Rayvin

Do West Ham look all that appealing though? They're more likely to be in a relegation fight than we are at this point...

We looked decent against Spurs until Shelvey was sent off.

I agree with that assessment but was just expecting this anyway this season. Think we'll end up 14/15th personally.

Maybe, but we beat West Ham without him (granted at home). Optimism probably is misplaced though.

Suppose so but I do believe the team is better than we're giving it credit for, assuming we can avoid people being suspended. Chronically lacking in quality in depth, but the first team is ok IMO. It is what it is. Rafa hasn't quit yet though.

As ever, I'm very prepared to accept that Charnley has failed us in negotiations in some form. I do wonder about how much money was available. Moreover, we spent £12m on Murphy - I mean that's fine, but not if he's one of two significant buys for the summer. We could have spent that on Gibbs or someone useful.

If we accept that the club simply didn't have money this summer (which, if I recall, is what HF was saying early summer) - then none of this should be a surprise. Charnley even made a statement to that effect back in May. Realistically, we've bet everything on Rafa being able to keep us up. If we go down, we won't be as financially vulnerable (I suppose) and if we stay up, we should be in a position to kick on next year. The market may even have calmed somewhat. Huddersfield and Brighton - firstly, I'm guessing their financial situation was different to ours. They hadn't just had to tighten their belts from being relegated, and I assume have built things up sustainably. But secondly, they've bet everything on not going down. If they do go down, I imagine that they'll be in trouble. The real problem we'll have is that if the club makes £50m profit this year from TV deals or whatever, Ashley might pocket a substantial amount of it to pay off the loan.

I do I just think the rest of the division is so shit we'll still be fine.

I kinda get that there's a process we're all going through here but is it honestly conceivable that Rafa didnt know how much we had to spend at least in the past month? I doubt today has surprised him. But who knows. Either way, he's here for now and if he sees out the season, will probably ensure we dont get relegated. After that, we probably will have money to spend. #optimism

Ok let's calm down a bit. No one really expected we'd do anything anyway ffs. We still won't go down. And I'm sceptical about whether or not Rafa will just leave. Although if a better offer comes along we could be in trouble.

Was trying to help rather than be a pedant.

@Happy Face

If we spend, it'll be in January I guess. If we're looking like going down. To think we spent £80m two years ago on McClaren...

Swansea actually did get Sanches. That's Ant done then...

Why are we doing Brighton a favour by loaning them Krul...

£10?

Yep, absolutely no fucker made that clear. One of the main arguments we were having across the nation was a) how suicidal such a thing would be, and b] how pointless Brexit would be without doing it. If Farage had come out and said that this was the plan, the latter point would never have been in the discussion.

We all know where this is going to end up

He's surely not going to go back to Sunderland though, they fucking hate the guy

Well I didn't actually read it ffs.

It was definitely a journalist but I didn't think it was Hardy. The journo in question later admitted he made it up... slightly concerning that Hardy still thinks it's true.

I can't wait until they're back on the map as a vaguely normal country. The stories those people must have...

I would have absolutely no problem with China just taking North Korea themselves. I suspect that'll be what happens in the end, one way or another.