The Fish

To be fair, we've no idea how long it took him to sail his fleet from KL to CR, nor how fast sailed boats can travel in this setting. Maybe they can travel twice or three times as fast as those in reality? Maybe Euron took a fortnight to travel the distance? Maybe they set off for CR and were to arrive before the Unsullied army (which also had to travel great distances but on foot or on slower boats), but held back to trap them in a bay? I wouldn't worry so much about timing, it's existed throughout the show's run and teleporting armadas are preferable to boring shots of ships sailing on open seas, or someone setting off and being forgotten about until the season's end. Re: the Tyrells, they're powerful politically and financially but have never been a particularly powerful military force and they just came up against a surprise attack by that world's largest, best trained, best organised army. Oh and when I say "Surprise attack" I don't mean Jamie turned up at the front door unannounced. Sure the Tyrells may have had a week of notice, but that's hardly enough time to muster their forces, especially when one of their key bannermen (Tarly) has joined the other side.

At first I thought they'd just spelled it wrong twice, but they've somehow managed to spell it differently in the same document. They are fucking Poundland aren't they?

Oof

Thanks buddy

Don't think he's in charge of transfers mate.

Arsenal supporting mate thinks he'd be good for us. Says he was a good contributor and a good goal scorer. Says he thinks Perez should have been played more often.

Quite the discussion about the existence or not of a rotten core

Seen the nonsense rumours about Lucases Perez and Vasquez?

Took me a second read to realise you weren't describing their on field defending as nonce-like.

Hope it works out for him, but on reading that it does sound like he'd be better suited nailing his colours to a good manager and the two of them carving very good careers together.

To be fair that was an early preseason run out and I was in attendance which is usually a portent of doom. James Vaughan, Lewis Grabban both signed. I think there'll be a big wake up call when they watch Championship games regularly. The prevailing opinion seems to be that because they've got "Premier League players" they'll be much better than the 2nd flight teams. It's stuff like this- In truth they don't have a single player that stands out as a "top" championship player. Even their best remaining player, Kone, has apparently looked disinterested in preseason suggesting he'll be off. Lens is attracting bids. I don't think they'll be relegated, there's sufficient shit in the 2nd flight for them to comfortably avoid that ignominy. As it stands I can't see them coming straight back up though. I expect them to finish behind Aston Villa, Boro, Shef Wed, Fulham, Leeds, Reading, Wolves, Hull, plus maybe teams like Birmingham City or Norwich? We saw how Villa fucked it up and how Norwich had a disappointing year. I'd be shocked if Sunderland did better than them without significant investment and shrewd business.

Everybody wants rid of me, darling.

Yeah and while I understand the value in giving everybody 35-45 minutes each fixture to build their fitness, I think there's value in picking your first 11 as soon and as often as possible. The back four learn each other's habits and the right back knows what he can expect from the right winger, the striker knows which runs the midfield will more easily pick up/look for. tbh I'd prefer to field one 11 in one fixture on the Saturday lunch time and a second 11 on the Sunday night. Give the starting 11's 20 minutes at the end of the other fixture.

Merino on for ... Lejeune?

He seems to get the luck of the bounce in the box a good amount, but so often he panics when the ball comes back. He had time to take a touch and either take the shot himself or, if rushed by a defender, pass to the now unmarked Gayle or Atsu.

Waq that the same Fischer that was at Boro?

Good save from Woodman.

We are awful without Shelvey. Hopefully Merino will provide decent cover there/a different option.

You're being hypercritical and I think I'm part of the reason for that. Maybe if I wasn't so vocal in my defence you wouldn't feel the need to go over the top. I don't think he'll ever be a 20 goals a season striker for Rafa's Newcastle, but the lad is a proven goal scorer at international level, he scored 9 in a shit team, has a decent Goal to minutes ratio and his reading of the game will improve with experience, as will his behaviour. Sell him now and we'll get, what, £15-20m for him? We should sign a proven GOALSCORER like... who? Assombalonga? that's the level of player we can afford. I'd rather have Mitrovic than an average-to-good Championship striker. At least Mitrovic is passionate for the club. As it stands he's the second best striker at the club. Give him another season, he'll still be young (He's only a year older than Ivan Toney ffs), he may be useful and he may prove some of his critics wrong. If he still doesn't prove worthwhile, sell him, it's not like his value will change that much. But while he's here support him.

He did all right in his debut season, has curtailed his misbehaviour and was very good linking up with runners in the Championship season too. He had an all right Goals to minutes ratio and would maybe have scored more had he got more game time, but unfortunately for him (fortunately for us) he was behind a prolific striker. But you've made your mind up so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I can't think of a game that he's really shown his purported quality. Hopefully he'll be used sparingly as he doesn't really seem to add anything to our defensive system, or going forward. At least Colback works hard defensively, even if it's for scant reward.

This is where I am.

Fuck off Anorthernsoul. The ball was ahead of him, it was too far ahead of him, you need to take your blinkers off and accept he's not half as bad as you make out. Honestly, you'd think he was Guivarch' levels of turd, when in reality he's a young lad with decent potential who needs to work on parts of his game. Or, of course, you could write him off. Up to you.

Not a lot of control of the game, shows how much we rely on Shelvey. Oh and Dummett is piss poor.