Colos Short and Curlies

Asked the eldest if he wanted to go to football training (5-6) or watch the game. He doesn't want to go to training

A draw, big brawl with 2 red cards a piece which was started by a foul leading to a nice 6 week rest for Ekitike then another red for Liverpool/VVD going off injured at the death. Slot exploding just an added benefit. Failing that may as well go for a record premier League score to put Spurs GD right in the shitter

We reckon the Chelsea players surrounding him for their huddle was deliberate? Need to whisper this but thought VAR worked fairly well today. Yes the penalty decision looks wrong but in general the decisions were made quickly and they didn't turn anything uncontroversial into a 'thing'. Low bar and all that but still...

Don't think it's any surprise that Linkedin Liam is seeing performances and results dip the longer he is in charge. Mist be exhausting and confusing listening to him day on day out

I can see is putting a huge run together, especially if we go out on Weds, but I don't see 2 of Villa, ManU, Chelsea, Liverpool putting enough of a stinker together for us to get 5th unfortunately

Not sure Hall took any longer with his free kick than James did there

Objectively Arsenal coming away all square after their away game is probably the best position of all clubs. We definitely got the best result vs expectations, the rest you would say all failed to get what they would have expected to get

Thinking on the volume of needs this summer, if Tino did go it might be a possibility to give Miley the RB shirt next season and bring in a good back up. Kick the can down the road for a year Obviously doesn't work if Tonali leaves as he would be needed on midfield

Let's not forget that that also sacked their manager at half time in a game against us

Lose next week and there's 8 games left with no midweek fixtures. Everyone who plays a part next week just needs to leave it all on the pitch, fuck the derby tbh, no excuses for conserving energy. We've done half the job, in some ways 1-1 is an easier score to play with than a 1-0 lead.

2 down

That number 4 lad put of position after his failed shit housing attempt there. Things you love to see

The worst thing to me with the price of football these days is that if the costs reduced by 30% the product is unlikely to suffer. We know that the vast majority of costs are on player transfers and fees, the fees are circular in that they by and large get reinvested in the game (less agents cut of course) and is it a serious scenario where somebody will not push to be the best professional player that they can if the ceiling wage is £200k rather than £300k a week or the average premier league wage drops to just under £2.2m a year?

So how many do people think we need as a cushion for the second leg? Anything less than 2 to the good and I reckon we go out, quite possibly need 3 and then grab one over there. I do think we'll do them on Tuesday, just not confident in getting a big enough lead

You'd have thought the finer details on a shirt sponsor would depend on likely league finish and CL performance this year. Lose to Barcelona and finish outside of European qualification will mean a lower fee than being a semi finalist and in the Europa League next year. Doesn't mean we don't know who it will be, but also that we're not in a position to announce it

Your sporting director needs to be the top guy on the playing side with the DoF/recruitment and coach reporting up.

You could make an argument for Bruno, Joelinton, Ramsey, Miley as a serviceable 4 in a no Europe year, but of any of the others leave them they'd be number one priority to replace. Somebody mentioned that we need a summer like a newly promoted team and I genuinely think we're not far off that bit we wasted the windfall from champions league and Isak that would have funded it, along with the transitional season that we can afford to have once every few years but not 2 in a row. Oh and it's a world cup year that is also likely to see a number of managerial changes so it's the worst possible year to do it. Other than that, it's easy!

Nah the top teams have an identity, as do the majority of the league. The top players just give you consistency in very high levels of execution

You assuming nobody leaves? I'd be looking at who we would be happy in our first xi and first replacements this time next year then go from there. For me it's 2 keepers, 2 strikers, 2 right wingers, 2 back up full backs, 2 back up centre backs and then a centre mid. That's assuming none of Tino, Hall, Gordon, Tonali, Bruno leaves. If we have more than half of Burn, Pope, Trips, either Joe, any of our right wingers, Wissa, Schar as regulars in a years time we are in trouble

There is another answer to this though, and that is to specifically identify and target players who aren't quite at the top level but are young and hungry enough to work to get there. We either build a squad that way who grow in 2 years to be challenging (again) or we accept that we'll only have these players for 2 years and then build again

Pretty much all of it, largely as we've fucked up the one chance we had to make big changes and have a season to let everyone bed in. Financially we now need Champions League for 27/28 or we will need to trade out any top 4 quality we have due to personal ambition or income needs. We need at least one player in every position other than Left Wing (maybe) this summer. And that's a first team ready player, not a project for 3 years. The need to get top 5 will mean 4 players will come in

It hasn't though. We started throwing transitional around early doors this season as a fan base but it hasn't turned into one at all as we haven't looked to evolve into playing with a Nick type upfront. Rather we've looked for Nick to fill in the gap until Wissa came back then when that didn't work we've gone back to throwing Gordon up front as he can harass and chase.

Let's be honest the season was over after Everton, maybe even Brentford and this draw being made. The Champions League is a fun side story but we ain't winning it

He's not even that good. With a bit of luck some Turkish team will take him on loan next year

A decent season and that would rival the 95 away kit