Grando

I can certainly see us meeting the 80m release clause!

It’ll be interesting to see how Attanasio handles this situation. I’m more confident that he’ll want to keep Sainz for longer (ie to the end of the season) as he’ll be able to see doing so should increase the player’s value. And Attanasio should have deeper pockets than our previous owners to allow him to ignore the short term gain of a Jan sale. At least I hope so, anyway.

I can’t believe Long’s not in there.

Dion would be good.

I think you’re right - I’d be amazed if he drops Long on Saturday. I guess his hope will be to somehow get through the next game with Long and then pray that Gunn is back after the break.

Well I guess they must see something in training that led them to give him that contract. The problem is that he’s error prone in matches, which a keeper can’t get away with. And in a hypothetical situation where they hadn’t awarded him the contract I’d be surprised if, after his recent 1st-team performances, they would do the same now.

I guess nominative determinism would be if his surname was ****eref.

I imagine that'll mean he'll miss 5 games. Which is a big blow. While the sending off was a bit harsh and I understand his reaction, it's not very professional from such a senior player. Really, we shouldn't pay his wages for those additional two games as effectively he's now unable to work because of his own lack of self-control. (I guess though that we probably have to contractually, but that's quite galling when the figure would probably amount to what would be a good annual salary for many people.)

Mike Phelan was pretty decent.

Perhaps the Binners will beat you on 26th and then promptly sack McKenna...

Hopefully there's nothing wrong with Nunez and we just slipped the Chilean FA a copy of Onel's scan!

No! Now I’ll have nightmares remembering how we replaced Malky with the 4 ft 11 Simon Charlton and somehow thought that would work!

Yes, we shouldn’t pine or get attached to any of our players… Really?! What’s the point of being a supporting then?

I think Barnes will be an excellent option to have off the bench for the last 20 mins.

Its purpose is to prevent wars through collective security and disarmament, and settling international disputes through negotiation and arbitration. Ah no, sorry, that was the League of Nations in the 1920s. No idea about what the point of the Nations League is, or how it works!