Enda

Strongly suspect DS will pick at least 10 of last week's starting 11 again, maybe a change on the wings. Can't see him dropping the full-backs. Not sure why people are talking so much about the demands for rotation "this year"... unless we go all the way in the cups we'll have fewer matches this year than last year.

Hi terry. The results deriving from yer standard Central Limit Theorem say most distributions can be asymptotically approximated (infinite samples) with the two primary moments of the Normal, so would be interested in your views on the outer limits in finite samples. Also for the n-1 result this almost always comes from the the Chi-squared-distributed variance so would be interested in views on Conor Hourihane.

Think it broke down when the EU offered us a Stoke player to be honest.

In my defence, where I am it’s only 7 o’clock

The UK is also, in general, being far too insular about this. A deal requires the EU's consent, and the feasibility of various demands is almost never discussed in the British press. It's like Dean Smith puts in a bid of 75p for Saido Berahino. Brentford say no, thank you, but 20 million and not a penny less. The AVFC board make clear they won't pay it. Dean goes back to Brentford "Look I know you said 20 million but I've asked my boss and they've said no. Three times. Can't happen." Brentford: "All right Deano but that doesn't work for us, we'll have to go our separate ways, best of luck." Dean: "No, wait, the board also took No Deal off the table." Brentford: "Errr...."

He’s only a year younger than Wesley. And older than Douglas Luiz.

I fly a lot, e.g. transatlantic eighteen times last year. There's a four hour time difference between Brazil and England, which isn't much at all. You're fine after a long night's sleep, two days turnaround max.

Is Villareport credible?

Or the UK’s/HMG’s red lines can change. For example by allowing a border down the Irish Sea and letting Britain (not the UK) leave the customs union. The EU is waiting on that particular penny to drop, no pun intended.

Not if we're bringing back Kev from retirement.

Best of luck, Scott.

Those hair puns are dyer.

Thread needs a poll!

IMHO we are wasting our time even debating this. Both of these lads are only 2 years younger than Grealish/Wesley/Douglas. Club should try turn a profit on them and move on.

Yep, possible. But I think we need a wake-up call. Spurs were in the CL final two months ago. We’re a recently promoted side filled with a bunch of players untried at this level and not used to playing with each other. The bookies give us 10/1 odds of winning. To a neutral, we’re going to get whipped. Need to shore things up a bit imho.

I’ll probably get slated for this, but I’d start Elmo on Saturday. Bags of talent but not ready. Guilbert tries just one of those flicks next week and we go a goal down. I’d rather the experience, and make Freddie earn his place.

New prediction: Hourihane will divide the fans this season. He’ll get goals and assists, which half of us will point to, but then the other half will be driven demented by the other half of his game.

Spurs’ wingers. Targett and Guilbert have been our worst players out there.

Fair point. Things might be better. All I’m saying is both our full backs are playing, well, crap. Never understood why clubs don’t have more than one competitive friendly either. Seems like we should get three good matches in before the real thing.

Made a couple of good runs in the final third, and was through for the free kick/goal.

Spurs’ wingers will licking their lips watching this.

Guilbert having a bit of a mare. Wesley well up for it. Midfield sloppy.

This is a pedantic but important point: subpar literally means below average. So yes, you bloody well do want to have subpar players on the bench because we can't win any points for having the best bench in England. And I fully agree with you that the likes of Adomah and Hutton are subpar but it's hyperbole to say they're not fit for purpose. I'm delighted that lot have been deemed surplus to requirements, but Adomah has signed for a Championship team that were 3 places shy of a playoff place last year, and Hutton is linked with the team that finished one place outside it. Elphick signed with a club that were Premier League last year. By any standard, they could do a job. Look, let's take talk about the two extremes. One extreme is we have 11 top class first-team players, but the subs are pure dross because we have no money left. The other extreme is we have 25 equally good players in the squad. That's also risky, because we're lacking quality. Obviously Aston Villa are in the middle, but Genius is suggesting signing ALL THE DEFENDERS has put us at risk and we should be a little closer to the 11 proven quality players. That's a fair point, even if you and I disagree with it. Disagree it "should be ridiculed".

I think the argument is instead of signing all of {Engels, Konsa, and Hause}, who obviously can’t all play next to Mings, we sign proven quality like Dunk and keep Elphick as backup. Or instead of {Trezeguet and Jota} we go all in on someone like Zaha (or whoever) and keep Adomah as backup. You could make an argument that {Douglas and Marvo} combined was overkill, and some of that money could have been directed to Zaha (again, or whoever) instead of spreading things out so thin. Obviously don’t jump on my case about the specific names I’ve listed, they’re just examples. I personally disagree with this strategy, but it’s more reasonable than some of you are suggesting. VT groupthink in full swing.