dont_do_it_doug.

Is there a 30 year old left in world football who doesn't have a bad knee injury to his name?

We’ve got the deal that we’ve got and the market will have largely dictated the price. In any case I’m not sure it matters much to me, or more importantly the long term aspirations of the club, whether it cost us £5m or £7.5m. It is a pittance compared to the signal of intent it sends across world football. We’ve arrived.

Hang on, are we talking about the same player? I have literally seen him be one of the best players in English football for like 5 straight seasons with my own eyes. Ludicrous.

5 months would be the loan term for Coutinho.

James was Everton's best player for 5 months. If we get that out of Coutinho, brilliant. Coutinho was and is a better player than James though. He was considered world class at one stage. James had a good tournament.

Every single club in the country missed out on him, so it's hardly an issue confined to Aston Villa. We have a very good academy, which is where he would have ended up had we bought him at that price, so it's not as if we aren't trying to find them young?

No mate. I just called to check for you. 0333 323 1874

One thing we have going for us is that we don't concede goals. As an art form, that is becoming popular again and I am truly here for it. Going forward, we have another gear available to us. Whether we can find it is another question.

He made his debut vs Barrow

Is there still anyone left who doesn't think he has it in his locker?

It's rare that a player comes in with the consistent end product firing and ready to go, but perhaps lacking a bit in other areas. The other stuff is much easier to work on. He's going to be a superstar. As with Grealish, who perhaps weirdly given his skillset lacked the end product, I've no doubt in my mind that it's just a case of when not if.

I admit I didn't really see it. He offered plenty of endeavour, but looked a little like a rabbit in the headlights at times. Sometimes we overhype our youth players and this felt like another case of that following a couple of average-y performances. As the season wore on he was trusted less and less by the gaffer too, I may be wrong but I don't recall him starting a game after February? This season he has been a revelation, he has stepped it up a gear and looks every bit the part as a Premier League footballer. I still think he drifts in and out of games, but Gerrard's reliance on his wide centre mids keeps him involved more often than previously and he has found the confidence to go and utilise his special power, driving into space with the ball. If there isn't space, he will make it for himself with his physicality. To claim you saw this coming, well fair play to you. That's some outstanding scouting, however feels a bit off to call people out for not quite feeling as confident when he hadn't really shown anything like this. As it stands today, he looks like he still has another gear in him. Which is frightening.

I always come away from reading these notes thinking the club are trolling us. For all the good they are doing on the pitch, off the pitch they come across as proper scumbags.

Lions Club members only. Absolutely shockingly poor use of a valuable resource.

Even down to the long blonde hair

Appreciate these sentences are maybe not meant to be connected, but to even hear these words in this particular order is disrespectful to Gerrard.

What if, and hear me out here, it was an accident?

Only because he's flavour of the month. Both of them have struggled for fitness and form since arriving. Both should be miles away from being written off. I know it's frustrating as hell, but it is what it is.

The way he plucked the ball out the air on the turn late on was an exceptional bit of skill. He's clearly a very, very talented footballer. Pray that he stays fit.

And also, if the Premier League were to filter more money down through the leagues, what are we doing to discourage them from simply spending the equivalent amount on more Ross McCormacks? Simply asking for more money isn’t going to wash. Football needs a complete rethink of how it and vast sums of money can coexist. Revolution, not evolution. Which is where an independent body would come in.

Now we’ve given up on so zero covid it may take a generation or more for it to become endemic. Quite frankly at this stage we just need to crack on, any minor containment measures introduced now will simply be window dressing to placate the masses.

No such thing as bad publicity brother.

The thing is, typical corporate characters can also be football fans. He's not working class in the slightest, nor would he ever claim to be, but football is no longer a game solely of and for the working classes and hasn't been for many decades.

Purslow doesn't back away from that obligation. That isn't what the argument was about, unless I misunderstood. He is merely pointing out the facts, the £1.6bn over the last 3 years and the £250m interest free loan being examples of where the Premier League has supported the pyramid, he doesn't appear to say whether he thought that was too much. You can certainly make the case they could offer more. I probably would. But whether they could arguably hinge on your view of the way clubs like Derby and Aston Villa have acted in the past and whether the Premier League clubs should be doing more to cover for their immense stupidity, rather than those clubs themselves doing more to act within their means and support the leagues they find/found themselves in.

This is bullshit, everyone knows Gerrard has banned sources.