Football

Yay. We win the net spend with -80m

Only at Burnley until January though. After he's proven himself here he'll be ready to get back into the first team at Chelsea for the run-in

Or, more likely, to give an opportunity to sell him then.

The price for Iwobi is possibly a little inflated but not a crazy price for a young international player with Premier and Champions league experience with lots more potential to improve. His stats are excellent he ranked 8th for creating chances from open play and 7th in XA or expected assists per 90 minutes. He's got plenty of room for development can play anywhere across the front three or just behind and with Silva having a good record of improving and working with young players I think will only get better and will get game time.

This ^

Also beeb (and just about every other decent source I have read) are saying the fee is £28m with some add ons.

Pretty happy with our transfer business, we were a Kurt Zouma short of a 10/10.

Overall I'm happy I think we are short a central defender but with Gibson performing well in pre-season and Holgate staying at the club we might be ok. I think Brands just decided there wasn't much value in the market. It'll be a huge season for both Mina and Keane and I hope they are up to the challenge and can stay fit. I'm hugely excited about Moise Kean and our front three should be great to watch this season.

Quite possibly the only thing we’ll win this season.

If the football is good and a few of the academy players successfully integrate into the squad I’m happy-ish.

Not ready for the start of the season. Too much lingering trauma from last season. I'm so broken that I'm left genuinely hoping Spurs can somehow disrupt the top two.

But is Iwobi much better than Lookman? Who didn’t (pardon the pun) get much of a look in before heading back to Leipzig.
Also is Iwobi an upgrade on Walcott? Feels like you’ve got a lot of players for too few slots. Are you guys in the Europa league this year? Or is it concentrate on the league time?

Fair questions. I'd place Iwobi above Walcott who is (STILL) far too inconsistent and needs shipping out. I liked Lookman a lot but he also went missing in games though I put that down to his age and was hoping he'd improve. The feeling was he didn't want to play for us/Silva and really wanted the move away, so no point keeping an unhappy player.

Re: our Centre halves @TheLeek I think Gibson looks great but I'm not keen on dropping him in the premier league at 19. Holgate's a good player but has a mistake in him. I can't for the life of me work out why we didn't give Jagielka another year or two, he was great when called on last season. Maybe we thought we'd get someone else and wanted to get him off the payroll? Keane has really stepped up in the last few seasons, I like Mina a lot and hopefully some game time will help him settle (still get the bad kind of chills from his Newcastle substitute appearance last season).

I'm properly excited about Moise Kean, but also terrified that we'll ruin him.

Also, no Europa league this year, just bombing out the domestic cups after a round or two.

A good question and one I'd say probably yes too. I think Lookman found it hard to press and do the defensive work Silva wants from his wide players. Silva also wasn't too impressed with Lookman's attitude after he wasn't given a permanent move at the end of his loan. It was a shame as most fans wanted Lookman to succeed and get more starts . Walcott has been on the decline for a while and was very poor at the end of last season. No Europa League this year so it's all in to try an crack the top six. We have a relatively easy start to the season so hopefully we can build some confidence and rack up the points. Iwobi, Richarlison, Bernard and Walcott are vying for the two wide forward places. Calvert Lewin and Kean for striker but Iwobi, Glyfi and Bernard can all play as number 10. It should mean a fluid front three/four and more options going forward and hopefully more goals.

Gareth Barry has been playing cricket this summer to get himself a new contract at West Brom https://www.expressandstar.com/sport/football/west-bromwich-albion/2019/08/09/gareth-barry-to-be-offered-new-west-brom-contract-after-honing-fitness-on-the-cricket-pitch/

Stats are OK https://templegrafton.play-cricket.com/website/player_stats_widget/batting_stats/4461517

iwobi improved last season. reckon he is a good purchase for Everton. I hope they can press on a bit as like having them in the mix

and keeping pisti away from the bleach cocktails.

looking forward to it kicking off tonight. will watch the Liverpool game with @clintsmoker in Oxfordshire hostelry

here we go again

coyrs

Any Chelsea fans care to predict their starting XI this weekend? Will be interesting to see the balance between young players and old guard.

Where's that Liverpool boom/bust chart? I really should have it bookmarked by now...

Took me 30 mins of the season to become sick of Liverpool.

Their football is effective but it’s not attractive.

Their fans have two songs which are tiresome.

The media are aching for them to win the league and I hope it never happens.

mr golden gloves off with a dodgy injury
anyone know if adrian is any good / better than mignolet ?

well in divoc another goal from the big fella
3 pts, and a good first performance of the season

worried about allison, could cost us the supercup vs chelsea this weds

another 37 wins and we might just be in front of citeh

#stillhigh
#topoftheleague

Roooooney to wear no 32 at derby due to betting firm that pays the wages?
Time for sport to get rid of gambling companies sponsorship.

You’ll be alright, it’ll go to penalties and Adrian can step up

https://youtu.be/QLy4B-KjowU

Or he could just score in open play

https://youtu.be/4hvZMNtwtmY

@clintsmoker I’m interested to see how Grady Diangana get on with you on loan, kinda gutted he went out as he had a couple of good breakthrough games last season in the 1st team.
But if he gets a fair amount of game time with WBA then it’ll do him good I’m sure. Does he have much competition right wing/midfield?

Sky Sports have signed up JM

He sounds like an exciting prospect to be fair. We have Kyle Edwards on the left who is a very exciting home grown prospect and Matt Phillips on the right who is a very good player. I think he will get game time due to the nature of the championship saturday wednesday thang.I always have mixed feelings about loans. If we are loaning players in that keep our players out of the team I don't see the long term gain. We are saying our players aren't good enough for the championship yet if we get promoted and the loan players return we will be left with a bunch of not very good championship players who know the club dont believe in them and who didn't even get championship game time. Perhaps we are being clever and will use the loan system perfectly to our advantage. Good luck to your boys today mate

Gwan villa

Well we made hard work of that. Watched the second half where I'd estimate we (Spurs) had 80% possession though didn't create many clear cut chances - basically battere Villa into submission. Eriksen made a big difference when he came on (although hit first man a few times) and Kane's calmness in finishing is amongst the best (probably the best) I've ever seen in a spurs shirt. KWP great throughout just missing a player to slide intricate balls into the channels and players to be willing to run off the shoulder of the defenders into those channels