OhForAGreavsie

Daniel Levi and the people he works for are for too shrewd to make reckless gambles. I'm quite certain they have parcelled their cash-flow carefully around the loan repayment schedule. I suppose there must be a schedule but, if push comes to shove, the government will bust a gut to protect the Premier League. It's worth billions in tax revenue and value added to the economy. I'd say there is no danger that this story is anything other than someone adding 2 + 2 and making 700..

I would not have predicted it about Wiltshire but I never rated Gotze right from Dortmund 1 and said so. Another I never rated is Draxler but he's still getting good gigs which I have to admit surprises me. I'm still a non-believer though.

What we saw from Ben is that he was 'OK' not brilliant vs Palace. Certainly I don't feel it was enough to overcome the many 'glad we sold him' reactions from Leicester fans. A team's fans are, in my opinion, a valuable source of information on a player. What they think and say does not have to be the decisive factor but it's not worthless information. Not unless we all think we are completely wrong about the players we want sold. Would you advise any club to ignore your views on the Chelsea players you don't like and to pay tens of millions of pounds to buy them out of their Chelsea contracts? Ben can be good and that's positive. Frank really wanted him and that's very positive but many Leicester fans did not rate him as highly as Frank does and that's not nothing. The thing I like most about Ben's display vs The Eagles is that he's not afraid of his right foot. A very simple thing but it makes such a difference. For a player to not be a prisoner of his body shape, to not be forced to go back but be able to play a little 'round the corner' ball is huge. Four or five times a game it could equal forward momentum maintained rather than forward momentum completely squandered. I like Ben a lot just for that.

People tell me that this Khalid bloke is informative and entertaining but I'm annoyed about his 'sly dig' interpretation. It certainly lowers my opinion of the writer. After all, the observation that being at ease and feeling the confidence of fans/teammates/coaches enhances the ability to perform is just a statement of the obvious. I would say that it is almost certainly the answer to your question too.

I presume they expected him to kick on, but that extremely questionable friendly really messed him up. No it didn't it just provided an excuse. Ruben is the same player he was beforehand.

What we saw of Ethan in the side as a 17 year-old didn't encourage me to believe he has enough to be a Chelsea player but he's not 17 anymore so let's look with new eyes at how he goes in Sheffield.

I'll actually be surprised if Madrid go for Camavinga. I'll certainly be disappointed if we do. I'm not a fan.

I don't know but i wonder if there are two dates; one for domestic transfers, and another for international ones?

We signed KDB in January 2012. That summer I met my younger daughter's then boyfriend for the first time. He's an Arsenal fan but we talked about football anyway. When Hazard joined he asked me if I thought Eden was the best player we had signed. When I told him no, he thought I meant that Rom Lukaku (signed at the start of 11/12) was better. I told him no again and said that we had sent the best new singing out on loan. He told me he never heard of Kevin De Bruyne. Fair enough, nor had I until we signed him, but I then watched a lot of KDB as he finished the 11/12 season back at Genk. I posted, elsewhere, to say that I loved the way that lad played football. In fact I remember that I typed, "I love, love, love, the way he played football." Mason, Ruben and other recent Cobham graduates are not in Kevin's class. EDIT: And I knew that about RLC in 2013 when I posted (again elsewhere, I wasn't on TC in those days) that Ruben had virtually no chance of making it anywhere unless he changed his MO and learned to make an impact on football games.

If she's buying hollandaise sauce at Harvey Nichols she's already out of my league. I did buy a nice coat in there once for my then girlfriend, now the mother of my beautiful daughters, in the late 70's early 80's. Definitely the first, and as far as I remember, the last thing I ever bought there.

🙂

This is serious goalkeeping wisdom. This is what goalkeeping distills down to. Dr Winston O'boogie himself sang it best: #Nothing you can save that can't be saved.

Great story. Isn't life brilliant? Think of how many other people you nearly bumped into in your life and how easily this could have been just another near miss. Instead it changes your life - amazing. You must both be cutesy people I suppose because I'm pretty certain that if I chucked ketchup over some random woman's clothes it wouldn't go quite so well for me. 🙂

The fact that Ross has gone on loan has interesting implications I think. Frank has more-or-less committed to Reuben going out too so, with both departing and speculation surrounding Jorgi as well, more incoming on the cards?

It's happened many more times than twice. As I like to say Mason nearly always NEARLY gets it right. It's a problem.

It's a Tottenham game. Who cares if it's for an egg cup; it's must win.

I have a feeling that Tino will stay at Cobham, not least because he's just making his way back from injury. I'm not sure about lower league transfer deadlines but they usually have an extension don't they. Given that it looks like selected members of the midfield group will be allowed to leave for the right offer, we will need some backup depth.

I accept that this is a well supported opinion but not by me. My opinion is that, for one reason or another, Ruben simply benefitted from a further period of honeymoon assessments.

Or perhaps Ben might grow up.

Exactly.

It's only banter if it makes the other bloke laugh too. If it made Timo laugh then fair enough but otherwise it's something else. Are there really people who see sticking your finger in someone's food as witty? If so I know some 1 to 2 year olds that would be an absolute riot at a dinner party.

That's a relief. I'd have shared the rest of my plate with Chillwell's face. Is he 8 years old?

Does Timo look amused? Hope he is but I wouldn't be.

At the moment I rate Elon as having a brighter future than Ruben.