El Rojo

I agree with a lot of that, but I can think of several players in our squad I’d be a lot more upset to see departing to the same club. We’ll absolutely cope and can potentially improve without him. We’d be up the creek if it was either of the much older Alisson or Van Dijk heading away, though.

He’ll likely win a few more European Cups with Real Madrid if he manages to hang in there for a few years. For an elite footballer, I’m not sure how moving to an environment that presents such a likelihood makes him ‘stupid’. From a fan’s perspective, it’s not like he’s moving to one of the Manchester clubs or Chelsea either. His legacy will ultimately be like a Steve McManaman’s, but for humanity’s sake hopefully he’ll be a better pundit, as low a bar as that challenge is.

He shouldn’t get any abuse over it and I don’t think he will. However, I think there might be a little less patience with some of his ‘looser’ defending, should we see it again soon. There seems to be a general consensus that most aren’t that arsed to see him go but are pissed off that we didn’t get a fee. We’d be devastated if a significantly older Van Dijk was off. I’m sick and tired of Real Madrid, though.

I’m picturing a queue for selfies when you journey to the stationery cabinet.

I really like Bradley, but he gets injured a lot.

I was thinking more two years ago. Agree that even last summer Real would have shafted us. The player, his advisors and Real held all the cards and played them to suit themselves, unsurprisingly. Can see him at Chelsea in two years time.

Much of our recent success was built on the sale of Coutinho. It was exemplary business from start to finish including how the money was used. Shame Trent wasn’t sold for a fee even last summer.

No real surprise with this one. He’s a strange one - part of his game makes him absolutely irreplaceable, while another part of his game means we can also improve a fair bit when he goes. We’ll need more creativity from midfield, though.

Disgraceful attack on Souness’s sock there.

I enjoyed this. Gave Steven Gerrard my famous hairdryer treatment at half time but I think he’ll appreciate the points I was making and will ultimately be a better and bigger man as a result.

Nice formatting and even better blue sky thinking.

One of them will depart. If more than Trent from the Big Three is off, we’d surely keep Robbo for leadership reasons. I think he’s played alright this season when rotated too. He should definitely be used more sparingly now though.

At this stage, I’d crawl through a mile of broken glass for a sniff of Jorg Schmadtke’s Ibizan suncream.

It will be amazing achievement to have won the title in his first season with us. Looking forward to seeing who we bring in. While we badly need them, getting new players to fit in will be a new and different challenge for him.

Yeah but Ant and Dec and lads with their shirts off.