acrossthepond

Some real plums on that record signings list. Hernandez, Soldado, Carroll (x2 ), Mitroglou, Osvaldo, van Wolfswinkel, Samba, Bent at Villa, Boselli, Gyan, Alves, Elmander...Owen...

Two utterly rubbish players. If those are getting a look in for our first team this year we're fucked. Ferguson couldn't get playing time for a dire Brum side in the 2nd division and Marveaux is a downgrade on basically every midfielder we have.

Advocaat actually confirmed they have indeed been forced to sign said knacker and are now looking to offload him to basically anyone.

What a terrible set of fixtures that is. I would've thought with all the ridiculous penny-pinching that goes on with this club we would've played more home matches to bring in ticket revenue. Instead we're spending the summer off on tour at non-league sides, Mexican teams, third division USA teams...what the actual fuck. Who plans these? Did Penfold hoy darts at a map of the world while having a stroke?

At this rate we'll be lucky if we spend 6m. The new Ashley dawn isn't looking too rosy. Surprise surprise. Hope nobody renewed on the back of that load of panicked bullshit.

Under normal circumstances I'd snatch their hands off too. Tiote is useless now, a complete liability, not worth more than 3m, and we mostly did without him last season so he'll not be much of a miss. Cisse is an ongoing debate but if we had a quality replacement in or lined up I'd say take the money. Of course we don't have a replacement and we don't look like getting one either.

I think it is time to get shot of Cisse to be quite honest. He's never fit, he misses weeks at the AFCON, he spends the time he is here and fit suspended, and he offers nothing in terms of all around play. He's a cracking finisher and has let loose a few corking goals that we'll never forget, but he does nothing when we don't have the ball and without quality service he's a passenger. The same criticisms being leveled at the potential signing of Bas Dost can be applied to Cisse. Selling him without a quality replacement would be idiocy, though, which is exactly therefore what I expect to happen.

We'd be willing to listen to offers for any of our players, even if the offer in question came from a tramp holding out a half-finished bottle of Glenfidditch.

There are people in the far north who fast those ridiculous hours, but the commonly accepted practice is that if you are faced with a sunrise-sunset cycle that is unreasonable, to pick a place in the world (usually your own home city or Mecca) and fast as if you were there.

A very happy Ramadan to you as well. It's going to be a tough one this year I reckon, with the bairn teething just as I start. A week left in school as well. The little shits are about to see a side of me they never dreamed existed. "No, I don't give a fuck if Adolfo threw an eraser at you! Do you realise I haven't eaten since 4 in the fucking morning? Shrivel up and die you little cunt! Let me call your slag of a mother in here so I can tell her all about the birth control she should've employed some twelve years ago!"

Colo has become fucking rubbish and needs to be dispensed with. Obviously he was not helped by partnering Iron Mike but he has proven himself spineless at the time when spine was most needed. If we are starting another season with him as captain and first choice centre back we are in real trouble.

Are we STILL being linked with Florian Thauvin? That ship sailed a long time ago. Hasn't he transferred twice since we were first cited as being interested like four years ago?

"Howay, Hatem lad, bet you can't eat eight of these!" "Meester Carver, ees zat a challenge?"

Easy to gain weight when Carver's training regimen consists of Greggs pie scoffing contests.

Why are you still engaging that guy, Fish? Let it go. He's a wum and he's getting the attention he wants. Same with that drunken Aussie.

Great start, a player any bottom half club and several of the top half would have in a heartbeat. Adding Berahino to Austin and Perez would be more excellent business.

I'm cautiously optimistic about the entire setup, as many of you are. McClaren wasn't my first choice (or anyone's I don't think) but he's here now and it's time for the club to support him, not hang him out to dry like they did with Hughton, Pardew, and indeed even Carver. Speaking of the Wallsend Mourinho, hoying out dumb & dumber and planning to spend the Pardew compensation money on building a coaching team that the manager actually wants sounds like a good plan. It's just one of the common sense things that our club has been failing to do for years now. The fact that we are now publicly disavowing that bullshit line about "you get relegated if you try to win a cup" may end up being nothing but lip service, but fuck me, it's less depressing than listening to Penfold mumble about how the Premier League is the club's only priority.

Aye, fuck off you decrepit dictator, it'll not save you now. All your filthy laundry from the last 40 years is about to come out.

.com reporting it's McClaren on Carr's advice - don't see anything like that anywhere else, do they know something we don't?

Still have Dragon Age: Inquisition, Far Cry 4, AC3 and AC4 to finish before a new game. Haven't played 1 or 2. Is it like Dragon Age or more like Skyrim?

Meanwhile, this is who Sky Sports claim West Ham are talking to... http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11685/9872069/west-ham-discussing-managers-job-with-frank-de-boer-unai-emery-slaven-bilic-and-marcelo-bielsa

Rather Vieira than McClaren. Shteve was fine when we were 3 games from relegation and needed somebody who knew what he was doing to save us, but now that we've stopped up we really should be aiming higher than somebody who ended the season with 2 wins out of 12 or something like that. That record is Pardewesque.

Ben Arfa v. Blackburn was an FA cup goal and that was fucking cracking.

Well I'll say it, I fucking am. Ashley might do it just to piss us off again because his feelings were hurt that we sang nasty songs about him on Sunday. We were all terrified about it during the run-in, why is it now that the danger has passed that Carver will be appointed full time? Because Ashley will have learned from his mistakes? Sorry, he doesn't do that trick. If not Carver it'll be someone of commensurate shitness. O'Leary perhaps? Dennis Wise? Malky Mackay?

He's like everyone else who comes on here with an axe to grind. For the first few posts it's an entertaining and sometimes thought-provoking new way of looking at things, then it starts to get like "aright mate, change the record", and finally it becomes mind-numbing tedium. 500+ posts in 2 weeks and no sign of stopping. Time to slap him on the ignore list and move on.