Deadline to name EPL 25-man squads is September 13th I think.
But Alanyaspor have announced the signing of Hwang on a one-year deal, so that's another one gone - and leaves us with 25 "first-teamers" including Dennis and Danilo.
For the 2024/25 Premier League season, Under-21 players will have been born on or after 1 January 2003 - just Moreira and Abbott from the "first-team" pool.
From the B team, it's just Fin Back who's older and not out on loan. Presume he'll have to be named in the 25, if Dennis gets a move in the next few days.
Assume that sees him through to the end of his contract, so he joins the, now not very exclusive at all, club of 'signed for Forest, never played for them'.
Elanga's done an interview, talking about Newcastle and how Isak has been chatting to him about the club and how flattering it is to be "linked with a big club" as it means he must be doing something right.
Then remembers to add, "of course Forest are a big club with two European Cups, although that was before I was born".
Someone might want to let him know when the entitled Geordie human rights abusers last won something.
Until they are playing week in, week out, it's hard to be sure what the consistency is going to be like. Something crucial in keepers. In terms of age and ability, he's a good 'un.
It used to be that there was broad wage equality over quite a range of clubs. Big was football achievement and fan base. When a player says 'big club' now, they mean budget, and wages.
Look at those loverly balance sheets. It is what it is.
Apparently he's played a total of 47 senior games in his career, and he's 26. Obviously in keeper terms he's at the beginning of his career still, but it does rather feel like Liverpool are doing him a bit dirty.
Presumably he consensually signed a contract knowing that he wasn't first choice? It's tough for keepers, because there's very limited opportunity. You wouldn't throw someone in as Liverpool starter with his experience level. He will know that you need to get a lot of games under your belt to establish yourself as a first choice keeper. So at some level he's chosen size of contract over getting regular games. He wouldn't be the first to have fallen between two stools doing that.
Having filled in well at Liverpool probably means that there's higher level interest in him as a possible number one. So there's a bit of the raw prawn in his sudden upset. He could have gone and got more games for less money elsewhere if he'd wanted to prove himself as a regular starter. Why should Liverpool give up a good fill in, that they have under contact, to cause themselves a recruitment problem, and strengthen someone else?
This is one of those hidden problems with the discrepancy in pay levels at different clubs.
I think it's highly likely Kelleher will be joining us in January, unless Sels is amazing between now and then (our recruitment and assessment of performance seems heavily stats led, and his stats so far are up on last season but even then I think his card his marked - the verdict is he's OK for a bottom half club but we aspire to better). All that is quite hard on Sels really because he had five excellent years in Ligue 1 with something like 150 appearances, club player of season awards, in the league team of season etc. He also has over 100 games in the belgian top flight snd has been dependable since joining us, if unspectacular. So he's achieved far more than Kelleher has and possibly ever will. But time will tell.
Early (presumably completely made-up) rumours are -30 points next season. If that happened last season, they'd have still finished sixth and qualified for Europe.
The should do a Rangers and bust them down to the 4 tier. The Scottish 4th tier. Would also act as a form of levelling up bringing a much needed economic boost to the poor folk of Cowdenbeath.
If they are found guilty of most of the charges, that is nowhere near the scale required when compared to the punishments for us and Everton. Needs to be a multi-season punishment IMO. -30 for the next 5 season or something. Alternatively bust them down to L2.
Given the Blue Brazil are now in the Scottish fifth tier, I doubt they would reap too much of an economic boost from Citeh playing park football in the league above.