GrahamC

Spot on. We fielded 2 blokes who just played at the Euros, our most likely goal scorer, someone with a Premiership winner’s medal & a couple of £1m signings. The only things to get out of it are no injuries & more minutes.

I’m not sure if he prefers it or he gets asked to, both are predominately right footed & Kalas played on the left of 2 at the Euros, though clearly with Atkinson & Baker both left footed he’s pretty unlikely to do so for us.

Starting line up for Exeter; O’Leary Simpson Kalas Moore Pring Nagy Williams Bakinson Scott Bell Wells

Me too but I think Swansea are going to be the surprise strugglers. Fans are unhappy with the Americans, all the loan players (Woodman, Guelhi, Hourihane) have gone, Ayew too, Grimes is linked away as well. Whether it is Terry or Jody Morris they look in some trouble to me, as opposed to Cardiff who have the stability of big Mick & his uncomplicated style of play.

Possibly, but Wells has an acceptable scoring record at this level & if we work hard on not being a Christmas club in our defending & actually have a midfield (Williams, James, King) that contributes to stopping the opposition this time around that won’t be so big an issue. Worth pointing out Millwall scored 1 more goal than us last season & finished 11th.

The bigger implication for us is this makes Craig Shakespeare ever leaving Villa even less likely than before.

Fair comment. I actually think we are only short in 2 areas, we have no cover at LB with any experience at this level at all, plus whatever people’s view of Fam, he hasn’t been replaced meaning we really only have 2 senior strikers, plus Weimann who could do a job there. At LB it seems clear now Pearson is expecting Pring & Nurse to compete to back up Dasilva & up front, who knows? If no one else joins then Weimann, Conway & possibly Semenyo are the back ups. Otherwise I do think we have enough cover, Max in goal, Baker & Moore at CB, Vyner at RB & 6 midfielders for presumably 3 places.

You don’t need a supercomputer to work out that sides with parachute payments have a huge advantage & in most recent seasons 2/3 promoted sides go back down. Pretty sure the year before last all 3 did & last season it was 2/3 with Coventry pretty close to it. Predicting the next Barnsley or side on the slide (us, last season) is far tougher. If we finish above 14th we’ll have done well. @Merrick's Marvels bit harsh on Kalas, his last 4 seasons; 47, 24, 46 & 39 appearances, pretty decent.

Few pictures on the Weston Twitter feed, didn’t recognise any of the young lads involved, but I’m sure others would.

No, I was too honest.

On a slightly related topic, anyone know if this is likely to be on the red button or doesn’t that exist for this season?

Turned them down, effing hilarious. Their fans are starting to fret, Woodman, Guelhi, Hourhane, Ayew are all gone, 3 signings so far who are either unproven (PSV reserve player, Wigan kid) or a gamble (Walsh).

No time at all for that lot & pretty obvious Barton is odious but not sure we can throw too many stones after employing Danny Simpson.

Depends who is fit. Today was Williams’ first 45 minutes in absolutely ages, HNM appears to have a knock, too. James is a cert, if the 2 above aren’t fit enough to start (or last 90) in a fortnight I’d go James, Nagy & King.

40p in the schoolboy’s enclosure (none of that gender neutral stuff back in 1976) to watch top flight football. No one will beat that.