Henry McGhee: You aren't saying he's omnipotent? (Regarding Jackie Wright as a Guru)
Fred Scuttle: Er...ah..you'll have to ask his wife, sir.

I forgot we were playing away to Leicester in the League Cup on wednesday night. It will be interesting to see what the team is. I'd expect any first teamers who need some minutes to be playing, so Cédric, Pépé, Willock, Nelson, Nketiah. Macey in goal? Will we see Özil or Saliba?

Lamptey at Brighton is some player. Tearing Newcastle apart this half from right back. Wonder why chelsea let him go permanently?

Sperz off to a quick start. Son has been underrated. If he was as effective for a bigger club he'd be much more highly regarded. And I'll throw this out there. If he weren't Asian. A region not known for producing top footballers. People think he's a fine player. But you never hear his name mentioned among the PL's best.

I always worry when he's on the pitch against us. I also wonder why he hasn't attracted the attention of big clubs.

It will be interesting to see what kind of side we put out at Leicester. I'm not expecting a win actually. I've never seen us win the league cup. It would be nice just so I can see it done by us everyone else it seems has seen it in their lifetimes.

Christianson just rugby tackles Mané when Mané would have been through on the GK, was given a yellow but upgraded to a red by VAR - ref reviewing the pitchside monitor. Absolutely correct decision for me.

Consistency is not always a good thing though. Otherwise Gabriel would have conceded a penalty for handball.

How does he do it?

Pity poor sods like me who didn't manage expectations and were lulled into thinking we'd win both of our opening matches!

Good result yesterday, but poor performance - still lots of question mark regarding our ability to control games against weaker opposition. A few additions might help, but I think we also need to find ways as a tram to break these sides down. The team we put out yesterday should've been able to produce much more going forward.

The squad is very unbalanced at the moment, with too many defenders and not enough midfielders. I don't mind Elneny as a squad option, but he's too close to the starting eleven right now. Say we sign Aouar and Partey - that would make Elneny slot in a more natural squad position considering his quality.

He wouldn’t sign a new deal as they had Daniel James in front of him, so they let him go. I watched him play and thought please learn the lessons from Bellerin and do the work now to stave off a serious knee injury as he’s all-action and rapid! Brighton look so well balanced as a team, we’ve got arguably better game breakers, but no way near as well balanced. Leicester too, they look like a mini Man City, Harvey Barnes really eye catching player.

He’s a great player. He should buy that Southampton defence a drink though, I hope they play that high line against Aubameyang! I think Hassenhutl has got them watching Bayern Munich tapes but not told them they aren’t actually the European Champions!

Let's be honest. RM didn't buy Becks for his talent alone. They knew they would recoup the money spent on merchandizing.
Park made a lot of money for Man Utd with shirt sales...a lot! Koreans around the world bought a ton of them. LA has the largest Korean American community in America and Park's shirt seemed like a requirement.

Also, many Koreans made the trek to OT to see matches. The club always make sure they were able to. I know a guy who went with his girlfriend.

The MLB has a few Korean players and they make money for their teams as well.

Salah is huge in the middle east. I was on lockdown in Dubai for Covid 19 and Salah's face is on a lot of advertising. LFC has a few stores. I asked someone about Elneny and they were like 'meh'.

City has a following but not as big as one may think because of politics. Qatar not as liked in the area these days. Salah is huge though, very, very huge.

Nevertheless, Spurs may be a handful this season

Is that the same handful Mourinho has when he looks at himself in the mirror?

Palace make a £19m bid with £6m add ons for Liverpool's Rhian Brewster. What is it with prem clubs that they want to chuck tonnes of money at Liverpool youngsters or reserves. Palace already paid Liverpool £60m for Benteke and Sakho, you'd have thought they'd have learnt their lesson

I'm amazed Madrid, Barca, PSG haven't made a move for Son over the past few years. I rate him far higher than Kane. He has amazing pace, great finishing and can play in a number of positions. I'm also surprised City or Man U haven't made a move for him as well. I'd put him in the top 10 players in the prem easily

Apparently Chelsea are looking at Guendouzi and Arsenal might be exploring the possibility of a swap deal. Supposedly immediately rebuffed when asking for Kante. Hudson-Odoi and Rubens Loftus-Cheek mentioned.
Both are interesting players who would meet home grown quotas and fit a profile of a more athletic, physical and pacey player. Hudson-Odoi was being chased by Bayern 12 months ago. Right wing isn't really a position we need to recruit in though. Loftus-Cheek, a player who's career is stagnating, but has plenty of talent.

