Carlos Carvalhal

Things seem a little bit all over the place at Wednesday at the moment, Luhukay's inherited a large, disjointed squad that needs a fair bit of surgery still (and Kieran Lee and Gary Hooper back from injury ASAP) and there's not much in the way of a game changer in terms of pace and only Forestieri's the real player we have that can unlock the opposition defence. Needs a couple of loan signings now we can make them, but also need to shift some of the bloat that obviously aren't in the plans (Abdi, David Jones, and seemingly Westwood's been outcasted for financial reasons which is a damn shame). A poor result in midweek and the atmosphere will be even worse than it is already, the two playoff seasons have ramped up the expectations with the fanbase big time and it seems to have brought out the worst in a growing number of supporters. The under-23 lads that have been in and around the squad have done well but they're not quite ready for the regular rigours of Championship football and need time to ease themselves in. Just hope we can pick up a bit of form as the September - October run of fixtures is going to be very tough.

Under the Dome Season 2 Quite enjoyed the first season, but fell off hard big time during the second season and was a real slog to get through as it went on. Losing a couple of the better actors on the show didn't help and the new characters that suddenly appeared weren't up to scratch. The whole Zenith thing was absurd. Didn't bother watching season three.

Still can't believe just how good we were last night, we should probably have scored a couple more (Wallace's freekick that narrowly missed and Cech saving from Helan after his superb run) though I can't complain. The team chased everything all game even at 3-0 up and everyone was outstanding, particularly pleased to see Hutchinson score as he's been in incredible form so far this year. Felt bad for the Arsenal fans who'd travelled all the way up to see some abject performances from their team though. Hopefully it'll be a big lift to everyone involved with Wednesday to show what can happen when you play the big clubs and will be good motivation going forward in the league and the cups. Making the semi-finals will be a tough ask, though we'll have Gary Hooper hopefully available for the next round as he's just signed on loan.

Wearers from the past decade include Kezman, Crespo, Sidwell, Boulahrouz, Di Santo and Torres. It's not had the best of runs. Big fan of defenders wearing typical midfielder/striker squad numbers. Remember at Wednesday one year we had Roger Johnson and then Oguchi Onyewu wear the number 8 shirt in one season. Back in the day some World Cup teams used to alphabetise their squad numbers meaning you'd get an outfield player wearing 1 and a goalkeeper wearing 7 or 8, or something.

They appear every year seemingly. There's always that one player who gets linked to the same team every year. Surprised "Leandro Damiao to Spurs" or "Mexes to Arsenal" haven't appeared...yet.

Them and Swansea have made some good signings so far. Swansea less on the high profile side, but I fancy them to perform well with the signings that they've made so far, and I don't think they're finished either.

Sheffield Wednesday sign winger Marco Matias from Nacional on a four-year deal. Scored 21 goals in all competitions last year in 42 games. Only Jackson Martinez scored more in the Portuguese league last year. Impressed.

Looks like Fran Kirby will be getting snapped up by one of Chelsea, Man City or Arsenal on the back of the World Cup. She's too good to be playing in the second division over here. Hope she ends up at City so her and Duggan can run riot scoring goals.

England win the third place game. Well deserved. Loved the celebrations at the end.

Probably the most invested I've been in an England team's progress since 2004 and the saddest I've felt after an England defeat since 1996. They played really well and to get to the semi-finals was great going, considering the team was very much quarter-finals on paper (many in fact thought we would struggle against Norway). Some good performances against Japan, Houghton was outstanding and Duggan looked like a real threat going forward. Instead of hoofing it forward, play her central, play the ball to her feet and let her do her thing because she's really good at scoring goals at club and international level. I'm sure the team will be raring to go come Saturday for the third-place match. I think we may see a few changes, a front three of Kirby, Duggan and Aluko would show intent, and bring Carney and Greenwood into the team and that would be just fine. Hopefully Bassett will play as aside from the own goal, she's been great and her and Houghton have a real understanding.

YES! What a performance. Hopefully will do wonders for the women's game here. John Herdman Boring and predictable? Ha'way ya daft shite.

Mike Basset managed Norwich and England >_> Mike Bassett would have done a better job of managing us back in the day than the likes of Paul Jewell and Terry Yorath, I reckon.

Looks like Wednesday are replacing Stuart Gray with Carlos Carvalhal, former Sporting Lisbon and Besiktas coach. Not heard of him before, but can't be all that bad if he's coached those two clubs. Fanbase seems split, but he can't be much worse than most of the guff we've had since Ron Atkinson left for the second time back in the late 90's. Not an established name in English football, but neither were two of the three managers that got promoted out of the Championship last season.

Having been on here intermittently and barely on for a while, I need to get back into the swing of this. Starting this weekend. Big target, but I'm gonna make sure I get there.

David De Gea's girlfriend up now I was trying to think who he reminded me of!

Harsh on Wycombe but credit to Southend for not giving in, even if some of their fans had decided to jib it before the end.

Tomorrowland: A World Beyond was enjoyable and good fun for a couple of hours. Mixed reviews from the critics (Kermode seemed reasonably positive about it on the BBC this week, as did the Guardian who rated it highly, but others less so), but I really liked it. Did the whole IMAX thing for the first time and I enjoyed that too. It's a Disney film so it's kinda cheesy in a few parts, although a bit darker than your standard which was interesting, but the cast did a great job and the visuals are simply outstanding. It's worth a look, and Britt Robertson stole the show. She's a bit wonderful. I watched this the other night on ITV4, and yeah that was strange. Isn't Blair a Newcastle fan? Liked the use of the Manchester bands in there though. Not even a Manchester United fan but thoroughly enjoyed it. That United team were great to watch, I was at that Villa Park semi-final replay with my dad (who was a United fan) and it blew my mind. Closest thing to the Lisbon Lions in terms of the whole youth setup thing and I don't know if we'll see anything of it's like here in the Premier League for a long while.

This popped into my head when I heard the British entry:

Can't see Equatorial Guinea being allowed in to the next tournament if Tunisia are banned too, after this. Bizarre scenes.

This was great to watch:

No surprise to see Sherwood as the clear favourite for that post given that Les Ferdinand and Chris Ramsey (who were his Spurs coaching staff) are already there.

It's Maniche to Chelsea only much much worse. Yay. He's basically cover for our u21 side given Janko went the other way, Lingard went to Derby and Vermijl joined Sheffield Wednesday. He won't get near the first team. But then this is Van Gaal, so maybe its all part of his philosophy. Is Vermijl any good? Hoping him coming in can take the pressure off our starting defenders who are all really good (one of the better defensive records in the Championship) but could do with a bit of competition. Will Keane looks decent from the two matches he's played in for us, definitely got the ability but just needs the supply.

Sending off in less than a minute during Bournemouth - Watford! Not quite enough to break Kevin Pressman's record, but not far off...

Exciting times ahead, hopefully! Pleased that Mandaric will be sticking around in some capacity. He's done a great job of transforming the club for the better in the past few years, and hopefully the new owners will build on that and take it to the next level.

Oyston's ruined them. They were great value in their Premier League season under Holloway, but since he left they've just imploded and unsurprisingly Paul Ince flopped there. Can see Clark quitting before the end of the season as Oyston seems incredibly difficult to work with.