The College Dropout

More annoyed by the Brighton game. We were pretty good for chunks of that. West Ham we were awful throughout. I've started to assume that Forest will need a result against Chelsea to confirm CL. But I look at their fixtures and they could have it wrapped up. If they get 6 points between West Ham & Palace (A) + Brentford (H) they will have it wrapped up. Leicester is a formality. I've long targeted finishing above Chelsea & Leicester being enough. But with Liverpool winning the title and the match being at Stamford Bridge - I can see Chelsea winning when they wouldn't have pre-title win.

This is where I am. There's been a top 3 for a few seasons now and there's a block of clubs behind that. We are in that block. I think we are a good summer window away from separating ourselves from that block and getting much closer to the top 3. 71 points 60 points Hopefully 68-71 points this season With a great transfer window and a bit of luck, we can probably land in the 72-84 bracket next season. Probably not enough to win a league title, but maybe good enough for a bit of a challenge and to make CL qualification default. I feel like we need a season like that pretty soon or our best players should want to leave.

The game straight after? That's good. From memory I don't think it happens as often as you would think.

For me the 3x games a week is a lot mentally and adds up over time. Villa going back down to 1x a week should help them.

Jude also played really well. That shouldn’t be lost.

Teams don’t tend to win the game after they win a league title in that season. Almost never happens as far as I remember? Would be happy with a Chelsea draw then. Playing Liverpool the game after they win the league is the luckiest slot they could have gotten and it may get them a CL spot

Ideally so. But if he can only play one game again this season - it’s Chelsea.

If he can keep managing it he can skip Brighton too.

Been that way for some time. 68 with our GD almost certainly secures it with those 2 home wins.

Fucked me on FPL though

In another life Sarr is a £60m forward. Some athlete, clean striker of the ball and composed

I’m obviously rooting for Palace

I said this. I would’ve expected Howe to come out in a low block for the second half

It’s 100% down to her being a black woman. The criticism she gets isn’t level. Evidenced by her misspeaking or being taken out of context going viral

The Philogene deal was buying him back for the same price if relegated automatically. Or something like that Philogene was a standout player in the Champ though.

No idea. Would have to be more init. I feel like Villa have bought and resold Philogene lad a lot. It’s been bad for us career. The Madrid way is better for their development - getting at least a couple seasons with the same team.

Yeh we lack leverage and he’s a bit young. £15m to a promoted club maybe. The Madrid hack is the fees received are fairly low for what tends to be high ceiling players.

I would do a sale with an auto buyback clause like Madrid do. For the whole 4 year contract or whatever. Madrid did that with Carvajal, Morata, Odegaard among others. Think Madrid had a buy-back clause for Kubo + a 50% sell-on clause, meaning the buy back was half price. We don't have their leverage mind. But I wouldn't sell under any other circumstances.

If Howe thinks he's ready to step up next season I'm fine with that. He's not trusted him to that level yet. And I think we need another athletic beast in our numbers too.

Probably sell for both of their careers. Willock has positional flexibility but he's a bit too young to be a Ross Barkley type.

Agreed. It’s been an excellent move for him. Happy for him. We got the worst deal of all the FFP shenanigans by far. Sold our 2 brightest youngsters for decent to bad fees. Poor prep but we also don’t have a saleable squad. Miley needs first team football too. I would send him out on loan and get in a cheap cover player like Villa did with Barkley + a first teamer like they did with Onana. Gives us 5 good options for 3 positions and allows Miley to get regular playing time. Include a recall in January.

No way to tell. Had we won, we wouldn't be asking the question mind.

That's not how those things play out. If he's rushed himself back, it's likely the stress and pressure and just being overly active will have him back in hospital before the season is out. Praying that's not the case.

Unfortunately, Ian Wright being a part of the women's game and advocating for it in men's spaces has a massive positive influence on the sports growth (not massive but you get it). Wrighty did a podcast I would occasionally listen to. He would talk about women's football on there. That brings the sport to a new audience. I wouldn't have listened otherwise. Saying that - I mostly skipped those parts

Fantastic news. Hope is feeling strong and is not rushing himself back