The Fish

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.

7th best defence (34 goals conceded), but they've only scored 25 goals (6th worst). It's not like they're not creating chances, they're just not putting them away. Bowen and Benrahma are their top scorers with 4 a piece. Mind, when they've hosted teams that play a high press (Man City, Brighton, Brentford), they've lost 2-0. they're passive as fuck, only Bournemouth and Forest press less often than West Ham. However, they appear to play similar to we did under Benitez, passive until the opponent gets around the box. Just looked at their fixtures, fucking hell they're going to struggle to get a run of wins going.

Read some of their match thread, seems the only reason we won is because they were shit, Weghorst isn't very good and De Gea can't pass. They couldn't work out that the reason they were losing the ball so often is because we forced De Gea into booting it long where our players could out muscle their forwards, or because we were snapping at the heels of every player for 90 minutes. We could and should have won by 4 or 5 goals and on another day we would have. Longstaff was unlucky with his long range shot and the one early doors where he couldn't get it out of his feet. You'd have expected one goal from either Isak's header or Willock's rebound and against a lesser 'keeper it would have come. Honestly, think the only reason they're policing the celebrations or whining about the post-match comments is because they're bored of blaming their players/managers but they're still hurting.

You sit right there, I'm going to spend the next 55 minutes describing in great detail why you're wrong and I'm going to back it up with impenetrable mathematics.

.... rrrrrright, but that's not a argument for keeping Longstaff and players of his level. He's one of the more limited players in the first team, and should be replaced for that competition.

No they don't.

Just good planning and subtle automation. While reports are running I come on here and school fools.

Champions League is a step up, but next season we'll need better players, even if we only manage to qualify for the Europa League. A quick scan through our starters highlights a few areas where we should strengthen. Looking deeper into our squad it would make sense to move them on and push Longstaff, Burn, Murphy further down the pecking order, or out of the door if the right bid comes in.

I've never driven a Rolls Royce, I'd still have one over the Kia Ceed I'm currently pootling around in.

Not much, no, but I bet you every penny in my pocket against every penny in yours that, if they're allowed to make signings for the Premier League, they will. And they won't rely on the team that got them there. Just like we didn't. Like Bournemouth didn't. Forest didn't... and so on.

When Burnley come up, they'd be mental to sign any players. Just keep the Championship plodders that got them promoted and hope they can improve further. Because if nothing else, what watching football for decades has taught is that sentimentality always wins out.

Ok, lets say I'm Sean Longstaff. My hometown club has made it into the Champions League and I'm a big part of making that happen. Eddie Howe, the man who's taken my game to another level pulls me to one side before I go off on my summer holidays and lets me know that he's going to make me available for transfer because he's bringing Milinkovic Savic in to replace me. I'd be gutted, I'd plead my case. But ultimately I'd rather play football than be an unregistered moody cunt, and I'd take that phat transfer move to West Ham (or wherever). because, THAT'S HOW FOOTBALL FUCKING WORKS.

You're shit.