I'd rather take straight cash for Guendouzi but perhaps there is a swap with cash that can be done?

A front 3 of Bale, Son, Kane is very good. Especially against team naive enough to play a high line and let Kane drop deep and feed acres of space for the other two to run on to. However, the rest of the team is nowhere near top 4 quality.

Time to bring Giroud home.

It won’t be Hudson surely, overloaded on both flanks the last position we need. Loftus-Cheek probably the only logical option from that list

Liverpool (and City) are at the level they are Barca or RM esque in that just to get on their books you are among the best in your age group.

I imagine that the thinking is that they have players on their books who are first team prem quality or on the cusp of but they are not going to move Mané, van Dijk, or Salah out the way.

If it wasn't for his massive wages (£120k for a 19-year old is bonkers) I'd take Hudson-Odoi in a heartbeat. Kid is a real talent.

I was a little impressed with Chelsea last year, when they pretended for a minute that they'd try building around their numerous talented youth products. Before they were allowed to sign players again and bought every attacking player they could find.

How can the clubs simply just crack on signing really expensive players even if they know they will have empty stadiums for the foreseeable future ? It must account for a 3rd of their revenue. Not sure how that’s possible.

Cash only, no swaps for players we don't want I'd say.

It’s not a cash market right now though. It’s nearly all swaps and loans. Chelsea have spent a fortune and swapping doozy for a homegrown Chelsea player makes sense even if it’s Hudson or loftus cheek.

I also believe we have problems with our homegrown quota. We’ve just sold Martinez who counted as homegrown and signed a non homegrown replacement

The boy has it. A star soon.

Ah Martinez has just saved a penalty

5.4.3.2.1....... go

Weirdest move in the transfer window yet is Morata getting another potentially expensive move. €9m loan to Juventus, with option to buy for €45m. Went to Juventus from Real Madrid for €20m, then back to Real for €30. Then moved to Chelsea for £60, and then on loan to Atletico who then signed him permanently for £58m. Since that first season in Juventus he has scored an average of 15 goals per season. In all competitions.

Surely the agents giving people brown envelopes. How can you explain that

That new Icelandic kid is going to punch one in his own net on Wednesday isn’t he then the cycle will be complete

Go on Alex give the people what they want.

Hi Goonie,
Maradona shirt sales haven't diminished either.

There is definitely some strategic accounting going on. Take for example Pjanic going to Barca from Juve and Arthur going to Juve from Barca. Both good players but they were each signed for about £50-60m. Easily double their market value.

Hmmmn isn’t there that rule in Spain where if the club chose the governments equivalent furlough scheme they can only spend a small percentage of incoming transfer funds on new players. It’s something like 20% and Barca did accept that government help. I wonder if that relates to it.

Just in general Goonie. Especially in Latino countries.

So the new GK Runny guy has the lucky 13 shirt..

And a very good save it was. That plus a clean sheet. I’m pleased for him.

And how many penalties has Leno saved this season!!!???

I’ll tell you!! NONE!! What a disgrace!! That’s infinity percent more Martinez penalty saves FACT!!

Sack the board, politically disavow Arteta, eviscerate the squad, push the stadium into Middlesex. I told you this would happen, we could have got a hundred odd Mil for Leno from Bayern...

Leno did look pretty flaky under their crosses though.

lol
Tomorrow a Leicester player is going to replicate the Maradona solo goal from the 86 World Cup and when he does ?

“BLOODY ICELANDIC KID!!!!!, should never have sold Martinez. Kroenke is a disgrace, Arteta is clueless rar rar rar “