Cartman

As far as FIFA are concerned, those clubs will no longer exist therefore neither will the contracts. The players would be free to move to any club that is still affiliated.

So now that the 12 clubs are going to be expelled and disaffiliated, presumably their players will now be available on free transfers. Who would we like? Oblak? Ter Stegen? Bring back VVD, Mané and Shaw?

Clinging on to the theory that we have been half-arsing the league with nothing to play for and the Saints of November 2019 to December 2020 will turn up tomorrow.

Oilseeds (soybean, palm oil and others) are responsible for 18% of deforestation. Pasture for cattle farming is 41%, so if you care about the rainforest stop eating beef.

I'm not the one outraged about a World Cup in Qatar. Or the US for that matter. But I doubt we will see these same petitions and protests in 4 years time. By the way, there are 2.3 million migrant workers in Qatar. The 6500 figure is the total that have died over the last 10 years, for any reason, employed in any job. There is a lot of anti-Qatari propaganda around, since they aren't exactly on friendly terms with the US-Israel-Saudi-UAE alliance from hell. They are no angels, but this campaign isn't happening for innocent, humanitarian reasons, and certainly not driven by people who care about that.

Will there be a petition to boycott the 2026 World Cup in the US? It would be hypocritical not to.

Myth, it started before that in December. It's just that Liverpool's own horrific form started at the same time as ours.

Think the loan was taken to do an overhaul of the squad with a large number of £5-15m players. A good time to do it as a lot of clubs will probably be willing to sell for less in exchange for cash up front.

As far as I can tell they have never even played on opposing teams, so there is no reason for them to know each other. As good as a photo of him signing a contract for me, that. Welcome to Saints Patson!

Well worth his place in the squad, but not as starter. We should have two forwards who better than him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRDWeTiosNs This guy is the top scorer in the Turkish league. 24 years old, 1 year left on his contract with a newly promoted team, 17 non penalty goals in 1711 minutes and from the highlights looks to have a very good all round game. Could be a decent option.

https://www.whoscored.com/Players/330549/Show/Gabriel-Gudmundsson Looks decent. Better than Vokins as backup at least.

Chelsea went down to 10 men early on in the game. We know better than anyone what happens after that.

Of course they aren't, in fact Hlozek has just a year left on his contract. Could probably get both for less than £30m combined.

So to you, a business relying on the revenue they generate is not sustainable. Sustainability is relying on handouts from the owner. Ok then. Leicester are where they are, and have built the squad they have got because of player sales. Maguire, Chilwell and Mahrez all sold for more than £50m, Kanté and Drinkwater sold for around £30m, plus a year of CL revenue. Their owners have not put in a single penny since promotion, not one. According to you, what Leicester have done is not sustainable, you should tell them that, I'm sure King Power would love advice from SKD of Saintsweb. We have spent the last 2 years cleaning up the mess left behind by the heiress and her minions, and Gao has been taking the flak for it. They gave Mark Hughes a 3 year contract FFS. You keep talking about us relying on player sales, we haven't sold a player for more than £15m since Van Dijk 3 years ago! Because we have had nothing worth selling, because we bought a load of dross. No player sales to worth mentioning, crap clogging up our wage bill, all thanks to Les, Wilson, Kat and that insufferable hockey coach. That is why it is sustainable for Leicester to have a transfer record that is double ours us despite being similar clubs, it would have been sustainable for us too if we had been well run between 2014 and 2018. But we were not, and we have had to deal with the consequences.

Your concept of being well run seems to be having an owner spending his fortune on a business with an annual turnover of £150m, it takes being backed by an oil producing country to make a difference when turnovers are at that level, your average billionaire isn't going to make much of an impact. Look at Everton, hundreds of millions spent to achieve nothing. The difference between us and Leicester is they bought players that increased in value, were sold, and with that money they bought more players. Whereas we, in 2017 and 2018, spunked money on duds who, not only have we not been able to sell, but whose wages we have had to pay resulting in an inflated wage bill. Which makes your crusade against Gao odd, because the people responsible for those fuckups were there when he bought the club and he has since sacked and replaced them.

So we are no different than Leicester, whose owners haven't put a penny in since promotion. What's the problem?

Depends on the trophy. The League Cup ? No. The Champions League? Yes. Ultimately I want us to be as good as we can possibly be, realistically for a club like us that probably means being good enough to win the Europa League. Would we be able to build a team good enough to achieve that in the Championship, assuming we obtained qualification by winning a domestic cup and were relegated the same season? Obviously not. So no, I don't want us to be Wigan.

Nah, we'll spend. 4th largest cash reserves in the league. A loan, yes, but we took it for a reason, lots of contracts going into their final year, depressed market for sellers, think we will go in for an overhaul of the squad.

Just seen Newcastle's remaining fixtures. They'll do well to even reach our current points total. We're fine.

Dan Sheldon (I think) reported a few months ago that Stephens had signed a new contract but transfermarkt still has him listed as out of contract in 2022. Anyone know anything?

It's unfortunate but inevitable that it would be people's first impression (it was mine too, things being as they are these days). But this guy does seem genuinely qualified for the job, a player in the lower leagues in England and Spain until 2015, masters degree in law, worked in employment law, CEO of Mallorca. The flack is unjustified.

Isn't it an odd coincidence that both our and Liverpool's form have fallen off a cliff at the same time? Boxing day to be exact, we drew with Fulham (we got 1 point from the previous 2 games before but they were Arsenal away and Man City) and Liverpool drew with West Brom after beating Palace 7-0 in the previous game. We have both been diabolical ever since.

Only has a year left on his contract too.

Hasn't impressed in Europe, bit of an Austrian League flat track bully. His team mate Sekou Koita is more impressive although he has a drugs ban until June because someone in his national team's medical department is an idiot and gave him and a team mate a banned substance. Abdallah Sima of Slavia Prague is someone to keep an eye on too.