Danny

So Nketiah, Eze, Maddison, Wilson, Saka, Kane, Foden, Rice, Bellingham, Colwill, Dunk, Guehi, Tomori, Chilwell, Johnstone, Pickford aren’t players who are in good form and have been picked for that? Honestly it’s such bullshit that he doesn’t pick players on form. He has justified Phillips’ inclusion and quite fairly, we only have two players who can play as a single pivot, Declan Rice and Kalvin Phillips. James Ward-Prowse would not be competing with them for a starting position because he is not a defensive midfielder, he would be competing with Gallagher, Bellingham, Maddison and Henderson. Southgate is the most successful England manager of our lifetime and has achieved that by consistently blending new talent/performers with consistent performers. It was Southgate who introduced Maguire, Rice, Phillips, Mount, Grealish, Saka, Sancho and Foden into the team after performing well enough at club level. He’s now introduced Trent, Guehi, Maddison, Tomori and Toney into first team action too.

It's a lose-lose situation because then the issue is you have people who haven't played the game or refereed up close making decisions like that, and that will cause drama at some point. The issue we have now, literally spoke about in this thread is the speed in which they want to make decisions (there's also been arguments made that the refs should be sent to the screens more for some obvious issues) and that all comes from complaints that it was too slow and breaking the game up when it was introduced. Difficult decision to get right, I thought the Fulham goal was interesting as the ref seemed to make a valid point about the offside. But I still think the goalkeeper not knowing if the ball will bounce off the player effects their decision making and so it should have been called. But the decision they made, that sort of thinking isn't spoken about publicly.

As did Southgate at his presser.

You telling me you didn't stick your shield on, pick up your sword and conquer your missus when you first met her?

I'd be happy to watch a trilogy fight between the two, both struggled physically in different fights, it'd be good to see them both at the races together. @JoshBRFC makes a good point about Eubank not taking Smith out, his power never really used to be a problem for him. I think Eubank will move onto the Benn fight as another loss kills that fight, maybe Kell Brook too. But I can't see anything happening between him and triple G, would be good to see him come back to this fight.

That was a masterclass from Eubank, didn’t expect that after the first fight. Fair play

Problem UFC has is they have very few stars in the sport that transcend the sport. Boxing has problems with getting the big fights all the time, but the way the sport is set up means a fighter can grow beyond the sport itself. Difficult to do that in the UFC.

Summer transfer window complete. We have essentially sold David Raya to Arsenal for £30m which was a good fee in the end considering how long he had on his contract, I wouldn't say that Flekken is better or even as good as Raya is, but he does cover all bases that Raya covered and I think he will turn into a pretty good signing for us. Pontus Jansson left the club to join his boyhood club Malmo and so we replaced him with Nathan Collins. It's difficult to replace the leadership quality that Jansson brings to the defence, that will need to be done collectively as a team. But as a player Nathan Collins is a real upgrade, what has surprised me is just how good Collins is on the ball. He will be encouraged to play with the ball at his feet a lot and will also be asked to carry out attacking duties too. The one thing that has stuck out with Collins is his ability to step-up high up the pitch, collect a loose ball and immediately play it out to a winger or a more advanced midfielder. He acts almost as a second defensive midfielder at times when we have the ball, specifically with his range of passing. It's a massive boost to our possession style and hopefully will help us pin teams back this season. We have sold other players like Mads Bidstrup, Sergi Canos, Halil Dervisoglu and Mads Bech Sorensen but none of them were really getting any game time. Specifically it's a shame to see Mads Bech leave as he was pretty instrumental in us getting promoted, we suffered a heavy injury crisis at the centre back position and even though he was about 200-300 appearances behind the person he was replacing, he mostly played pretty well. Last season was difficult for him on loan, hopefully he can make a career for himself in Denmark now. Our other two main signings were Kevin Schade on a permanent transfer and of course king of the shithouses, Neal Maupay. Schade impressed from January onwards last season and his goal against Palace is a real example of how dangerous he can be, he definitely improves our attacking line and adds much needed pace. Neal is an interesting signing, we don't normally make signings based on nostalgia and I don't think this is one of those signings. He's generally guaranteed to score about 10 goals a season which is good for a back up striker, but I think the intention is to try and get a lot more out of him. His xg is pretty good, it's just a matter of making sure he's confident and getting the team to get the best out of him. With the likes of Schade, Mbeumo and Lewis-Potter on the wings I don't think that'll be that hard. For his sake I really hope he has a good season and proves a lot of the critics wrong, there was a great player in him when he was with us in the Championship. Overall it's been a good window, slightly disappointing we didn't land any of Brennan Johnson, Azzedine Ouhani or Johan Bakayoko but that is just the club trying to be ambitious. It's difficult to compete with clubs the size of Spurs, Marseille and PSV for their players, especially when they have Champions League football in the case of PSV. The key thing for the club alongside a good transfer strategy is player development pathways, that should obviously be a key thing for all clubs but we have seen that it doesn't really exist at clubs like Chelsea or Forest for example. We have a host of players in Schade, Lewis-Potter, Mbeumo, Janelt, Damsgaard, Hickey, Collins, Henry, Olakigbe and Yarmolyuk for example who all have varying levels of potential to step into and the club are really good at giving players the chance to do that. I think the team as a whole has improved on what we had last season and we will wait and see what happens to Ivan Toney in January but I get the feeling we will bring him back in for the remainder of the season. I think it'll be difficult to achieve a European spot this season, but I do think we will be there or thereabouts fighting for that Europa Conference League spot.

