The Kraken

My god you’re still doing this? Christ you must be bored. What a life.

Fare thee well, crisp packet wrists. Tbf his ‘best’ moment for the red and white stripes wasn’t even with us.

Agreed. I also think they forget what he could do for us. I’ve heard him termed as a crab merchant many times, but he needs one more to bring up 50 goals in his career for us. Was it Everton away he scored, in his final season? A burst through from midfield and a cracking finish. Probably need to temper expectations that we’re not getting the player we sold in 2023. But he’s always been a solid pro who was regularly putting in the most miles on the pitch. Him Downes and Jander, yes please. And just give him the armband back, another reason to jettison captain Jack.

Hopefully he’ll replace our guy who can sometimes switch on.

If anything it’s a massive advantage to have knowledge of a resource that is a high footballing level but significantly lower in price than paying English tax. A strange criticism.

Maybe that's how its done in computer games. I wouldn't know.

JWP called him baldie when they were at Notts Forest. Allegedly. Edit: already covered....

Hopefully so. It was rumoured he was on £100K - £120K a week when signing for WH. It's also rumoured that WH players have endured a 50% relegation clause, so current earnings £50K-£60K a week at a guess. Which is too high, I'd say, even for 2 years. I have no evidence for this whatsoever, but it's not inconceivable that the £1M or so fee to WH could be going directly to JWP from them as a payment to consolidate the lesser wages he'll be earning here for his final year. So bringing him 'down' to about £40K a week which supposedly some other of our players are on. Dunno, just throwing it out there.

Sky Sports / Beeb reporting that Imran Louza looks set to go to Panathinaikos. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c4gv5g5l3y5o

Would make some sense if a loan fee could be avoided and, even better, West Ham would pay some of his wage. Think both of those unlikely though, could probably avoid one but not both.

I’m undecided on how I feel about the JWP ‘news’. Probably boils mostly down to money and what it does for us in other areas. He was supposedly in £100K a week with us, and it was reported his West Ham salary was 110 or 120. If we assume a 50% relegation clause, that’s still a huge wage to sign up for someone who turns 32 before Xmas. Also depends what sort of player he thinks he is. I remember the season he was top scorer for us with double figures; and as much as he gets called a crab, from 2018/19 his league goals per season record was 7, 5, 8, 10, 9. Granted, likely pens and free kicks in there, but to call him effectively a plodder isn’t quite right. As I say, age and money the factors for me. If there’s a low fee and reasonable wages to be had then ok, but a fee and upwards of £60k a week even for one season is too much IMO and would likely restrict us elsewhere. 1 week to go of the UK window, going to be interesting.

Ah dice football. An absolutely rainy day, bored at home, favourite. Sounds like the rules you will play might be a bit different from the one I learnt from my pals. Mine were: Using the News of the World football annual, create a squad of 22 player names (flick to random squad pages and pick random first name then surname from the players there, repeat for the whole squad) Create a team name and have them take the position of one side in the division, get the fixture list for the season Pick your match day XI: 1 is keeper, 2 and 3 full backs, 5 and 6 CBs, 4 and 8 CMs, 7 and 11 wingers, 9 and 10 strikers Roll two dice 90 times. If you get a double six, it’s a goal in that number roll/minute. Odd number minute goals are for the home team, even numbers for the away team. Roll 3 dice and add them all up. Then count up to 11 (and count back down again if your total was over 11) to get the player number of the goal scorer. 3 double sixes was a right back scoring. I can’t remember exactly how I did results for the rest of the league with it was much quicker, something like roll 2 or 3 dice and work something out, I’ll see what the OP rules are Think I often used to spend hours configuring a squad of 22, then designing and colouring in my home and away kit. Still many happy memories of Gordon Jordan whacking them into the net.

He was definitely looking for it. I think it was probably likely to be a foul anyway as the defender barged into the back of him, but it was extremely theatrical. In that position I'd kind of prefer an attacker to be doing all he can to get a shot in on goal rather than look for the pen, but I'm probably nitpicking. I haven't seen a replay of the through ball to him yet; at the time it looked miles offside but the TV camera was a bad angle and not showing the whole pitch so I'd imagine it was much closer than first thought.

Yep, really awful. From the sounds of it, the police didn't follow them up the wrong way of the dual carriageway, they pursued on the correct side of the carriageway. The police who werf hit were investigating it though as there were said to be "multiple" reports of offences at the time regarding the car.

Penalty all day long. The reaction of the defender, Hall, said it all, he was devastated with himself.