Wullie

When people talk about "players don't really like playing internationals anyway", that's a very English-centric viewpoint. In South America for example, the international commitment is absolutely huge.

I can't understate how excited I would be to see Leeds walk off the pitch tonight. Won't happen but would be just magnificent.

Dries Mertens has been at Napoli for like a decade.

The announcement of a European Super League without either the current champions or the runners up is fucking hilarious.

You've posted it too quick after pasting it, you have to wait for the forum to embed it before posting.

@Yorkie put it well last night. These clubs are not their owners any more than Ashley = Newcastle United. These clubs are integral parts of the fabric of English football. It's tempting to say just fuck off but that's to the detriment of everyone. I'm not sure what other options are available though given the way we have let anyone (well, almost anyone...) buy a club if they have enough money.

How am I supposed to work with all this going on ffs

Agreed. I keep reading that nobody will want to watch the domestic leagues anymore, that's crazy talk. Nobody's going to choose a glorified friendly tournament over a real one once the novelty has worn off.

The parasitic owners of these clubs don't seem to have noticed that football, a hell of a lot of the time, is actually quite a dull game, and the dullness increases as the jeopardy decreases. The latter stages of the Champions League are the peak of the sport, and so exciting, because of what is at stake, not because of who is on the pitch or what shirt they're wearing. We already have a large body of evidence that regular games between Team A and Team B aren't necessarily must-see events - it's called the group stage, where Barca and Juve already meet twice a year every year to play out two fairly unmemorable dead rubbers. Now we can watch it every week in perpetuity!

You can basically blame Leicester City and Atalanta for this. They've upset the apple cart and these cowardly wankers now want to hide themselves away from competition. It's worse than just greed in that sense, they're actually scared of their 'brands', that they thought were untouchable, being damaged by the act of sport itself. They've decided they want the financial rewards of sport but without having to earn it, even when they start with a massive financial advantage anyway!

I think they probably think that players are as greedy as they are. But I don't think they're right, not that players aren't keen to get their hands on a few quid, but that so many of them will be interested in hitching their careers to a perennial friendly tournament, most of them playing for nothing. This thing has no jeopardy at all.

Leipzig Might as well go the whole hog and invite MK Dons.

If UEFA/FIFA stand by their threat to ban players from international competition then this thing already has a big problem. Players aren't going to let the greedy parasites who own the club they happen to play for dictate whether they can play for their country or not.

Spot on. The writing was on the wall when Abramovich turned up.

Give over man. Their only qualification for being on the list is that they're rich. Look at the rest of the list, the oldest domestic title is Arsenal in 2003. Spurs haven't won the English title since 1961. Leicester are more worthy of being on this appalling list in every way imaginable.

I just keep reading the list of teams, and there's fucking Spurs at the end, like Homer when he joined the country club.

Have none of them noticed that almost every game this season between the "big" clubs has been absolutely shit?

McTominay and Cork 60/1

It'll take Atleti and Spurs about 3 games to think "Oh shit we're now West Brom"

Amazing last ten minutes in Paris, was 0-0 at 78 mins, finishes 3-2 to PSG with 2 in added time.

One of those really frustrating days today where almost everything has missed by one line. Apart from Lingard getting crocked and denying me a pop at £200 (and a load of others), I really fancied all the Serie A games so I put several bet builder combinations across the four of them. Every team scored, every game finished over 2.5 and every team got 2 cards... apart from Crotone, one of the most booked teams in the league, who didn't get any, and brought £120 worth of otherwise winning slips down.

I got Fernandinho at 4/5 after he'd committed the foul he got booked for. 365 suspended the odds but the play went on for so long that eventually they came back, and he'd committed a second foul in the meantime that also saw an advantage. Stuck a wedge on it, thought Dean had forgotten about it at first until they flashed it up.