The Fish

Only top flight boss to think his title is the instruction he should give to his players. "Interim"

I think if we'd lurched into the top 6 recently due to a good run of form, or shocking form from other teams, I could understand your caution. But we've been pretty consistent this season, with only really those 5 game end of January, early March where we've gone on a run without a win. Man Utd and Spurs haven't suddenly plummeted either. Like Gemmil says, we're around 2PpG, and we've been around 2PpG since the January after the takeover. That's just what we do; Eat, Sleep, Win one draw one, Rine, Repeat. We keep that up and we'll end up on 73pts, which is good enough for 3rd in an average season. Start buying up Euros.

If only everything was sorted this quickly.

Which one, they've got about 7

Your first Pro rules out your last con. The financial rewards for being a Champions League side with momentum behind us cannot be overstated. Rather than the modest uptick in sponsorship that a midtable 'big club' could attract, on a par with West Ham or Everton say, we can justifiably expect shirt sponsorship that is commensurate with Spurs. We can also expect official travel partners, official energy drink partners and that kind of thing. The extra money from Champions League tv is massive too. Not only can we attract better players, we won't have to sweeten the deal quite so much as we can offer elite level football, rather than just an extra £10k a week in their skyrocket. It may well impact our fairly small squad when we get to the business end of the season, but the early stages should be manageable with the younger players we've been signing like Ashby and our son-to-be fringe players like Murphy. Your second Con makes me think of Potter. Rumours are that a lot of Chelsea players didn't really know who he was or what he had achieved and thus never took him seriously. It's different with Howe, he's managed to get genuine stars like Bruno and Botman and Trippier working together to drive the team forward as a collective, the other thing to consider is that our recruitment has a strict No Arsehole rule. Anyone we sign will have to be the kind of player that would gel with the existing squad in terms of application and Non Arseholeosity. So dry your sheets mate.

I think I fucked up, Alex Yeah, you did mate. You did fuck up.

Such a weird game, both defences were below their standards, difference is of course our standards are high as fuck these days. Thought Rice looked quality and it's a shame we're not two or three years further down the line as he'd be an unreal addition. Paqueta looked industrious and shows glimpses of quality. Antonio lead the line well, but those three aside, West Ham were pretty poor. The third goal killed them off, the timing, the forced error and the ease at which Wilson tucked it away. Genuinely thought Bowen was going to rinse Burn all game, but he sharp became an irrelevance. Probably Burn's worst game in a while, defensively. Botman and Schar looked a little shaky too. We didn't control the midfield as we have done, but honestly, I think that's more down to Rice than anything else. Reminded me of the Brentford game where the Bees just decided to gift us a few goals and we ruthlessly punished them. 3 point ahead of managerless Spurs, with a game in hand and we get to play them at SJP. Win that and we can start planning trips to FC Plovmadov.

Oh Fuck the fucking fuck off with your fucking pissy fucking pants you fucking fucker.

Bruno has played a little over half as many games for us as Henderson did for them. He's scored nearly twice as many goals already, plus he speaks better English.

I think we're better equipped to break through a LOW BLOCK* now, Isak hitting his stride and getting on the same page as Bruno is massive. ASM appearing to have improved his decision making. All being well in terms of injuries, I'd not make any changes. Give the same lads 60 minutes to do their thang, then bring on the likes of Joelinton, Anderson, Wilson to pose different problems for West Ham. *

I mean, you'd have Ba, Ferdinand, Wilson ahead of Phillips and Bent, right? Given ahead of Pickford. Lee or Speed ahead of Henderson, maybe Bruno too. Cant think of any left wingers who'd be fit to lace the boots of Ginola, Robert or Ben Arfa. et-fucking-cetera, Marra

Probably just leave us to it.

Think I'm in the same camp as Renton. I honestly can't think of a player for whom I'd tear my eyes away from Stats and Data Weekly. Phillips was canny, I guess. Put it this way, in a combined Tyne-Wear 11 from the Premier League era, they'd all be wearing Black and White, right?

He's been on our RADAR for a while, you'd want to hope that with our league position, the way we play, the way Howe has improved players, the atmosphere at SJP and the financial clout we've now got we'd be near the top of the queue. He'll have other suitors, no doubt, but Liverpool, Chelsea, Spurs aren't going to get Champions League football and we look like we are.

Emil Krafth would be their first choice right back, Matt Ritchie would likely be a first team regular. Hell, the worst player in Southampton's team would probably walk into their first team.

Are you watching Rafa?!

First game without Bruno, no Isak either.

That depends if they went there with the right attitude. That attitude obviously being blissful ignorance of the reality of plying their trade in the second tier, in a shithole town, in front of a scatological society

You did say "Any European Competition" though, and they were in the Fairs Cup/UEFA Cup/Europa League loads. so майната ти

Can't believe you don't know Plovmadov's 2004 tilt at Champions League qualifying rounds

It would be hilarious seeing Jacob Murphy teapotting off some Slavic monster in the Champions League.

Bit of a tangent, but I think that's somewhere we're going to struggle. Established teams can rely on their 4th or 5th choice striker against FC Plovmadov, we don't have an established U21 squad of any quality. So we'd need to rely on whoever isn't shoved out the door in the summer.