David Kelly

I don't think Gouffran crosses much at all but either way I wouldn't call any of them typical wingers. Gillespie was a typical winger. We've had very few typical wingers here since then.

You think Gouffran and Atsu are more typical wingers? Atsu is another like Ritchie, who is left footed but likes to play on the right so he can cut in. And I'm not sure what Gouffran is but it's not a typical winger.

Do you really think his arrogance would allow that?

Aye they all go on about being shafted by the FA but he was getting pissed off with the lack of transfers (due presumably to the lack of funds) so I don't think he'd be desperate to go back there. Of course that was before he lost his job for being the right dodgy fucker that we'd always suspected he was. He might be concerned that he wouldn't have a lot of options now.

Watched Going Clear and My Scientology Movie recently. Really liked both of them. I didn't really know anything about Scientology other than the links with Cruise and Travolta so it's interesting to find out more about what they actually are. Which seems to be a (at the top level at least) bunch of loons running some sort of cult. I can't understand how they ever managed to get themselves classified as a religion as even at its best, it's really nothing more than a self help program as far as I can see. Of course the fact that they're so secretive makes it very difficult to get much information on what they actually believe. Cruise comes across as a right loon in that video there is of him talking about it.

Mind you, whoever came up with a bunch of jocks wearing pink strips wants looking at. Although I suspect it may have been an Englishman taking the piss out of them.

Apparently Scotland have to wear their pink away kit because their blue home kit will clash with our white one.

Think he still had a good record at Bournemouth last season tbf. I don't think he's as good a player as Townsend mind but I doubt he'll be too high on the list of players that need replacing should we go up.

I doubt we would have signed Ritchie if he'd stayed mind.

It's pretty much how a lot of people felt about us last season I reckon. Sport should be about trying to achieve something and all we were doing to was trying to hang on to our premier league status to keep the money coming in. I think they're doing the same yet they're also failing in their finances while trying to do it.

It's noticeable how much utter shite they've bought over the years.

The last few seasons they've relied on a few loan players to help get them through. This time they've signed two are woefully inadequate fore their needs. I'm still struggling to say they will go down as this is very similar to the way they have started the last three of four seasons and somehow they still manage to stay up. Surely this is one season too many though. It's interesting to see how a fair few of them seem to think that Moyes is almost completely to blame for it. Surely it's not difficult to see that if you keep doing the same shit year on year that only just keeps you up, sooner or later you are going to fall even a little bit short. And when 17th has been your ambition, a little bit short of that gets you fucked. So many of us saw how it was happening with us yet most of them are completely blind to it.

I agree with how Rafa will want to set up next season, but I don't really think it's the way we're playing now. Diame is basically playing as a forward. Perez is the nearest we really have to a number 10 but he's been poor (a couple of games aside) playing in that role. I do think we're nominally set up with a one striker one number 10 formation but without a real number 10 to play there, we're not really following through with it. So in that case, we might as well play two actual strikers rather than a striker and a midfielder who doesn't seem to know where to play.

Dunno, that's probably decent money for him, he's utter wank. But I know what you mean. They paid £5.5m for Love and McNair so surely Kaboul must be worth more than those two players who have barely played a first team game and have looked pretty shit when they have. It's not good negotiating by them. But the biggest problem is they buy shit players who play poorly for them. Who wants to pay much money for any of them.

Diame has always been a midfielder whenever I had seen him before. And I've seen him look an absolute beast there on a number of occasions. But he's failed to make any impact on games playing where he is for us. I don't think it's a technical problem, he just can't seem to get involved in the game. Perez looks more comfortable there but more often than not this season he's been poor when he's had the ball. It just seems to me that the position Diame is trying to take up means he's basically playing as a striker anyway. Surely we'd be better off using a striker to do that.

It is staggering to think that they are making the losses they making while getting the crowds they get (at the start of the games at least) and signing absolute shit. Yes they are probably paying the likes of Defoe and O'Shea big wages but it still seems odd. I reckon they must be still giving away shit loads of free tickets. Of course they never seem to make anything from selling their players either. Which is hardly surprising.

It's no criticism of Rafa to say that I'd like to see the two strikers given a go. Clearly you can't argue with the results he's getting but most of the time we've played with a poor looking Diame or Perez as a second striker. I don't see what we would lose in playing an actual striker in that role, and I think it could result in seeing the very best from both players. As I said though, we're getting the results the way we're going, so there's no great need to make the change. I generally wish the current trend of playing one up front would end though. Football is much more of a joy to watch with a partnership up front.

Balance has never impressed me even when I've seen him in county games. Obviously he does score runs at that level but he never looks comfortable at whatever level or format I've seen him in. It's always amazed me that he's been considered.

The second episode of the new season of Black Mirror is mildly horror. Not what you would call scary but (as always with Black Mirror) some good ideas.

We'd better hope so. I'm sure if they've paid any attention to these two matches they'll be looking to make them as spin friendly as possible though.

Can't see anything but an absolute thrashing in India.

Really they should have played Hameed. He's an actual opener isn't he? Much more likely to play there long term than Duckett.

Cracking good first goal for him yesterday. I really want to see him a gayle get a proper chance together. I think they'd absolutely terrorise this league.

Ballance has been a complete failure this year. Assuming Hales comes back in against India, I'd maybe give Duckett his position.

Make that a major collapse.