The Fish

You what sunshine?

Stoke have sold Arnautovic, Walters and Whelan. Now, the latter two may not be great players, but they're all right, losing Arnautovic and not replacing him properly could be disastrous. Add to that the rumblings about an unhappy Hughes and they could be in serious shit. Palace should improve, but they've a manager new to the league and could be mint or could be terrible. Hugely reliant on Benteke and should he get injured...

There's a lot of shit in the top flight and a lot of the shit in the top flight haven't strengthened in the window so far. 7 teams have spent <£20m, 4 of those teams were in the relegation conversation for much of the season (Stoke, Swansea, Palace, Burnley). Watford have spent £50m and without knowing loads about their Brazilian forward, the rest of their signings aren't much more exciting than ours. Andre Gray has as many top flight goals as Mitrovic and they threw £18m at Burnley for him. I think we'll be bottom half, and in the relegation conversation, but that's because half the league will be in that conversation.

Not even trying are they? Ukraine going to starting making "Червона телиця"?

Manquillo thrown into the deep end.

I think there's excessive pessimism because we haven't had that jolt of excitement that a marquee signing brings. It's withdrawal symptoms as much as anything else. We needed depth on the flanks because with Ritchie's absence would come a sharp drop in creativity, control and threat from set pieces. Murphy is an able understudy and a player I think will usurp Ritchie eventually. Aarons, Atsu, Kenedy, Murphy, and Ritchie means we've got genuine competition for places on the flanks. Merino is being spoken as cover for Hayden, but as we're morphing into a counter attack side, (rather than the side dictating the tempo and areas of play) I can see us playing with two more destructive players and Shelvey forward of those two, not quite a number 10, but nearly. Merino has shown glimpses of his passing ability and while pinning your hopes on performances in pre-season is like putting your faith in a gossamer parachute, it appears he has more of Shelvey's vision than Hayden does so perhaps in Merino we have an understudy? Lejeune has had nothing but praise from all quarters in pre-season, he was well spoken of in the press while he was at Eibar and it's an area we'd identified as a concern. In Clark, Lascelles, Lejeune and Mbemba I think we've a nice mix of grit and class. Lascelles is limited and prone to a mistake, but I can't see our club captain playing as big a role as he did in the Championship. Clark looked quality last season and I still think there's a player in Mbemba. Manquillo is competition for Yedlin, but honestly has looked very good in preseason. None of the transfers are sexy, but Benitez doesn't play sexy football. I've more faith in the foreign imports having the right mentality, than I was under Carr. Of course he wants more and he wants better, name me a manager that wouldn't want free reign to buy as many quality players as possible? He'll be frustrated, justifiably so, but I don't think he'll walk and as long as we're not scrapping against relegation all year, he won't go before Christmas either. 3 weeks, a couple more signings and we'll be much more comfortable. I still think we'll end up somewhere between 9th and 15th.

As I said, I need to work clarity within brevity. It's tough though, some of those fuckers can take "currently not a massive club", as some kind of prediction that Newcastle are set to assault the top table.

There's a few decent posters on there. There's a lad who really has a handle on their finances and his stuff is always interesting (GrumpyOldMan or something like that). I need to stop replying to some of the posters who are just acting the cunt, but when their cuntery becomes the perceived wisdom (Rafa being chiefly responsible for our relegation etc.) I struggle to let it go by without correction.

Too much, or just enough?

Me so Ornery. Me, me, so Ornery.

The only two numbers on that lads phone is his mam and the Kid Rock Fan Phoneline.

Chelsea mate says he was at his best as a right sided forward, so now I don't know what to think.

I use the words that are appropriate, dickhead.

I do wax lyrical about Benitez, I think he's fucking amazing, I probably share the same excitement as everyone else, the only thing I don't do is give him a label. I went on a rant on my podcast because one of the lads was asking if he was the right man for us before it was confirmed. But fail to call him World Class and you lot lose your collective shit.

not even a little. You're still an ornery bellend

Maybe when we play Yedlin we'll play Dummett and playing Manquillo will see Kenedy on the other flank?

Sounds like I've made a perfectly reasonable statement and you're all precious, argumentative winnets.

I don't even think he's all that, he's decent, sure, but would the Manchester clubs go in for him? Would Arsenal or Chelsea? And doesn't he have just as good a chance of winning the title at Spurs as most of them anyway?

All right, who're your World Class managers?

If his missus looked like Paul Dummett, nobody would blame him to be fair.

Can Kenedy play Left back?

You seem to spend a lot of time thinking about doping in sports.