ImpossiblyDaft

"9 other lads"??? You're selling possibly the best gurner in world football short... The fact that none of Drinkwater, Noble, Antonio or Albrighton are going is absurd. That'd probably be a better midfield 4 than what you could make out of the squad.

The difference is that now there's a retail group getting shit-loads of positive free publicity from investing an order of magnitude less than the oil barons in their football team. And it's not his. So I'd imagine he'd try something, but it being the right something is... excessively optimistic.

Oh absolutely, there's double standards to hell and back on that front - I think a large part of it is they're too scared to take the flak for giving out cards for it, so it's only in cases where players are already sent off they get in trouble. Nobody's ever going to give a Rooney or a Terry a second yellow for dissent, and I can't remember the last time I saw anyone get a straight red for abusive behaviour. But after a second yellow, all the controversy is on whether it should have been a card or not, so they can get away with actually punishing people. If they give Vardy an extra game b

Rafa's not the instant impact type of manager though, is he? He's the sort with his way of doing things and it takes time to adapt a team to that (for instance, the 1 up front thing) - in the short term it might not pay off, but it absolutely would if given time.

Wins the main two counts, according to the BBC

He's probably said to the agent "hey, apply for that" but has a sneaking suspicion that after the agent said "sure thing, I'll get right on that, John!" and put the phone down, the agent started laughing and didn't do anything so as not to damage his reputation.

Why not? He's done rebuild jobs before, has a pretty strong track record in the Championship and is the sort of person who'll ditch all their lazy wasters. Seems like a decent enough fit.

Unlikely.

Probably written by some random media studies graduate who would have been about 3 years old at the time.

ego?

Bollocks. soft but fair pen, borderline on the second pen shout and soft but fair second yellow. Don't see how you can blame Wasilewski for going for that though. It was past 94, but the ref was clearly going to let them pump it back in.

It's a case of having to balance out underinvestment, sure, but £80m properly spent is a tonne of money. Spent in a mix of "this guy becomes worth £50m on Football Manager!" and "holy shit holy shit DO SOMETHING!", even £800m wouldn't help.

It's around the going rate these days though - McCormack, Rhodes, Ulloa, etc.

Maybe not the Southampton of this evening Short of a magical takeover by some billionaire in it purely for the ego, what would you suggest? Ashley suddenly deciding to spend huge sums of money consistently other than the odd panic splurge like the summer isn't going to happen. Leicester and Southampton are two examples of clubs where there are structures in place around recruitment, behind-the-scenes organisation, etc. that have allowed Southampton to challenge for Europe the last couple of years despite losing players, while Leicester's entire squad cost about what Ashley's summer pa

Manchester Utd reserves. The only Leicester players signed with significant (ruling out Nugent and Gary Taylor Fletcher, plus reserve team castoffs like DeLaet and Wood) PL experience were Konchesky, Simpson, Albrighton, Huth, Upson and Schwartzer and this season, loaning Nathan Dyer. Three past-its (of which only Konchesky made a significant contribution), a bang average player and three quality players who weren't wanted at Villa/Stoke/Swansea for whatever reason. Direct experience is useful but a focus on team fit and character (yeah Simpson is a scumbag) along with skills and bei