The Fish

he wasn't even at the club was he? I loved watching Ben Arfa, but he's 3rd on the list of "Mercurial French Left Wingers".

I'll have to watch the latest Transformers movie, but I'd be staggered if it was better than Civil War, Cap 1. The other 3 aren't great films, Avengers AoU leant more towards everything that's bad with big blockbuster movies, but still retained some humour and benefited from already established characters. Civil War is a good blockbuster, plotchasms aside. If for no other reason than the big set pieces (Tunnel chase, Airport scene) were excellent bits of action cinema. Captain America is better on a second viewing imo, but I get the criticism. Thor 2 and Iron Man 3 were poor by Marvel's high standards, no doubt. I guess my problem with Transformers is that it lets itself down by not delivering anything that I expect from a big blockbuster. It's not fun, it's not funny, the editing and construction of action sequences is bewildering and oddly boring. The movies drag along and the perfunctory battles do little to quicken the pulse. I know it's all personal opinion, but you're the first person I've ever seen say they enjoyed any of them and it's surprised me.

Grayson may arrest the slide if he gets the right players in and starts well, but I just can't see them getting promoted this season, as it stands. They've no senior goal scorer, it looks like their creative players are on the way out (Khazri et al) and they've signed up John O'Shea for another year and if he is their 1st choice centreback, any side with pace will get plenty of joy.

Wasn't great, that's fair enough. I've not seen Bay's latest porno, but I'd be amazed if it was better than any of the recent Marvel films. Elektra, Daredevil, Ghost Rider, sure, but not the recent ones.

So is the Power Rangers movie, and even that is better than Bay's Transformers. More wit, more character, and so on. Disney movies are aimed at kids, for the most. Pixar too. They're not offensive horseshit Hells Bells, the Lego movies are better written, better directed than Bay's movies.

I was mostly joking, but the Transformers movies are utterly shit. Just curious, which Marvel movies did you enjoy less than the latest Transformers one?

You didn't enjoy it as much as Marvel films. You're a bright lad, with usually sound judgement so it's frankly not at all possible that you enjoyed this disorienting smashycrashy horseshit as much as Marvel's fare. Unless you're Chez-ing it up and "sometimes just fancy a kebab".

Bay's Transformers film have zero plot, zero time spent building the characters, they're CGI heavy, destruction-porn heavy, have terrible, terrible scripts and zero wit. They honestly had two characters who were racial stereotypes fighting a bad guy and the crux of it was a gag about robots having bollocks. The women in the films serve no purpose beyond giving the 2 dimensional leads something to rescue/ogle/roll their eyes at. They're awful films. Even the big set pieces are turd because the giant robots don't seem to have any weight to them. When characters from your childhood like Optimus Prime and Bumble Bee are clashing with their nemeses, you shouldn't be bored. I know I'm biased because I like Marvel's source material, but I was still very excited about Transformers. The early teasers looked cool, I was interested to see if, in a post Batman Begins time where an objectively ridiculous character was given new life, if Transformers could too? Bay's Transformers couldn't. These films don't even stack up against the cartoon movie from the 80s. Compare that to the biggest spectacle of the Marvel stable; the Avengers. Whedon took time to give each of the heroes a stake in the climax, the scripts were decent, there was humour and when the big CGI-fest appeared it felt more like the crescendo of a well-paced story, rather than something to distract us because it's been 5 minutes since Michael Bay blew something up. compared to tl;dr If the Marvel movies are Obama, Transformers are Trump.

This will be a boring match

You think we won't sign anyone in the Summer transfer window?

In a 46 page thread about Rafa Benitez

His eyes. He has kind eyes.

Wrong.

I still think he's a decent young lad and going to a Premier League club where he'll play a lot is best for him at this stage of his career. Dunno if he would have got that amount of starts for us.

I think Rodriguez is just one of those players that looks a good option because we haven't yet signed any one. Oh, by the way, this Lejeune kid is a waste of money apparently, a mackem saw him in an U21 game and he says he was shit, so...

They weren't world beaters when he suggest them though?

As has been said elsewhere, all criticism of Carr must take into account the nature of Ashley and his representatives. It was widely reported that Carr was scouting the likes of Lacazette, Aubameyang, Gameiro etc. And way before they were attracting the longing glances from the big clubs. If we held off purchasing those players he recommended because of £2m here of there (as was suggested) it's not really his fault, is it? Of course some of the links are bullshit, but sufficient to suggest he knows a decent player when he sees one. That said, he has suggested some players who flopped, players like Thauvin. Questions need to be asked about why we signed him when it was pretty clear that he wasn't a good fit for the Premier League and/or McClaren's style of football. But I imagine Carr provided Charnley et al with a list of players who he thought were undervalued, and regardless of the needs of the team the lad with the biggest margin to be made would be courted. Had the moneymen had at least one eye on the performances on the pitch, I think Carr's contacts and eye for an undervalued player could have been of benefit. Debuchy, Janmaat, Santon, Tiote, Cabaye, Sissoko, Wijnaldum, Ben Arfa, Ba, Cisse, were all good or great players for us. And if they were managed by a decent boss and could see ambition and not avarice they may not have been so fucking keen to leave.

Which podcast was that sirrah?

Good one de Charny

26/27 season, I've finished 7th a few times recently as ageing players aren't doing it and young players aren't ready yet. Sold fan favourites Marcus Rashford, Bart Ramselaar, Reine-Adelaide, Clement Lenglet for princely sums and dipped into the Wenger-esque reserves I've been accruing. So I've just spent £150m on players. I've 3 "World Class" talents on my books, Fucking Chelsea.

Staggered Essembee hasn't made a drunk driving/alcoholic link yet.

Big fine and community service?

Good piece. Always surprises me how little background work is done on people like this Alexander Jarvis.

We don't know how far along deals are, it's entirely possible that we sign two or three tomorrow for all we know. Far too many pants being pissed on twitter. Chronicle might not be getting the message across in the right way, in the right terms, but the jist is the same; Stop being massive fannies.