Tomo

It would be amazing if he leaves Jose and Pep trailing in their wake like Jose himself did to Fergie and Wenger when he arrived the first time.

Ffs, we have just signed argubaly the best midfielder in the league for a bargain price (in today's market) and people are still slating Emenalo for absolutely no reason atall.

I know it's small sample size, but if the Romania and Albania games in the Euros are anything to go by, signs are good.

Cesc would be the sacrifice, just as he would be in 4-4-2, although in big games i can see Hazard playing behind one striker in that formation with more beef added to the middle. Hopefully if that formation is used it depends on the opposition, vs Arsenals passing game 3-5-2 would work a treat, but teams who like to use width and stretch play, like Spurs, not as much.

Last summer Jose/the club seemed to put all the eggs Into the Pogba and Stones baskets, and when they failed we were fucked. Conte seems to have numerous contingency plans, can't get Bonnuci? Ok go for Koulibaly, negotiations halting a bit? Ok let's see if Manolas is available. Radja turned us down? Ok on to Joao Mario. I want Kante as bad as the next Chelsea fan, but alternatively I'm pretty confident Antonio has a back up plan just incase it doesnt happen.

Mmmmm, McNair was "amazing" against us at Stamford Bridge. Hector was amazing vs Arsenal in an Fa Cup semi at Wembley. Id put it another way, if Kalas was owned by Boro and we were looking to sign him, a player who failed to break in to teams in both the PL and Bundesliga (lets just say for argument sake he played for another PL team when he was on our books), then went to a Championship side and was played out of position because hes wasn't deemed good enough for CB compared to his competition. Lets be honest, the reactions would have been just as bad as when we signed Papy, if not worse.

After making an idiot of myself when AVB took over I try and remain on the cautious side when it comes to new manager's, but Conte is making it really hard for me.

This is something I saw today and found interesting, Brendan Rodgers explaining how the Liverpool board (aka transfer committee) operate, and how he ended up with Mario Ballotelli because they had literally no other option. I genuinely hate to think what this place would be like if we operated the same way.

If we play 3-5-2 or 4-3-3 then absolutely he's still a key man, but in a 4-4-2,4-2-4 I'm not quite sure were he will fit in, for that formation to work the two central midfielders have to be top class defensively, and Cesc certainly isn't that, even Arsene "I don't adapt my principles for anyone" Wenger changed to a 4-3-3 to accommodate Cesc and wouldn't risk him in a 4-4-2.

Problem is, would he accept sitting out against any half decent opposition and be in the right state of mind to give us those assists against Hull? Im not sure.

The league is beyond them again, but I got a feeling they are going to do something big in the CL, and as we showed in 2012 and even Portugal in Euros to an extent, few bits of luck all off a sudden, late stages. I have my doubts about them sustaining things from 17/18 onwards, but I'm not convinced the story is over yet, even if Kante leaves.

Blue Moon version of Bellion will be having a rant about their stingy board as we speak

We should try to sell him, he's not good enough to make it here and he's settled at Boro.

He needs to vastly improve his off the ball work to stand a chance under Conte, fans may accept his lame 'attempt' to close down Danny Drinkwater because he's a homegrown youth player but you can be assured Antonio won't be having it. This is make or break season for Ruben, if he embraces Conte's tactics he could really cement his place in the squad, if not he's offski next summer.

It could work in a 4-4-2/4-2-4, to play that formation both CMs need to be astute defensively, like with Arsenal first with Vieira/Petit then Vieira/Gilberto, maybe Conte will develop N Golo into a more box to box as like @Robguima said, Matic is too slow for that particular role. That however would almost certainly mean the end for Cesc, but if Conte trains a good attacking system we won't be as reliant on his creativity anyway.

Ahhh bless, have you not got you're shiny new toy yet?

Ive never seen anything like it before, on the Morata thread someone said 'Emenalo is shit at transfers since forever', I mean are they that stupid to think Emenalo (whos main job is with the youngsters and scouting) is the one negotiating fees? It's the equivalent of blaming Courtois if we are struggling to score. I often view the shed end, and you have a couple that are difficult to please, but never have I seen such a high volume of people with misguided vendetta's and faux outrage, it's ridiculous, it's ruining what is the best forum on here. And the worse thing is? If we complete all these top transfers and challenge for the title on the back of it, these people will hide in their caves until we next have an underwhelming window.

Oh come on, I don't like Pep or any team he has managed but the guy is a genius.

Here's some perspective for every one whining about transfers. Our busiest three summers ever in the market was 2003,4 and 5. 04 only Paulo had been signed at this stage, 05 Del Horno and 03 only two free agent back up keepers and we know what happened next every time, in fact for good measure 2014 only Cesc was official at this stage. If we are approaching the end of pre season with only Bats official then fair enough, but the panicky/bashing board comments at this stage are absolutely vomit inducing.

Their are some very decent players in the England squad, even Roy got some eye pleasing displays out of them, Germany for example in March. The problem is the constant appointing of crap manager's, only good one since the millennium is Cappello (the Germany game unfairly tainting an overall positive spell for me), Sven had the best team since 66, Roy is a clueless small time manager who thinks he's some master of the game and let's not go there with McLaren. Sam is actually one of the managers that evolves with the times, and it shows in the tactical set up of his team's compared to the other British manager's, whatever the strength of this England team is he will play to it and will it make England the best team? No, but I'd feel a lot more confident about being able to compete in the big ones as opposed to any other British manager (thank fuck Southgate and Pearce are out of the running).

The TV deals are helping, judging by our transfer patterns Roman stopped throwing in 'his money' in 2007 when our only money transfer was Flo funded by the Robben sale, January 2011 aside between 07 and 14 our net spend was realitvely low every window. Last year we signed Baba, Begovic, Pedro, Papy and Hector for about £60m ish combined (can't be bothered to look at the exact figures), and sold Luis about £15m and Cech £11m, that's a £34m net spend with rumours we were going for Pogba and the Stones thing being a badly kept secret, if we pulled those two off, net spend would have been mid hundreds. The Yokohoma deal, incoming Nike deal and TV money is giving us a chance to spend big again, Bats signing and strong Morata rumours alone really indicate that.

Big Sam shown at Bolton that season with Okocha and Djorkeaf, along with that season at West Ham with Sakho and Valencia that he can and will play good football when he has the resources and isn't all about hoof ball.

Throw enough mud eventually something will stick, it may have worked with Didi, Ricky especially but we also overspent on average players like SWP, Mikel and Bosingwa (£16m for a full back in 2008 was obscene).

Nice Are the club making the announcement soon org are they going to wait?

I'm glad you are not a member of the board, we would get milked like cows every single time. Give it a year we'd have Saints quoting us £60m for Ward Prouse if we just "payed teams what they want", sets a dangerous precedent.