Rayvin

They do, but then in January they've got Burnley and Villa at home, which could be a fairly routine 4 points, maybe 6.

Kinda bored so I just used one of those table predictor things to see how December will look based on at least what I think some of the results will be. I have us bottom of the league on 11 points by mid-Jan which is the earliest we can probably expect transfers to come in. 4 points behind 17th and a further 4 points behind 16th. So IMO it becomes a 4 way fight between ourselves, Norwich, Burnley and Watford. While it remains a 4 way deal, I think it's possible we survive. Only 4 points back by mid-Jan wouldn't be too bad - and I've pretty much assumed the worst throughout, I mean we may well shithouse a point or 3 here and there anyway. EDIT - a better way of looking at it perhaps might be that if we get a single win between now and mid-January, I don't think we'll go down

All fair, this in particular I'll agree with vehemently.

Could it not be a relevant asset in terms of advertising for other parts of the portfolio? i.e. the same thing Ashley was doing. I'm just saying I'm wary of getting carried away until we've seen them walk the walk. Granted it's far too early to expect them to have done that so far, but on the other hand it's far too early to assume we'll be a superclub, especially since they haven't outright said it (and yes, I do appreciate your suggested reasons on why they could have done that, but while that stance would indeed be sensible, it doesn't prove anything). I would be very encouraged by the signings you've mentioned there. Equally though, I wouldn't write the superclub vision off even if we did hardly anything in January and went down. We just don't know what this will look like in the end.

I would have agreed a few weeks back but I'm now starting to wonder if this is a lot less about sportwashing and a lot more about PIF diversifying its holdings. If it's the latter then who knows what their angle is longer term - but given how things have gone so far I actually believe it's quite possible that they didn't really give due consideration to how much work would be required of them to turn us into a competitive club. The fact that they've come in with no one on board who is really abreast of the football side of things continues to bother me on this front. The fact that we're kind of making it up as we go along doesn't suggest 'future global heavyweight'. I do want to make clear that if they turn us into a vaguely competitive club that stands a chance of winning literally any trophy in my lifetime, I'll be more than happy, Delighted even. But I'm going to stop assuming that we're going to be a superclub until we actually start looking like one. Until the money is spent and the plans firm up, I'm reserving judgment.

Liverpool and City challenge each year, and sometimes they win it. It would be quite possible for them to challenge each year without winning it though - see us in the 90s as a reference. All I'm saying is that there is a clearly defined semantic difference between saying we're challenging for honours and that we intend to win them. Maybe that difference is too much for this guy. I would imagine West Ham see their goal as challenging for the title btw. Doesn't mean they're ever going to win it.

Challenging for the title means being in the conversation - I think that puts you top 3. I mean fair enough, but challenging isn't winning, is all I'm saying.

I don't think we should entirely dismiss the idea that we may not be intending to become the superclub that we have all assumed we're aiming to be though. No one has outright said we're aiming for total dominance in the style of City or PSG.

Maybe he wanted heavy spending in January to keep us up and the owners are resigned to relegation if it comes. I could see a year in the championship putting him off.

Fucking Stevenage Our lower league nemesis. Although I guess Sunderland deserve an honourable mention there.

Delighted Thank fuck for that.

It's in the bag lads, Uri has us covered.

Howay man, it's about time our luck turned. We're going to smack the shit out of Burnley and then use that momentum to get an improbable result against one of the two Manchesters. We may as well just fucking go for it at this point.

Times reporting we've offered Lingard in excess of £100k a week on a 4.5 year deal.

Self published presumably because no publisher worth their salt would touch it

How old is he actually? He looks like he's a teenager but he mentions dropping out of uni so he must be at least 18. If he's serious about these signed photos then either he's doing a lot better than we think he is, it's gone to his head and he's lost all perspective, or he's having us on. I could maybe actually see the latter. I agree though, the culture of the city doesn't lend itself to this sort of posturing and people will fall over themselves to put him in his place. There's a way he could do this and be successful, but I'm not sure this is it.

It's amazing. I don't really want to throw up two Steve Wraith comparisons in as many days, but the shoe certainly seems to fit Hopefully the response will be humbling for him.

Hahaha that's incredible. I don't see why the Chinese would take issue with it though since their's looks like this: 四

It's unlucky due to being pronounced the same as the word for death. They have apartment blocks over there that skip out the numbering of the 4th floor. And the 13th. You're also not meant to stand chopsticks up in your rice like rugby goalposts because it looks like the chinese character for the number 4. That said, I can't see the 4 on our strip

There is that.

If Rafa left Everton and remained available to the end of the season, and we end up going down, would anyone be up for switching Howe for him? I'd be half tempted. Not that I don't think Howe could do it, but if we end up going down then clearly he won't have had the impact on the team that we all would hope - and Rafa has got us out of there before, knows the players already, and was always the plan anyway. Or has that ship now sailed for good?

Aye I looked it up myself in the meantime. My dad is an Everton fan so I was pretty confident it had been a fair old while.

It's coming up to 70 years since they were last in the second tier Not that this proves they can't go down, but I really just don't see it.

Everton never get relegated and if they stick with Rafa I really don't see it. How long have they been in the top flight uninterrupted now? Half a century?

If this is true, I think we can assume that this is the end of things for our plans for world domination. I wonder if they know they can't have both?