The Fish

I still think we could get £10-15m+ for Almiron, double that from a Saudi club. Lascelles should still command a good fee (£5-7.5m) But the rest will be nominal and mostly beneficial in terms of relieving some of the wage bill.

Well he's had his say on Hannibal Lecter, so I can only assume he's going go off on one about Hans Gruber

I'd be delighted if we could offload this lot for anything like their 'Market Value' on Transfermarkt.co.uk; Almiron - €20m Ashby - €1.2m Dubravka - €1m Fraser - €3m Hayden - €1.8m Lascelles - €7m Lewis - €3.5m Targett - €10m Total €47.5m

Ok, now that you've got me all hot and bothered, what's your point?

Bit of both, surely? We were crying out for depth last season. Hopefully all the players we're signing for the U21s and players like Kelly, Osula and Pivas should be providing depth. Buuuut we need to buy upgrades for Almiron and Lascelles. Either pushing them down the pecking order, or out of the conversation entirely. We also need to offload Dubravka, Targett, Lewis.

They might just be sponsors for the Sela Cup.

Pivas is an unknown, but I'm convinced he's the next Lee/Batty/Beardsley Osula would be getting people in a tizz if he was signed from Osasuna rather than Sheffield Kelly is a decent PL utility defender, who would elicit more excitement if he came with a fee. Ruddy must surely be some coaching/PSR/Homegrown fiddle Vlachodimos was a thank you for them buying Wood and Shelvey and a PSR fiddle Hall is fucking mint

I think there's more to it than that. And it's not like the decision makers don't have other things on their plates. There'll be gamesmanship as well, the player advisers to take a bit of time to deliver their response just in case another party comes in with a better offer. And I'm sure we'll be looking at other targets and seeing if there's movement on them that might make this bid redundant.

Or any film where a white person joins a native population as an enemy, only to eventually become their saviour; Lawrence of Arabia, Last Samurai, Last of the Mohicans, Dances with Wolves, Dangerous Minds, Blind Side. Avatar. Any film where there's a parking space right outside where the character needs it Nobody ever going to the toilet Any romantic comedy, ever Any film where the only thing the girl needs to do to become suddenly hot is take off her glasses. Any film where the police are competent

Aren't all movies set in alternate Universes?

Thing is, the classics like X-Men, Fantastic Four and Spider-Man had either already been done (to varying degrees of success), or were owned by other studios. Branching out into B-tier characters was the best idea Marvel had. Now, however, they're rooting around in the B-Tier box and just pulling any old shite and trying to force a connection to current stable, without thinking about anything else. I haven't watched the Flash film. No real interest, to be honest. The original Superman film, Burton and Nolan's Batman movies aside, everything from DC has been fucking terrible.

I would do, but I like the stuff that these mooks are infecting with their toxicity. If we start picking at the names of superheroes, we're in real danger. Most are fucking stupid, even the most famous ones. It's just familiarity that's made them seem less ridiculous.

It's frustrating as the stories are already there, tons of them. Stories that could speak to whatever societal issue the filmmakers want to address, or whatever arc they want to cover. Instead they're rushing something together which doesn't have the tone or pacing that the originals have. Daredevil on Netflix got it right. Arguably so did Luke Cage and Jessica Jones. The early Marvel films got it right. But everything post-Endgame has been pretty fucking bad, to be honest. (Spiderman - No Way Home aside). No confidence in Thunderbolts, the FF movie, etc. Edit - And there were really good films that were a real departure from the source material like Ragnarok and Guardians. So you don't have to treat the comics as fucking gospel. Even Blade, which should be low-hanging fruit sounds like it's lost in the reeds. And now they've announced Downey Jnr is playing Doom. Which is just misplaced fan service in my opinion.

Yeah, I mean there are plenty of really good female characters, or gay characters, or whatever. Unfortunately, the writing for their screen adaptations have been pretty poor. I thought Ms Marvel was pretty well done, although I clearly wasn't the target market. The other issue is the neck bearded incels who think themselves the gatekeepers of what Marvel films/tv should look like. Review bombing the shows, which means any legit criticism is lost among a sea of cheeto dust and cry wanks.

Her comics are good. Way bette than the portrayal on the tv show, which was a bit of a meta mess

Most of the Star Wars stuff is terrible, not just because it's aimed at kids, but objectively terrible. Mandalorian was decent, as was Andor. Rogue One was better than any of the Star Wars films that came after the first released trilogy, I'd say it's better than the 3rd of that lot as well. I think the issue is that there's a huge appetite for this stuff, but instead of marketing it straight at that fanbase and using that buzz to attract more people, they try to make it appeal to everyone, which it won't. Same thing is happening with the Marvel movies. They started with some of their lesser known IP and delivered to the comparatively small market something that it wanted. As it grew, they're now trying and failing to keep pace with similarly obscure characters marketed to a wider audience. And of course everything has to be tied together.

Flintoff is dead canny. Wife was pregnant with out first and we went to Altrincham market for lunch one Saturday. Place is an old market hall turned into a food hall with all the kinds of food places and popular with people that most of you lot would fucking hate. Anyway, it's absolutely rammed and we're scanning around for a table, wife is doing the tummy rubbing thing to emphasise her pregnant belly. All of a sudden this fucking mountain of a bloke stands and waves us over, it's only bloody Freddy Flintoff. He hurries his kids off the table and chats with the wife about how far along she is and all that as they clear away their stuff. He shakes my hand as he leaves and honestly I've never felt so emasculated. Hands like fucking shovels, all rough and manly. Unlike my soft, never-done-a-hard-days-graft- mitts.

Cheers, She's back home now. Got another antibiotics jab this afternoon and we need to see the ophthalmology department to make sure her eye is ok. Back to her usual smiley self though, thank fuck. Could have done with this happening while the little lad was at school, mind you.

Sleep deprived. Little'un has cellulitis, had to take her into A&E this morning after fuck all sleep last night. Poor thing was waking every 20 minutes. I've had to take the day off to parent the lad.

What's up there lil buddy. Did they not even let you watch last night?

Kid's even got a "foreign" name, but because he's from Sheffield United and not Osasuna, there isn't the excitement. It's daft.

She'll be fine, this is much ado about nothing.

They still need a grown up to give them a lift up to the bars though, like they're toddlers.