The College Dropout

His football is better suited.

League Cup: AFC Wimbledon (H) Brighton (H) Blackburn (H) Newcastle (H) Middlesbrough 2 legs Liverpool - LOST. A weak Newcastle. And the weakest Liverpool in some time personnel wise. Similar story in the FA Cup. Beat Villa at H I think. They've had easy run-ins.

The wage cap is hurting Barcelona's competitiveness. But it might actually be helping them be sustainable tbf.

Spurs spent a ton in the summer and are 5th. Spurs are exactly where they should be. Maybe 1 place lower than they should be. They have no European football. They were awful last season and got 60 points. Genuinely toxic environment. I expected them to get 66-67 points this season at a minimum. I like his style of play mind and I ranked them the same. If Spurs were in the running for the title I would've given him an A. I have a feeling his ceiling will be higher than Howe's. His style relies on ballers being brave on the ball. The better skilled the player, the better and more effective the football. Too early to have a firm conclusion on that. And I don't know what he's like with the players, motivation, picking favourites, making coaching and tactical adjustments etc. TBH he's done a horrendous job there.

I'm not using it as a negative to attack Howe btw - it's just what happened. We were robbed against PSG. It should've been on almighty smash and grab. But on the balance of play we didn't deserve to win anyway. I don't think we have any complaints with getting 1 point from the other 4 games. We only really played well 1st half against Milan at Home. Super tough draw so all of that is understandable. PSG (H) highlight of the season. I also think he did the right thing to go for the winner against Milan. At the same time - I'm not giving him moral victory points for finishing last in our CL group. Valiant effort and all - great. We didn't disgrace ourselves like Man U did. We competed in all the matches and avoided getting battered. But we probably deserved to finish bottom. We used to be really good at hanging on in games like we did in the CL. PSG (A) or Milan (A) wasn't much different in terms of balance of play to Anfield or Emirates but with Pope in goal - we had a knack for staying in games.

Agreed. Their defence is legitimate from a real-life standpoint. A small fine for missing the arbitrary deadline would suffice and they need to make sure it doesn't happen again. Docking points is ludicrous. Like UEFA points docking should be for serial and gross offenders who are not trending towards sustainability.

Agreed. What they did with Johnson was better for their clubs health. But FFP isn't about that. It needs scrapping.

Tbf to Mourinho. He has been an elite coach and will retire as one of the greatest coaches in the last 30 years. Past his peak and all that now and I hope we don't get him in. I've only given A's to Klopp & Pep. For me Howe could only get an A with CL qualification or a Cup win this season. Couldn't ask for anything more. I think qualifying for Conference League would be a good season all things. Hence the B+. I missed someone out: Poch hasn't done a good job in a long time as a coach now.

I was showing you can make an entirely different narrative. The nuance is we made a valiant effort in the group of death. But ultimately failed. We were fantastic against PSG at home, were robbed away. But we’re pretty poor overall in the other tough games which is why we finished last. We’ve suffered a crazy amount of injuries. We’ve also been pants for months. We are at the point where we should expect an uptick in form and that hasn’t happened. We keep conceding and look devoid of confidence or ideas. We’ve been handed some bad luck with injuries and suspensions. You wonder if the strength , conditioning, recovery and physio departments have lacked. You also wonder if theres stuff Howe could’ve done better. Howe has built tremendous goodwill and credit over his first 18 months. But he's starting to eat into the credit he has built. If we don't have a strong end to the season questions will be asked about his suitability for the job. Likewise, he's only 3-4 wins in a row from silencing nearly all the naysayers.

And I don't even mind if it's not true. Some managers are "horses for courses". Howe isn't. Only a few spots seem genuinely up for whoever is in better form (RW for example).

The "7 points off 6th" take is ludicrous btw. It was funny at first. Bottom of the CL group. 5 points ahead of 13th with 10 to go. You can paint narratives if we want to fit agendas or we can face a nuanced reality.

I can only rank the jobs they've done at their clubs: Pep: A Klopp: A Arteta: B+ Emery: A-/B+ Ange : B ETH: C Moyes: B DeZerbi: B+ O'Neill: B Howe: B Howe finishes 10th it's a C+, qualify for Europe it's B+.

I'm not sure that i'm seeing this tbf. Agreed. Up until Novemberish we've had a backwind of positive momentum, great atmosphere etc. Since the mood around the club started to shift, we've not looked the same team.

In what industry are you not allowed to enter the market, make tons of losses serviced by investment? Nearly all tech startups operate on that model. Football has national monopolies and duopolies and everyone thinks that's fine. The rules are no other club can invest as much as Man City in England. In Spain no club can spend as much on wages as Real Madrid. Real Madrid are allowed something like 2x the salary cap as their nearest rival. It's awful for competition and wouldn't be allowed in any other industry. Honestly, the fact we've not tried to play hardball, not tried to exploit loopholes, not landed major progress on the stadium or training group is disappointing. As I've previously said the next 12 months will be key. If we are as aggressive and tenacious about our supposed ambition as we believe - we'll need to see some movement on these fronts.

Uber did this. As did Amazon. Making billions in losses over several years as they gained market share.

`That's fine. My point is - we paid for a player at the peak of his value. We need to sign players that we could potentially double their value. Only Bruno has done that. Gordon probably gone up 50% in value this season alone..

The next 12 months are huge in terms of PIF. We really need progress on commercial deals, stadium, training ground etc.

Everyone accepts they are poorly run at the top and there’s questions over the manager too. Also bad luck with injuries. But like Liverpool have a useful youth squad.

I’m a fan of that Diallo lad. Did well last season. Surprised he’s had so little game time this season. Garnacho too.

Great game.

Movement brilliant. First touch delightful. The ball is out his feet. The angle must be so familiar to him that the finish is pre-programmed. Wide. My Gosh.

I just need that season with Tonali.

Someone was suggesting that Cole Palmer might be having a Miggy like purple patch. They don’t watch football or don’t know ball.

Chelsea bridge the gap between Liverpool levels of revenue and the true European elite with their academy and other trading. You’re still allowed to financially dope your youth recruitment and setup. We should do exactly that. That still takes 5+ year to come to fruition. It took both Chelsea and City about a decade to get that going.

The problem with his fee is that it’s a the higher end of his potential value. We didn’t get any type of ‘distress sale’ discount. Like Maddison is probably a £60m-70m talent available for £45m.