Verbal

That's nothing. I had to rely on hand-written updates via the Pony Express.

You are Sam the Eagle and I claim my £5.

You *actually* think that?

Odd that no one has reacted to this. It's as if it's just a tad inconvenient.

So pure speculation then.

Has that ever happened?

Well you wouldn't consider turkish's (I actually think inflated) '1/10' acceptable. In the UK that would mean we have seven million racist abusers. As you say, zero tolerance is the only way, and we were making progress until populism became all the rage. Now, not so much...

Announced. Good signing!

You have something sheep-related in mind?

MLG isn't being pedantic here. He's just right. And what dictionary gave that definition? It's weird.

Crook + Nixon = Watergate, so no one. Good signing, shirt-back confusion aside.

Harry Wilson off to a good start at Fulham, scoring on his debut (though I'm waiting for the inevitable late Boro equaliser). He seems a decent signing.

In English, we say 'two out of three words.'

The sight of posters trying, and abysmally failing, to out-pedant MLG is hilarious.

He might, but - excuse me while I lose my mind for a moment - if Real Madrid also come in for him, where does that leave Chelsea? Doesn't the buy-out become a base release clause for anyone else?

From this season, every contract signed is subject to psychiatric evaluation. If we get a new striker, that is expected to be psychopathic.

You're having way too much fun with your superpower to trigger.

You are Marvin the paranoid android and I claim my five pounds.

Learn. More. Slang.

You might want to think about taking Guardiola out of that list.

What does it say about the culture of a club that this could happen in the first place? You could imagine one idiot mouthing off, but three of them suggests there's more than a 'bad apple' problem.

I doubt there's anything in his contract that requires him to stop balls going into the net. 'Best endeavours' is the legal lingo, standing in this case for 'you look tall - I wonder if you'll ever stop a daisy cutter dribbling past your far-distant ankles.' It's also difficult to write legalese for 'FFS come off your line for crosses sometimes.'

It's something that's been pioneered by a few clubs like Brighton. Bring in an experienced pro in their mid-30s with the promise only that they'd play a few games but will get the chance to earn coaching badges, get coaching experience etc. As a player he then essentially mentors on the pitch. Brighton and others claim it speeds up young player development.

In general, fixed-term contracts can have notice periods too but that's not the case with professional football contracts. Rules of mitigation can theoretically still apply though. So if a player is released early from his contract and is fully paid up, then finds another club immediately a balance of the pay-off (depending on whether he's been able to secure the same, worse or better wages) is repaid. These rules, however, are usually negotiated away - say, with a pay-off that isn't the full amount of the contract that's outstanding.

I've said this before (but got no likes for it, you utter bastards) - Armstrong's performance last season was pretty extraordinary. He scored 28 goals in a faltering team (Blackburn finished 15th) - which was more than half of all Blackburn's goals. Despite their poor season, Blackburn finished with a goal difference of plus 11 (better than Barnsley who finished 5th) and scored almost as many goals as Swansea who finished 4th. He seems worth a punt.