Mostly it’s a pretty good squad with wide variety. The likes of Dunk, Colwill, Tomori, Guehi, Gallagher, Eze, Maddison, Nketiah and Wilson are good inclusions, gives the squad a boost and allows us to build pathways for players who haven’t been included that much so far. The team I expect to see and players in brackets I’d like to see: Pickford Walker - Dunk - Maguire(Colwill) - Chilwell Henderson(Trent) - Rice Saka - Bellingham - Grealish Kane

Phillips is our only other defensive midfielder…until we produce more we’re just left with Rice and Phillips. Maguire is the only experienced centre back at international level in that list.

I'd rather pour cement down my ears than listen to that podcast in general, so not listened to it, but I do know his club selections he made on there would likely push you off him. But as a player you will struggle to find anyone that will work as hard as he does for the team, doing defensive work, dropping in and creating for others, whilst also being able to bag the goals he bags. Plus he's guaranteed to score penalties which any big team would want. For a club like Spurs he's going to score 20-25+ goals a season, so the price is fair within the current market, more than fair actually, but if you're looking to benefit from undervalued markets then yeah you'll go a different way.

Toney is perfect for Spurs, Arsenal, Chelsea and United. Will be interesting to see what happens in January, hopefully we can get a bidding war going with clubs desperate for goals from a centre forward.

Cos of his politics or as a player?

Normally some of the acting is a bit…shit. But this makes me laugh haha, he could genuinely be in the film and it wouldn’t look out of place

Yeah Bissouma looked so good, completely refreshed. In fairness half on the windup with Vicario, wasn’t that bad but he does seem like a potential liability waiting to happen. Would not fill me with confidence looking at him lol. Data approach is interesting, it’s so easy to get wrong and I wouldn’t think of it as a “like Brighton and Brentford” either. Both owners made their money in gambling by predicting outcomes better than the bookies, that in itself provides a different outlook in the game compared to someone that might come from a general perspective. On top of that all of our information is created in house and kept in house, no one will have the data that we or Brighton have because it’s specifically created by the owners and the companies they’ve created. Whereas if you are using shared data then you are competing with other clubs in the league which reduces the advantage that data can give you. On top of that you need the perspective to be top down, what Levy might hold dear isn’t necessarily what the person in charge of your analytical approach will. Everyone has to be on board at all times, completely shared fundamentals. Got any info on the change? Would be interesting to read about and see what you’re doing different.

@Storts how long is Bentancur out for? Him, Maddison and Bissouma looks like it might be sexual. Reckon you’ll sign a #1 or persist with the panic buy?

I got 2 minutes into the Newcastle doc on Amazon before switching off, just hearing Shearer's voice was enough. The sports washing going on at Newcastle really isn't going to go away.

Joshua always fights well against bigger fighters so not surprised he got such a brutal KO. But to be expected against Helenius

Yeah and it must be strange having someone just force a camera in your face. But the caption made me laugh lol

Yep, meant 4 but was thinking 2 teams!

I think it’s fair to say the league is weaker, there’s a clear dropoff between Bayern and anyone else. The only reason there was a title race last season was because Bayern were so bad. Make no mistake without Guardiola City would not be this dominant, but Bayern can change manager at will and still dominate. If you look at Bayern and Dortmund’s points tallies last season they were closer to Man United and Newcastle than City and Arsenal (taking into account they play 2 games less also). I personally think it’s fair to say there is more strength in England between 2nd and 6th/7th and beyond that it’s probably about the same. But just cos a league is stronger does’t mean the leagues aren’t comparable, or that the Bundesliga is in anyway “shit”. In fact stylistically the leagues are more similar than say La Liga and generally if someone does well in Germany they are likely to do the same in England. But I don’t think Harry Kane will go up against as many high level players in Germany as he has in England, Kane is literally an example himself of how strong a player you can find in a team that finishes between 2nd and 7th in England.

We could all win a title in Germany with Bayern, not everyone is a record breaker! Kane has listened to me

Quality of the league can’t be that great. Southgate has generally hesitated picking players who play outside of the Prem, you’d think he might now

Bayern may as well chuck a bag of chocolate coins in at this rate