Plus Jimmy Greaves who wasn’t even in the side!

Of course unlike the plethora of players that have been given a go over the past year or so, Wharton would need to be actually given a chance.

Say what you want about Dolan’s level of talent, but to try and make out his grafting on the pitch is only a recent thing in order to get a nice contract is total BS.

He’s been brought in as a short-term mercenary (both sides are happy with that arrangement) with the one target of one tournament, the fact he was appointed last autumn but got to swerve the games at the back end of the year tells you that. So he obviously wanted to rely on experience, which makes perfect sense if you are only in post for 18 months, I.e the likes of Walker and Henderson. Problem with that is, in the modern game, ‘experience’ can very quickly end up as ‘over the hill’, in contrast look how young and dynamic the likes of France and Spain are. Still a year to go, so first remedial action is for the old timers to be jettisoned immediately.

It was ‘live on Norwegian TV’, ergo all the Scandinavian advertising. It was all very exciting!

As Swiss Ramble rightly points out salaries obviously only go one way in football (⬆️), so without increasing the wage bill a club will ultimately find it harder and harder to compete on the pitch.

Not anymore as you don’t need anywhere near 40 points due to the promoted three increasingly being a mile off PL quality.

We sold 9,100 last summer, this time we were ‘over 8,000’ at the end of phase 1 and I doubt we’ve sold many since. I imagine we’ll probably have limped to 8 thousand and something by KO… another sterling effort all round, bonuses well earned 👏

Whatever it looks like just send Brittain and Travis (presuming they are still here) to pose in front of John Lewis’ grave, job done.

So many clubs are doing throw back shirts now, especially away ones incorporating old badges etc. So for something as momentous as the 150th anniversary of founder members of both the Football and Premier Leagues, surely, surely the forthcoming shirts will be commemorative, and I don’t mean just ‘1875’ on the collar or whatever.

Nah they wouldn’t want to pay a hiring fee to the council.

£31million for Jobe and folk are still trying to argue that Palace didn’t get the bargain of the century.

England stroll through every qualification group, they are literally strolling through this one. Means bugger all as the vast majority of the time, for the big nations, tournament qualifying is no longer ‘competitive’ due to so many small European sides just making up the numbers in groups and so many tournament places up for grabs due to expanded competitions. We’ll see next summer if Tuchel has brought anything. Just scrap the qualifiers and merge it into the Nations League, all a waste of time, and the players know it.

I’m just being wistful about when football used to be about winning things. Obviously now it isn’t, in reality if Levy thought he’d have them away from the European spots again he had to go. But for Tottenham fans they’ll remember Bilbao and Ange far more fondly than another season that merged into the next ‘who remembers 2022 when we finished 4th?’.

Not saying it is directly comparable. However, that squad should’ve been nowhere near the relegation zone, the fact it won a cup and pretty much the same squad came 6th the year after tells you that. But we were down there, that’s football. End of the day top level football used to be about winning trophies, 7th or 17th, made no difference when half the division weren’t given a European place. A successful, memorable season would be defined by winning things, not another season winning nowt, but finishing 5th.

Should we have sacked Souness in 2002 then? After all we had relegation worries for a lot of the season, and that was with top players like Cole and Tugay coming in.

Not sure knighthoods are a barometer you can put much store in, whatever industry they are part of.

‘Look. We are a small club, pre Jack we only had 6,7k on!’ So did everybody!

110 league titles between two clubs? Sounds a tad Mickey Mouse.

No wonder it’s been a disaster then.

You looking forward to seeing what Suhail can do with the commercial side, Chadster?

…and a load of the fanbase will lap it up.

Last couple of years he hasn’t had much rest, has he.

Just send them up Pleasy.

Few of those sound like 5 a side/pub quiz team names.