RandoEFC

Allan has joined a team in the UAE. Good luck to him. Good for us though to get a fairly old highly paid player off the books. He'd fallen behind Gueye, Onana, Iwobi, Doucoure and Davies in the midfield pecking order.

There was a lot of talk about Koeman being very hands off at training and he was accused of spending more time on the golf course than on the training pitch. You never really know, the latter is probably harsh, football managers need a work life balance as well. His man management was certainly awful though. Looked a right tit when Niasse saved his job against Bournemouth after he'd been almost boasting in press conferences about not giving him a locker in the first team complex and stuff. Completely mishandled Barkley as well at a key phase of his development. To be fair, there doesn't seem to actually be an effective way of managing Barkley given how many managers have tried and failed, but Koeman putting public pressure on the lad was about the most self-destructive approach he could have taken. Lukaku carried us to 7th in that first season under Koeman in what was probably his best season in England and when he was sold we had nothing left in our locker.

Southgate looks good because he's made England a team who actually beat what should be inferior opposition whereas many of us have watched half a lifetime's worth of bigger name England managers who haven't managed to even achieve that. His actual record in major tournaments looks better than it probably should on average because of generous draws, no doubt about it. It does feel like this England team are due a bad tournament though. It really doesn't feel like they're on a trajectory of semi final in World Cup, final of Euros, champions in the next tournament. Regardless of that, results are everything and the history books will always show he reached a World Cup semi final and backed it up with a Euro final. Lucky or not, his "achievements" as England manager can arguably only be bettered by Alf Ramsey.

Koeman here about as dialled into his spell at Everton as he was at the time. "We finished 6th". No, we finished 7th. "Probably the best record in 15 years." His immediate predecessor took us to 5th in his first season, just three years before Koeman took over. It's not just Benitez who is remembered far from fondly at Everton, Koeman fits into the same category. Both clearly saw the club as a useful tool for their own careers and were never fully invested like the fans were. Maybe Benitez had his hands tied in that it would have come across as insincere given the Liverpool connections but they have a lot else in common. Martinez and Silva, by contrast, have barely a bad word uttered about them by our fans, besides accusations of tactical ineptitude or similar. They don't have ungenerous nicknames around the fanbase now like "Paellardyce" and "Gammon Chops". Lampard is already hugely popular with the club's following because he has unashamedly invested his time into understanding the club, the fans, the history. That's all it really takes to win us over and get a fair hearing. But back to Koeman. I'm not old enough to remember him as a player but in his managerial years, I've always found him a little bit arrogant and irritating, and I'm not sorry that his time at Barcelona didn't pan out for him.

I'm still enjoying it as well. The last seasons of the main show were too much action and pay off without the adequate build up that made the show a success. Plenty of build up in this one. Would like to see some pay off soon though. I'm also iffy on Matt Smith. Not that he's doing anything particularly wrong, but I'm still struggling to take him seriously in this character.

I'd love Benitez to have a go with any other Premier League club just so the nonsense about him failing at Everton because he never got a fair crack at it due to the Liverpool connections can be well and truly put to bed.

This has been made to illustrate the size of Max's lead in 2022 but it's amazing to me to look back and see that Hamilton led the championship at this stage in 2010. It's a season I remember better than any other probably, and the Mclaren was probably the 3rd best car over the course of the full season. He also had to contend with Button as an equal team mate. Still find it mad how Lewis' only championship year with McLaren was probably actually the worst he ever drove with them, except for arguably 2011.

The first table update of the 2022-23 season.

@nudge enters the Hall of Fame for a third time, her Premier League 2022-23 victory the first since winning the Premier League and Serie A editions in the 2019-20 season!

Seeing a lot the last 48 hours or so about Ukraine having some major success on the counter offensive.

I lost track of what I have and haven't seen from the final season so I might just have to start it from scratch.

One final bonus as Andre Gomes appears to be joining Lille. A big wage off the books if so.

Gueye and Garner confirmed. Looks like that's it, no further attacking reinforcements.

Gueye and Garner will be completed today. One more attacking player be it Joao Pedro, Kudus or most likely Chuekwueze would be ideal. Would leave us with a first/second "twelve" roughly like this. Pickford / Begovic Patterson / Coleman Holgate / Keane Coady / Mina Tarkowski / Godfrey Mykolenko / Vinagre Gueye / Davies Onana / Doucoure Iwobi / Garner Gordon / Chuekwueze Gray / McNeil Calvert-Lewin / Maupay That's an alright 24 man squad to be going with an then it's over to Lampard to get them playing. It also leaves a lot of dead wood if we can't shift them today - Gomes, Allan, Rondon, Townsend. I will at least say of our recruitment this summer that we've not brought in too many players who are at risk of dropping into that category too soon.

Some picture here from the bike racing over here last week.

Lampard on Dele:

Yeah the holiday thing isn't it. I had vibes it was fading a bit before she left. Also she was on a safari holiday with her family in South Africa rather than a boozy girls trip in Ibiza or something so not much chance of meeting someone from back home and quite an ambitious one if she was going for long distance .

Spurs were desperate enough to get him off the wage bill to let him go effectively for free with incentives in place for if he performed well. This has been widely reported on both sides and by reliable sources. Like many transfers, the fee listed as "rising to as much as £Xm" isn't guaranteed at all. One of the clauses included is a 25% sell-on so if Besiktas take up the option to buy him for £8m then some of that will still go to Spurs. I'm sure we've paid them a nominal fee of some sort as well but that first chunk of £10m hasn't happened. We certainly haven't sent £40m their way.

I feel that. If you want to have that though the last thing you want to be doing is saying you can never have it. It sounds like you've had a few more knock backs than I have lately which I'm not looking forward to if I end up in the same boat. Got to be tough but mustn't give up!

I'm 29. I know many will say that that's quite young but I've been single for a long time and I'm much more of a relationship person than a hook up/casual person. I've tried the latter but I knew from quite early on that it wasn't for me. Like you said earlier, nowhere near as fulfilling. A lot of my friends in my age group are getting along now, moving in with girlfriends/boyfriends, getting engaged, married, thinking about kids. I'm usually quite good at saying to myself that I shouldn't let other people's lives affect my perspective on my own but it does rub it in somewhat . This girl I only dated for a few weeks so it's not like it's a horrible break up or anything. To be honest, it's less about her and more that just dating someone again has made me realise how much I'd like to have someone and what I'm missing out on. It's just that having been out of the game for so long, I was in some kind of safe equilibrium, then moved into a hopeful/excited place and then it ended up going nowhere. The aftermath is worse than the equilibrium that came before it but I suppose if I want to get into a proper relationship then I'm going to have to get used to the ups and downs and not retreat to that emotionally safe equilibrium again. Sorry for ruining your thread @Tommy .

We didn't spend £40m on him. In fact, we haven't paid Spurs any meaningful fee as the deal was structured in a way that he had to actually do something for us to pay them money. The first threshold was 20 appearances and we pay them £10m and he didn't even hit that yet.

Thanks chaps. I'm alright to be fair. I do need to find a nice girl though.

Going to join in the sad parade. Just spent a few weeks dating a girl for the first time in ages. Liked her quite a bit. She just got back from holiday and doesn't want to continue. Disappointed but trying to be positive.