Wullie

For fans of 90s comedy, that was a lovely exchange. Well played all.

Happens loads on the continent, German refs in particular will gladly fuck the rest of the game off if one team has a 3 goal lead.

Someone please save me from this Southgate tedium

Thought we must have sold him or something, four pages on somebody going to the zoo, Jesus.

Hope Alan Pardew doesn't get involved with any similar campaign, I'd hate to have to gain huge amounts of respect for him the way I have with Souness.

Nah. The thing these leagues that attempt to pile money in to attract interest fundamentally misunderstand is that it's the teams and their history that are of interest, not the players. That's why Liverpool retained a massive global interest even when they were shite for 15 years. Neves will vanish and be back in Europe within 18 months, a lot richer but with his career damaged.

Premier League clubs could let everyone in for free and they'd still be able to outspend almost every other club in Europe. The world is completely backwards when we baulk not at a player getting £150k a week but at the price of tickets being upped to pay for it.

Personally I think every football club should do that as far as they possibly can.

Havertz gives me Morata vibes. Will bounce between elite clubs for monster fees scoring 10 goals a season and generally being a bit of a dud.

Blimey, that really would be a signing.

I think the shirts were £40 when Shepherd was caught mentioning what a rip off they were by the NOTW, what was that, 98?

I've noticed the Saudis are busing in a lot of the world's premier refs as well. Soares Dias, Michael Oliver, Lahoz, Orsato and Dankert have all been over there in the last few weeks, as well as Rappalini from Argentina. You see some interesting appointments if you're the kind of gambling addict who keeps an eye on these things. Andy Madley was reffing the J-League last weekend.

Think he's lying, there's no lasses called Come Sock on the squad list.

Incredible drama in Scotland.

Must be tiring maintaining that miserable expression 100% of the time.

Roma tried to intimidate him knowing that English refs are much less likely to take action for dissent (aka 5 of them screaming in his face after every decision) than their native ones. If they'd behaved the way they did with Orsato or Maresca back at home they wouldn't have had enough players on the field to finish the game, and Mourinho would have been in the stands after five minutes.

Seek help.

I assumed all the fuss was over the penalty retake, didn't realise Roma were pretending to be aggrieved over two clear non-penalties.

In a rich league like Germany, the deck is stacked so firmly in favour of the team in the top flight because of the financial disparity. The teams in the second division are set up to compete against each other, not a team with massively greater resources from the division above, and over two legs as well, even less chance of an upset. Since the introduction in 2008-09, the B2 team has only won outright twice, in 2008-09 and 11-12 (Union Berlin went up on away goals in 18-19). Assuming Stuttgart don't blow up, the B1 team has won 12/15, and 10 of the last 11. It's a really terrible system.

Valencia scored a 93rd minute equaliser against Espanyol last week, sending the latter down and probably saving their necks.

The bottom of the table is intense, there's about six teams separated by a single point who can all go down (sadly Espanyol already gone on H2H).

Doesn't count unless he's subbed on, at which point it activates, that's what 365 do anyway.

Mad that they signed Lazio's first choice keeper last summer to sit on the bench, bloody Brentford.

As a comparison, when Pardew won it, Mancini got 89 points (the same as this season) but that was their first PL title, a much bigger hurdle than 4th in 5 seasons and 3rd in a row. Howe's achievement is infinitely more impressive than that was, not just where he started from and the players he's improved but anyone who watched Pardew's team for more than 5 minutes could see it was a bubble waiting to burst, as discussed on here at the time ad infinitum.

Tbf he's busy making that Albert documentary. Any day now.