Gemmill

Yorkshire ecky thump doesn't count.

Howe has decided how he'll be reintegrated. His teammates aren't shunning him. And yeah, I think he stays here until we find a replacement or next summer, whichever comes first. I'm not saying he's gonna be delighted about it but the reality is that we don't have to sell him if we don't want to.

You think the sun might not come up tomorrow man.

We've still got Isak to score goals man. We'll hopefully get Wissa to support him. There's still time to get a centre mid and a new centre back.

As soon as they've got Dango unchained, we're in.

Dear me. How is our fan base this boring?

I haven't watched the video but Downie is on some podcast and the gist of what he's saying is that we were damaged in this window by what happened with Ekitike. I think there's something to that - it was a very high profile rejection in favour of Liverpool, at a time when they'd also made it very clear that they were coming for our best player. Reputationally that was a massive blow, a very public get back in your box moment. People take notice of stuff like that and now Sesko has happened. HOWEVER! People also have short memories. We just need to get a few of these squad strengtheners over the line in the next few weeks, and have a good season, and all will be forgotten. Next summer we need a change of tack in terms of transfer approach, as handled by our new DOF, and we need to handle Isak's departure with the absolute minimum of fuss and gnashing and wailing. It wouldn't hurt if we could do some of our business in the January when most everybody else is keeping their powder dry.

I think all that's happened is we've had a horrible transfer window, derailed in part by Eales/Mitchell, and then taken all of the way off the tracks by Isak. We'll get sorted. We aren't gonna be pied by every player from now until the end of time. As a very wise man once said, we've got to pick waselves up and dust waselves off.

Fucking hell lads, I was making a joke/point about Staveley maybe not being the unimpeachable golden child. THAT'S ALL! Be as calm or as uncalm as you like. But please understand, I'm not trying to control your levels of calm.

Amanda was involved in the appointment of Eales, wasn't she? LADS I'M JUST SAYING! CALM DOWN!

Man United fans have organised an opening day "Jim Can't Fix This" protest for their televised game v Arsenal. Welcome to Manchester, Bryan, Benjamin, and Mateus.

Has anyone watched the "reimagining" of War Of The Worlds with Ice Cube. Cos I fucking have. It's on Prime, and it's MGM (aka Amazon) so of course one of the main characters is an Amazon driver who wears his uniform with the "Prime" logo in view throughout. And OF COURSE they eventually defeat the baddies by ordering something to be delivered by Amazon drone. And I'm not sorry for the spoilers because it is impossible to spoil this film. And anyway if you watch it after what I've just told you, you deserve what you get.

Genuinely the WORST bit of oh I'm bilingual don't you know bragging I've EVER heard.

Watch out for the kiss-cam! Don't want the wife finding out.

Good morning our fan base! How are we all today?

Don't tell me Transfer Sector has run it?

Where's this Liverpool want Wissa story coming from? It sounds like high jinks. And it's too early in the morning and too late in the transfer window for high jinks.

Is it not our fan base's bedtime yet?

As soon as I saw I was on his phone I engaged turbo waddle mode, caught up with him, and had to keep stopping to let my dog sniff things so I could hear a bit of what he was saying. We came to a fork in the path, and I was ahead of him. I gambled right, and he went left, so that was the end of the scoop. I genuinely did hear him say that Eddie had sounded low when he spoke to him, then he mentioned Pedro, Mitchell, and that he didn't know if he was being paranoid but that sounded like deliberate sabotage of a transfer deal to him. Next level commitment to the task from me.

That was the phone call I overheard Luke Edwards on when I was eavesdropping on him when we were both walking our dogs.

"our club" "we" So convincing.

Mate you're overdoing it a bit with the "we" and the "our fan base". Dial it back a bit and you'll have us all under your spell.

I think we had to go through this window to discover all of the above though. There's obviously a change of tack required now, but there's also an awful lot of wisdom after the fact - no one was complaining when they heard we were interested in these players, in fact they were excited at the prospect. But to listen to them now, you'd think this was a terrible idea from the start.

You need a mix of youth and experience, and there's nowt wrong with buying 29 and 30 year olds as long as you get the contracts right. Not everyone can and should have sell on value.