Taylor Swift

It feels like a dream. The way the players gave up, the way Liverpool waltzed through the us and generally the way the crowd reacted to the match. It felt like a preseason, a friendly but everyone knowing deep down that we're in serious shit. Honestly it was just surreal.

That's good for us and Arsenal too. Good stuff.

I'm about to go out to watch this with a few people. Thinking of bailing out now.

What happened to Fontas

10 game ban means Parky gets a pen. If we win, pretty much confirming our status then the pen is converted.the

Maybe Real giving up on the league so early was bad for both Real and Barca. It's possible. I think this real team just played like the team that they've been all year, a lesser version of last year's team. Barca, with Messi not being fully fit, a couple of dodgy decisions and an inability to press like they did under guardiola just ran into a better team and got fucked. But they still haven't lost the inherent talent level. They're just not as hungry as they were and they need some new blood. They weren't pushed in the league and that lack of intensity carried over.

Hasn't stopped barca from dominating Europe over the past five years. The Germans had two good days but the Spanish teams will be back next year. I think this turning of the tide thing is far too romantic. The best players still play for the Spanish teams.

Amazing touch for the goal.

They just didn't press with any intensity. It's so unlike them but how often have they done it this season? Must be more times this season that they didn't press than the four previous seasons combined. I don't know. They can't fix it with buying a player or two. Maybe injecting some new blood will prevent some lapses but they don't win the match last night if they had a better CB and winger. They still would have lost, just by less. They need to press with the same intensity. That's what they're missing. Bayern did and neutralised them completely. Messi being unfit also didn't help but what can you say, them's the breaks in life. He's been a machine for four years and they have been more successful than any team in history, so they can't complain about an injury or two to him.

Who hasn't wanted to do that to Robben?

It's time for Barca to inject some new blood into the team anyway. It was due last season when they clearly struggled at the end and it's definitely due now.

Agreed.

Holy shit

Love the CL anthem

All good.

Surprised Gomez is starting. Lineups are fucking tasty otherwise. This will be epic.

Hear hear

13-6 is 110 win pace.

And your point about playoffs being more enjoyable than the finals itself is precisely why having a league season would be great. Imagine the Yankees, Sox and Giants all on 95 wins with one more series to go. Each day would be insane. Just consider the possibility.

Nah, no playoffs would be better. You must be the best over the course of the season, not for three weeks at the end of the season. I feel especially strong about this re:baseball because the shittest teams still win 40% of the time and the best teams usually don't win more than 65% of the time. There is too much variance day to day. The game itself is not conducive to being evaluated on a day to day basis. It's a long game, six months. If there was a sport that was made for a league season then baseball is it because you play 162 god damn games. Especially now that you have that one game playoff, unbalanced schedules and incomprehensible divisions. I'm not saying I don't enjoy it, I do, but I also know that it's not a meritocracy. I enjoy it for all the other things. The playoffs don't make me enjoy it less because I don't think about these things when it's on.

Don't see why we can't challenge for the title if we have a good 2-3 year cycle. We just have to keep on leveraging our development. If we get into the top 4, improve our commercial deals then we can become a fixture in the top 5. Then it's just one season of luck with injuries and other small things and we won't be far from competing. Let's say 90 points wins the title. If you can win 17 games at home then you're only short roughly 35 points. That's about ten wins away from home, eminently possible. We once won 14 at home with SBR iirc. It's not impossible. It's not going to happen in the next two or three years but beyond that I wouldn't close the possibility.

Not saying I don't enjoy the playoffs. Plus baseball and basketball has these teams playing multiple times against each other. Only in the NFL is it one and done. I'm just saying that playoffs are fun because they're random and unpredictable but I honestly prefer a league season to a playoff style. If baseball had no divisions and a balanced schedule but kept all the other CBA stuff then I think it would be fucking awesome. September would be absolutely insane if you have three or four teams challenging. Just think about it. It'd be great.

Not if we did our research we wouldn't. Who gives a shit what other people think, anyway? We know best because we watch every minute of the shit served up and we've been watching for years. What do the pundits who see two minute highlights know about us that we don't?

Start Ben Arfa.