ohmelads

Have to feel for Hearts. VAR step in with two soft as shite pen decisions and hand Celtic the title. A bad day for the integrity of football, but let's not kid ourselves that this is a surprise. The arm's in a natural position to maintain his balance while sliding at speed to block a cross. If his arm was by his side, that'd be really unnatural.

I guess that's a pen by the letter of the law, but you also know that none of the next 20 similar challenges will be given as a pen.

Were they "fully aware" of the risks? Was the number 1 claim sincere? We'll never know, but PIF make mistakes. It wouldn't be the first time they've made outlandish claims only to drastically downsize their ambitions when reality hit them in the face. Look at their Neom megaproject. Let's not forget that the rules were also changed a week after the takeover was completed. The rules are now changing again. On both occasions, those rules solidified the cartel's position and effectively made it impossible for clubs below them to grow beyond a certain glass ceiling. The ladder has been kicked away, and catching those clubs long term - by fair means or foul - is no longer possible. We have the 8th highest wage bill in the league. There has always been a strong long-term correlation between wage expenditure and finishing position. On that basis, 8th is our par, and any position above that is overachieving. The only way to increase our spending power is to increase our revenue, and the only realistic way to do that under the rules is a massive stadium. If PIF were serious about growth, I think we'd be seeing signs of this by now, given that it will take years to design, approve, and build. The other avenue is to challenge the anticompetitive rules and structures. The club have never pursued this, even while Man City were challenging the Premier League, scoring legal wins against them, and exhausting their legal budget. PIF's apparent apathy on both the stadium and the rules suggests that they may have got cold feet and concluded - like many people - that the cartel is too strong. Trying to look at it objectively, they'd be mad to fund a new stadium. The rules would just be changed again, as they were 6 days after our takeover. I personally think PIF underestimated the stranglehold the cartel have on the game, but have realised it now. Perhaps we'll become a forgotten part of their enormous portfolio, or they'll sell up and buy a cartel club when the chance presents itself. Those two seem more likely to me at this point.

You don't survive losing at home to the mackems, especially after our form this season and losing away to these cunts as well. Will we find a better coach? I'm not sure I trust this board enough. They might, but I feel there's just as much chance we spiral into decline. The problems run deeper than the manager. The rules also completely hamstring us and recruitment has been poor ever since the whole Mitchell mess. The only silver lining is we're better off finishing outside of Europa/Conference to avoid the 15% SCR hit.

There's no question he's offside, but he doesn't touch the ball. Murphy's allowed to stand there. The keeper only saves it if he's standing in a different place, which Murphy doesn't stop him from doing. He's just beaten by a good finish. It's very difficult to save those.

The keeper can see the ball all the way and no one's blocking his path to where the ball goes though. He doesn't need to be where Murphy is. He was just beaten by a good header.

Can anyone explain the disallowed goal? Murphy's not standing where the ball goes, and he's not blocking the keeper from getting to where the ball goes. He doesn't touch the ball himself, and the keeper's not unsighted. You look at all the goals going in during melees in the box across the league. Why was this one ruled out?

Do we know for a fact Howe was in charge of the transfers? Identifying talents, scouting, negotiating? Seems like a lot for a manager to be taking on. He may have just given them the thumbs up, but we don't know what his options were. We do know that we were struggling to sign anyone wanted by the cartel, and our two most expensive signings were panic buys because of Isak. Ramsey looked like pure (and terribly misguided) opportunism. How much input Howe had is pure speculation. What is on Howe is the refusal to rotate his squad. Tonali played every minute of the second leg against Qarabag and that was totally unnecessary. Bruno got injured playing PSV chasing an extremely improbable top 8 place while we were mathematically basically through. Joelinton also started the PSV game and came off injured a few days later. Howe is responsible for those team selections and he's got them horribly wrong. He is running players into the ground in games they don't need to play in.

VAR have let the ref down. How is he supposed to get out the way of that ball? His arm is going inwards. Let's not forget that VAR checked it. A team of people with all the angles. The sport feels dodgy when you see decisions like that. I'm sure we'll have the usual suspects out offering excuses for the VAR.

That's as clear and obvious an error as you will find. Believe it or not VAR have fucked us.

We're 4 pts clear of Benfica in 23rd and our GD is 9 goals better. Theyve got Juventus and Real Madrid in their last 2. Even if they win both those, another 12 teams need to also climb above us. Opta say 10 pts (our current total) almost certainly guarantees a playoff spot. If we go for every game with the strongest team we can, we'll keep getting battered and get injuries. We have to rotate and prioritise. I'd rotate say 5 out for PSV with the focus being on a strong team for Villa at the weekend. I'd do the same against PSG. Chances are extremely slim we get top 8 in the CL and also extremely slim we drop out of CL. There is the momentum argument but I think only smart rotation gets us through this next month without a load of injuries and defeats.

