Danny

Surprised no one brought this up, Inter close to signing Hakimi for 40M. Article also says Inter are after Sandro Tonali too https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/jun/26/inter-close-to-signing-achraf-hakimi-from-real-madrid-for-40m

This Leicester performance has been a proper pre-season game, sloppy and rusty before even trying to create something

I know it’d be better for us to see you lose as you have an easy run in now much like us...but Fulham will struggle to get back from this and I expect them to drop points. Especially if Mitro is suspended, against us they had nothing other than crosses to him.

I’m probably bias towards Smith as he steadied our ship in the Championship and helped make us consistent threats. But I’ve not seen the football we played at Villa, and I’m aware our set up is far superior to not just Villa but most clubs in the country & Smith would have benefitted from that, but how Villa have gone up has not helped them. Maybe there are managers out there who could take this side and do a better job with them but I think the overwhelming fact is that Villa never had a squad to stay up with and they’re paying that price. Short termism, big money loans/transfers and relying on Grealish. Dean Smith is a project manager. Villa were not a great team last season but benefitted from having the best player in the division there, he carried them. Their football was not amazing and neither was the squad as a whole but Grealish carried them. Teams have now found out if you can quiet Grealish then you’ve silenced Villa on the pitch. The Villa team that went up had 8 players on loan, at least 6 of them key players. They also had no squad depth, just Jack Grealish FC. Their squad was also made up of a lot of solidly Championship players who were sold off, Kodjia, Hogan, De Laet, Elphick, Adomah, Whelan...Jedinak retired. Neil Taylor was kept but was the left back...never good enough. They had to spend £65m on building a defence, bringing Mings in permanently, couldn’t sign Tuanzebe so signed Konsa/Engels, had to bring Heaton in as they didn’t have a Prem level keeper. Brought in Luiz and Nakamba to replace Carroll and Jedinak. Then they lost Abraham who has smashed it for Chelsea, had to try and replace him with Wesley and Samatta. Personally I think whilst Smith has to take some responsibility, he walked into his boyhood club and won a play-off final, the planning before he took over has been utter gash and meant that Villa needed to essentially buy a new eleven plus subs. The club was never set up to stay up and whilst people point out how much they spent, at that point I dont think they had any other choice, they barely had a first 11 let alone a squad. Villa need consistency and planning and I think they should keep Smith whatever happens. If he keeps them up he’s performed a miracle imo, if they go down they will need someone who had Championship experience, knows how to build a squad and also knows how to get promoted. Unless they can bring in someone Bielsa-esque I think sacking Smith would be a very bad choice in terms of long term planning. He could take them back up and keep them up if he gets a chance to consistently build a squad. If they sack him it will most likely be more of the same poorly planned efforts at promotion

Technically they’ll make £60m on this deal, only by the end of the contract will it be £10m. Which is important accounting because apparently their board members/directors/someone needed the club to make £60m by the end of the month or their positions at the club would then not be secure as they would be held personally accountable...

Pogba was playing alongside Marchisio, Vidal and Pirlo at Juve. Great players but at United the bar has been dropped for a few years in terms of the players around him. He does everything and that’s United’s problem but once you have a DM and an attacking mid like they do now then Pogba fits in so well imo

There’s two automatic spots though...I think if either of you two were to worry about dropping it’s West Brom but I’ll take either Not sure what I think is an ideal result tomorrow, if you beat Fulham then you’re ahead of us but we’re two points ahead of them. If you draw it’s 6 points between us and we only have a point ahead of Fulham...if you lose we’re back to 4th I guess a draw is the best option but Fulham can’t win

What a fucking win, reduced West Brom to barely anything. Played the game perfectly, Ethan Pinnock has ran the defence today. Dominated the backline in the same way he did against Leeds at home, that is the difference between this team and previous as we’d probably have drawn this in other seasons Automatics is on

Lovely team goal, Ollie has scored so many this season through his positioning

This is a massive game, could well define the end of the season. If we win tonight we move to 5 points behind West Brom, if Fulham lose tomorrow then we jump to third, if Fulham win there’s only 5 points between us and Leeds as well as West Brom. If we don’t win tonight then I do think the automatics will be a stretch Love the BeeTogether message, you Bees

Congrats lads, phenomenal side and phenomenal manager.

Glad you can enjoy it mate, not the right circumstances but right that the seasons not been voided

What an awful way to win the league for Liverpool fans...still completely deserved

Werner, Ziyech in, Pulisic guaranteed to start and apparently after Kai Havertz too....where does this leave Mount, Hudson-Odoi, Abraham and Loftus-Cheek?