The College Dropout

At the highest level I question if he’s got that real ability. But he always keeps the ball welll and is mentally sharp.

Fundamentally if you have owners that are willing to sustain losses and continue to invest what’s the problem? Uber, Facebook, Amazon etc. did that for years. Leicester can only be a competitive team in the PL sustainably if they are in the CL more often than not. Thats not fair. If their owners want to bankroll them (pegged to a European or division limit) what’s wrong with that? If I was a gazillionaire and wanted to open a supermarket chain. I could invest as long as it took to catch Tesco and co.

Aye there was speculation the family had difficulties with the business and could no longer fund Leicester. But aye - it was just them falling shy kf FFP. For Leicester it was the wages and modest revenues. To be FFP compliant they would need to sell a star player every other season or qualify for the CL. They never got the big money for Tielemans or Maddison and didn’t get CL. Only the top 6 can do that and not fall foul of FFP.

I don’t but you get the point. It was a genuine ‘do you even know me?’ moment. Like if I needed shoes and SD was the only place to buy shoes. I would walk home barefoot. Since he’s left I’ve softened my stance on him and his businesses. As an owner he was awful and saw the club decline almost irreconcilably. But he could’ve been a little worse and more vindictive. I guess. And Flannels is canny with a sale.

My wife once bought me something from SD and I was so angry. For a non-football fan it's hard to understand. As a football fan, that was a red-card offence.

I held my Mike Ashley boycott firm for a solid decade. But the Flannels sales are pretty good like. And he's gone.

Snowflakes up in arms

Missed out on Kudus & Palmer. Painful - both would've likely have been transformative signings.

This is the equivalent of buying Isak in August. Him having a shakey start so we spend Isak money again on a new striker in late January. It doesn't make any sense.

No captain hindsight over here. If you offered me a LW or a RW after we sold ASM, I would take the RW 100 times. I didn't rate Gordon but we spent £45m on him. He needed a chance to prove himself. Joelinton, Willock & Isak are good replacements if he still wasn't performing. But everyone at the club believed in him, it's not like the Antony situation now. Miggy and Murphy aren't top 8 PL players. They don't have the ability. We needed a RW. I like Barnes if he was in addition to 1 or 2 others in more pertinent positions. But as it is... it didn't make sense.

Mainoo is a top talent.

The Barnes one in particular doesn't make sense. Livra and Hall were opportunistic signings. It's questionable but understandable. Tonali was for the first team. Barnes? Didn't make sense. We needed a RW and a good £45m RW would've been brilliant.

From a NUFC fan and a PL fan - I need the City empire to crumble. But there's a part of me that would love to see Bruno with players on his level and better consistently.

I think there was an assumption that Burn was Sven's back-up. So having 3 left-backs made some level of sense. Then Burn stunk at Brighton and Lascelles was pretty solid throughout. SO Burn is now only a LB and the other two are only seen as LB's too. And Burn is way ahead of both in Howe's eyes.

City paid £100m for Grealish, £53m for Nunes, £77m for Gvardiol. We should get £100m. From a footballing perspective, i'd like to see him at City. Just to see how he plays under Pep.

He'll play a lot. They've not effectively replaced Gundogan. Rodri has played next to Stones and Kovavic in recent weeks. He's better than them both.

I mean.. you're saying "of course" now. But for months many have been using that exact line.

And also.. kind of expected. This one might actually be "bad luck". It seems like there was some underlying issue that wasn't shown on scans for months.

Good interview by Longstaff.

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No but level of influence matters. If 2023 Klopp wanted a player and the current DOF or whoever filled in for Edwards (Klopp's mate apparently) preferred another player. They would go with Klopp's player.

Maybe not black and white but most top clubs operate similar to that. It was Edwards that wanted Salah and Klopp preferred a German lad Brandt maybe. Klopp did eventually agree but Salah wasn’t his preference or choice. In recent seasons Klopp has had a stronger role in player transfers. Spurs, Chelsea (Roman era), Real Madrid, Brighton, Brentford - the managers don’t have huge influence in who is signed for the first team. I remember Brentford got rid of a manager because he didn’t want to buy-in to the data led approach. I think Howe needs influence. Otherwise you get players signed and not used. But the level of influence needs to be managed.

Has he not just signed an extension?

Thanks for sharing. If it’s the same knee though l…

It seems different doctors said different things. They went with rest to see what it was like. He started playing again and seemed ok.