kept knocking anyone out who did eventually fight him! If he lost, none of it would have worked. His confidence was sky-high so foolishly took on the impossible to knockout Nate Diaz at welterweight (a two weight division jump up) as he was the only person willing to replace Dos Anjos who the UFC fancied Conor to beat. McGregor punched him in the face for two and half rounds, Diaz and his rock head were unaffected so continued to press forward and managed to get a submission on him. This would have been a disaster for business I think had McGregor not demanded to fight him again six months later, again at welterweight for silly pride reasons. He punched him in the face for five rounds this time, still couldn't knock him out, and took a decision. The lightweight title fight was now on and he absolutely took apart Eddie Alvarez who is a hall of fame UFC lightweight in waiting. That's his career highlight for me. Weight class he'd never fought at and he comfortably took apart the champion. From this point he was multi multi millionaire and lost his mind a bit to all sorts of sinful things. I think he started to believe his own Rock character. He earned $100m to lose an exhibition to Floyd Mayweather and came back to UFC getting taken apart by possibly the best mixed martial artist ever in Khabib Nurmagomedov. In that fight he did win a round and that's probably the only round in his UFC career Khabib hasn't won. He claims to be back on the straight and narrow now, but it'll be tricky for UFC to protect him so I don't know what the future holds as I'm sure they want to stretch his usage out. No name in featherweight of much interest. He won't beat Khabib at lightweight. Any of the welterweights are too big and will knock his head off, he knows that, won't touch them. His best hope is that Justin Gaethje who just became no 1 contender at lightweight can somehow beat Khabib and then he can have a crack there. The media hype was all his own creation and lapped up by a public desperate for any sports star who will show personality. It was nothing brand new that hadn't been done before, but so many either can't or won't put themselves out there in that way.

He ain't garbage. Gabby on an average day in this Villa side wouldn't be doing as much as Maupay could. Wes is a £5m player.

Always thought Brandt was fairly similar to Grealish. Always looks smooth in possession.

Good. Three years left on his deal.

It would take COVIDs 1 through 200 to put John down.

I'll be honest part of it as well is willingness to do anything like that. Very much doubt they'll be many other current PL skippers who would want to do it. Plus so many aren't comfortable talking to the media.

Wow, I had properly forgotten him. Was a big fan.

The podcast is really good, worth a listen. Bruce behaving exactly as you'd expect. Elphick gives him plenty of credit as well.

I think they'll be a lot of rotation going forward. The FA will bring in more subs as a "help" and it'll never go away helping the big clubs to fatten up their squads even more.

I expect nothing else from Hourihane. He's proven so many times he can't function unless someone else does the hard yards for him.

I think his own shots would be included.