Rayvin

Doesn't help that he technically spat on a 14 year old girl mind, rather than her dad.

Aye but that's just football. If he played for Liverpool and someone came along and offered them £50m then yeah, they could probably turn that down. But £70m? £100m? No matter who was in charge of us, based on where we are in the league, £50m would see Lascelles away. And it's more than enough to replace him with.

Aye but Lascelles is the player he is thanks in part to Rafa. If we get another decent young prospect for him to develop then who knows. Or two.

If we sold Lascelles for £50m, we could get a decent replacement with that. Probably two. I don't want to see the lad go but £50m, even in today's market, would be a good deal for us. Also, tbf to Ashley, if we end up signing the loan players we brought in at the end of the season (Slimani aside) then I'm tempted to argue that the 'try before you buy' deal is actually a good arrangement. We brought in good players in positions that we needed. Ashley just needs to keep hold of Rafa. If he can do that, I'm confident we'll be ok, short, medium and long term.

I suppose it depends to some extent but realistically we should be able to improve assuming that a full year of the TV revenue being behind us is actually making us profitable. I can't think of any of our players that would be losing value at the moment, based on recent buys anyway, so any sales should be at profit also. I think the thing with Rafa is that he seems to be able to positively develop players in a way that managers like Pardew, Allardyce, the usual shite, don't seem to be able to. Those managers need to keep buying to improve. Rafa can improve just by continuing to work with his team. So while it will be a slow process, I think we can assume that players will be sold at profit from the first team, and that this means we are able to buy better 'base' players for Rafa to develop into an improvement on the ones we sold. Yeah it relies on the manager being here for the long term to be sustainable, but I think that has to be the hope.

I reckon he can - I don't think there's any way of us breaking into the top with Ashley there, but I think Rafa can make us a solid top ten side.

Not saying we should trust him or he will behave any differently, just saying that it's not like Rafa won't understand this.

Exactly. They will have more options at the end of the season and can start talking to people and avoiding a panic replacement now. Although I guess it becomes more difficult for them if Pardew continues to lose every game.

Yeah but if promises being broken was going to be an issue he'd be out the door at the end of the season anyway. It's not like he hasn't been lied to already. If Ashley sticks to this "the club can spend what it generates" bit, then at least that's something.

I would argue that it needs to be a pitch invasion with a relocation of the corner flag. It's the West Ham way, after all.

Aye, can't be overstated how important Lascelles is for us. Great to have such a likeable player as captain. Also, encouraging that Rafa and Ashley are now speaking? All this talk of Benitez leaving at the end of the season may not come to fruition, hopefully. And the longer he stays, the more you expect he won't want to go - especially if we are still making progress.

They're down anyway. Make him stick with them until they are actually relegated and sack him at the end of the season. No one they bring in now is going to make any difference.

Still think he's going under the radar a bit though which is helping us.

Haha well if you are actually good at air shots thats some progress tbh. Will have to check this out at some point.

You're confusing a solution to a particular problem with something I personally desire.

Based on that, and Palace's defeat, we're at least 4 points clear of the bottom now. 5 if Stoke lose tomorrow (I assume they play tomorrow). Starting to look a bit more clever.

Steele He'll be crucified for that on RTG, they already hate the guy.

I could find an example of me saying I prefer a centrist vision, as I know I've said as much in the past week, but you already know this so it would be wasted effort

As I keep saying, I'm a centrist. Just don't believe the centre stands a chance without swinging hard right or left first. Prefer left.

I did this also.

You just want the left split. Thats all it will achieve and you know it. There is no viable way for the centre left to get back into this before the next election. Afterwards sure, beforehand, no. The Tories fucked up so hard last time out that they legitimised Corbyn for an entire term. If you dont like what the Tories are doing now, you only have yourself to blame though. You had the chance to vote centre left in the past and didnt. Dont blame the left because we got sick of waiting. And Labour did talk about tax rises so i dont know why you think they lacked honesty in that.

AFK = Away From Keyboard

Yeah sounds like an AFK Happens - annoying in 1v1 though.

Yeah no, you have to search again when the game ends.

In 1v1 it just ends the game when you opponent quits. Other modes if there is still at least 1 human player on the other team, bots will be used and the game will continue.