Let's not pretend Messi wouldn't tear the Premier League a new one. He's scored loads of goals v United, Arsenal, Chelsea etc in the Champions League (a goal a game on average v English teams I think, and them being the top PL teams), won games on his own v other top foreign teams like Bayern, PSG. Does he need to score against the poor teams from 7th down in the Premier League to prove himself? No idea what Argentina are playing at though. Dybala and Higuain stuck on the bench, Icardi at home. Crazy.

£25m for Dawson and Rodriguez is insane, as are most prices these days. Bring back the days where you could get Craig Bellamy, Roque Santa Cruz and Benni McCarthy all for about £10m.

My point with Jokanovic was that when he was appointed at Watford, people would have said then that it was a risk as he didn't 'know the league'. Yet straight up they went...... Wagner is another one, Stam was a penalty kick away from going up (in both of their first full seasons managing in England). Carvalhal got in the play offs a couple of times. And that's just off the top of my head in the last couple of years. I've acknowledged it could go pear shaped with Bielsa but if you're a Leeds fan then it'd be hard to say no to somebody of that stature. Especially when whoever they appoint will probably be out the door within a few months anyway.

Neither did two out of the three managers to win promotion from the Championship this season (well, Jokanovic did, but before he went up with Watford a couple of years back he didn't). Bielsa would be a hell of a coup for a team that have been in the Championship (or lower) for almost 15 years. He's highly unpredictable so it could either go extremely well or it could quite easily all end in tears by about November (or earlier - check his Lazio episode). It'd be definitely worth the risk though.

If Martinez is clueless enough to leave Nainggolan at home but take wasters such as Benteke and Januzaj then, even though they've still undoubtedly got some top players, maybe England have more of a chance against them then I thought.....

Regardless of how many options we have upfront at the moment, Abraham is better than all of them so if an opportunity to sign someone like him came along we'd have to take it. For the record though I'd imagine he'd go to either a lower PL team or a Middlesbrough/Derby etc, rather than a newly promoted Championship team.

Bolton have just scored twice in a minute. Burton need a winner all of a sudden....

Just looking back through this thread - did they find enough 'landmarks' in the end to last a season? Must have been struggling once we got past about October...

What a repulsive list that is. Seeing one of those names would be bad enough, never mind all of them together!

I didn't know a video recording could award a penalty! Ref should looked at the video earlier. You can't be bringing the players back out once you've blown for half time, what a mess.

How? No appeals for a penalty, only a corner. They didn't make the ref check the video and then give it...

It was Sheff Weds v Boro yesterday, both managers sacked less than 24 hours later. Wonder when that last happened.

Get in Rovers! Great turnaround. Keep it up.

It's certainly not a vintage Italy side compared to the great ones of previous years but there's more than enough ability there to get through a two legged play off against Sweden. There's more talent available than Conte had at his disposal, yet he knew how to mould a decent team out of what he had. Leaving your most creative player, Insigne, on the bench for both games doesn't help. Ventura had them playing awful football, he looks completely uninspiring too. So many excellent Italian managers out there and he's in charge of the national team, beggars belief!

He's genuinely a very poor keeper at that level, everything on target seems to go in. His confidence must have been absolutely rock bottom for some time now and I'm surprised Grayson is still picking him. Sunderland as a whole are an absolute shambles though and will probably go down unless something changes. No win at home in 2017 - that's barely believable!

The lad's got too much ability to be on the bench. Give him a start and teams will be petrified of him.

I haven't seen enough of Chapman to know what he's like defensively but I'd go as far as saying it doesn't matter - we're simply that desperate for some spark and creativity in the final third, and someone that can beat a man, that he needs to be on the pitch. Plus I can't see teams in this very low quality league hitting us with a lethal counter attack often.

Wednesday night then I'd have thought!

Knew it. And I'm away that week

Neither us nor Dingles out yet....

Didn't last long..

Good goal that Evans!

Will it not be Ward and Mulgrew at CB? Although yeah one of Nyambe/Caddis is out of position somehow.

And conceded after 10 mins. His confidence must be absolutely rock bottom. I think he's a poor keeper but it's usually not nice to see someone struggling..

Heart skipped a beat when I saw this thread at the top of the page. Please, please, please no.