Pata

I doubt he's playing football now either tbh.

He made an error in judgment, trying to pull out when he realises that doesn't mean it's not a foul.

It's soft and I hate soft penalties but I think that's a stonewall penalty in any case. Gabriel fucked up and I don't really see how that could go unpunished, it's not exactly accidental contact even when he tries to pull out of it.

I haven't really seen much of Diaby but I'm a bit hesitant spending at least £60m on a player from Bundesliga. So many players have flopped recently coming from there and Leon Bailey had similar numbers to him in Leverkusen.

I don't think there's too much wrong with his defending even now, it often looks awkward but he's no liability and talented wingers will always go past fullbacks at times. The bigger problem IMO is that he's not getting as much time on the ball and is really struggling in possession. I have full faith in Howe, if he thinks what Burn brings to the team outweighs the negatives I trust he's right.

I think the new forward and third choice striker needs to be a same player unless the third choice striker is someone really young and cheap. Third striker is such a minimal role nowadays when most teams only use one striker. Someone like Joao Pedro or similar versatile player would be perfect, contesting for a starting place as a wide forward while being the emergency backup striker or even number 10 if we start to use Isak more there.

Could have possibly signed Colo or Schär too to play at DM.

Even if you are a heavy favourite of say 67% or 1/2, you'll not win that game 33 times out of 100. When the points are in the bag you'll get pretty much an additional point compared to the projected. Also stay in good form which is a factor on future projections.

Villa's percent is creeping up, worrying.

Think most of the big saves by Pope were pretty low on xG and most of Watkins' shots seemed to go through the legs of our defenders which knocks the xG down quite a bit.

Not a fan of attendance talk but Newcastle in the 80s wasn't exactly literally the best team in the world.

And that is why I suggested it to be a cultural difference.

You could be right but I'm not sure if I agree on the level of financial risk, feel like signing a 30 year old Brozovic for £15-20m is less of a risk than £50m on some kid from Ligue 1, Bundesliga or Eredivisie.

I think there's a big cultural difference between Italy and England how players like him are viewed by both fans and clubs. Italians see a really good mature player who'll be useful for couple of seasons, the English see he's +30 and cross his name from the list due to being only a short term fix with no resale value. Maybe Casemiro being such a huge hit will change the mentality of some clubs in England too.

Then you can exploit the bookies if you think they don't know any of that.

I don't see us being clear favourites against Arsenal even at home.

I apologise if it's hard to comprehend what I'm saying.

Alright mate. I'm not a native speaker but in my mind extremely unlikely (low single digit probability) is pretty fucking close to non-existent.

I said it's extremely unlikely, so unlikely that I don't consider them to be in the race at all. Is that fine with you?

Yup, and if we lose to both Spurs and Brighton at home it's easy to say we didn't really deserve to be in the top 4.

Think Spurs are done, it will now be between us, Man Utd and Brighton for two spots. Notice that people are pretty much giving one spot to Man Utd but they could be fucked, all those extra games and injuries could mean it's a tough ending to their season, haven't really rotated their players much during the season either. It's still looking good, we are way more likely to play in UCL next season than not.

This battering also erasing any gained confidence they could have had from the managerial change.

Think they are favoured in the semifinal considering all the injuries Man Utd have, hope they can do it.

Yeah, it's not easy to enjoy the games despite it already being an amazing season. That underlying feeling of dread that Europa League would be a massive letdown from the position we are in right now.