Does anyone still take those charges seriously? The cartel clubs do what they want. I'm sure City have amassed a mountain of evidence to hurt their cartel rivals if anything ever comes of those charges. It's common sense that the Premier League and UEFA don't have a solid argument when it comes to their current rules. It's disappointing we're not taking this opportunity to challenge the Premier League's corruption, especially after City have done a lot of the legal groundwork already. The whole push from Liverpool and Man U fand about the 115 charges could and should blow up in their faces but PIF don't seem arsed. It's taken them years to seriously look into the training ground for example.

Well spotted. Liverpool, apparently, don't do this. Wouldn't agree with "as bad as". Liverpool wrote the book on financial doping. City, Chelsea etc were late to the party.

How many of those left the way Isak did? I agree with your earlier point, though. I find it weird reading comments that people can't enjoy his cup final goal, or that the win is somehow tainted. He's quite a cunt, and he knew full well his actions threw a grenade into all our summer and season plans and we continue to suffer from that. It could even have set the club back years because with PSR, you can't afford many misses, and our summer became a scramble. But I can separate that and what he did prior. Isak did a lot for this club, and we banked a huge profit thanks to that. If you look at a total cunt like Michael Owen, then it puts Isak's cuntery into perspective. Edit: Absolutely no sympathy for his injury. If his career peaked with us, he'll have a long time to reflect on his poor choices. I don't think he cares though. In his head, he probably thinks he got his one big lucrative move the right side of an inevitable major injury.

Wonder how this guy feels about his club making loads of money selling washed up players on huge wages to the Saudi league at vastly overinflated prices. What's he going to do when they bring sack fulls of cash for Salah?

Which broadcaster was it? I believe you, but interested.

We can't ask for much more than that. We were comfortably the better team and got done off a screamer from a very soft free kick and one of the worst VAR calls you'll see this season. It's sad to see people laying into Howe or the players. We got absolutely shafted today and Chelsea know they've got away with one. I fully expect Maresca to go all Slot and come out with a load of nonsense (as he did in-game) to create smoke and mirrors while Howe won't even mention the game-changing decisions. We need to stand up and be nasty, because this has cost us 2 points.

VAR fucked us today. The only criticism that can be levelled at Howe is if he doesn't call it out. Can you imagine if you're a player and put in that performance against 12 men and your manager says nothing about the ref or VAR? Others like Slot and Arteta moan about the slightest thing, or even nothing. Maresca will probably be the more vocal of the two managers despite being handed a point by officials.

Burn was OK despite a tough assignment. Elanga, Gordon, Joelinton were levels below the rest and were rightly subbed. We instantly looked better when those 3 came off and deserved at least a draw but it was too little too late.

The midfield were fatigued. Two of them just flew back from Japan. Howe's thing about not changing a winning team is his one achilles heel.

In a nutshell.

The injury really did fuck us. I recall he was arguably our best player in that pre season. With the injuries we had that season and Champions League, he'd have got loads of games. Miley ended up getting them instead, at only 17.

PSR means we aren't allowed to keep a global star because we're not allowed to pay world-class wages and never will be. We've just been through that with Isak. You'd need a bunch of league titles and a champions league to change that, which you can't achieve without consistently keeping world class talent. That's the catch 22. Clubs that do break into the CL get small payments due to the corrupt coefficient payment rules. I think we're better off either A) Saying fuck it, we're spending as much as the sky 6 and if the PL have a problem with it, let's get the legal teams involved and see how legal all these rules are. Or B) Skip to the legal battles immediately. If we push for a level playing field, however that might look (ie a flat spending cap for all clubs, set suitably high enough to prevent a talent drain to other leagues) then I could see fans of non-sky clubs getting on board with that. Many unambitious chairmen wouldn't, of course, because a system that maintains status quo also kicks the financial and footballing ladder from those below them.

So Everton have to work their way up in a way that Liverpool never did. What Liverpool did is of course not allowed now.

You mean the same Liverpool fans happy their club is taking huge sums of money from a murderous regime not just once but again, and again, and again. And again. Far as I can see, no other club is doing more business with PIF-owned Saudi clubs than Liverpool. How do you feel about this? Let me remind you that those Saudi clubs are owned by PIF, whose governor is the same Newcastle chairman you're talking about! If you didn't know this then you need to do a bit of reading and wake up.