LionOfGosforth

Brilliant

12 year old Madrid fan there, can't imagine the disappointments he's suffered as a fan

In theory they should be the absolute pinnacle, they're an absolute shower most of the time

Almost the forgotten team of our CL group, turns out they're one of the best teams in the world this year

How about his shot deflecting in off Jude for a comical own goal in the 9th minute of injury time

Ref couldn't wait to blow there

Like Ancelotti a great deal, have a hard time believing he encourages their blatant cheating

Feel like glassing this silly twat of a ref

Vini falls over, cheats a FK, defender nowhere near it gets a booking. Standard stuff when you face these cunts like

Another "entitled to go down after feeling contact" foul on vini. There must be 50 of those a game at CL level these days.

Amazing how often Madrid get away with it like, one of the luckiest teams on a constant basis. They know exactly how and when to cheat and steal time as well

Thought I was half-decent at school level but probably not as good as I thought. Recall playing against Shaun Murray around 85 or 86. He was a lot better than me, he went to Spurs as a trainee I think and then played later for Portsmouth and Bradford I think, end of the 80s, early 90s. Edit - after a bit of googling, he played for Bradford 130 times in the 90s, not bad

Christ, just knew Baally would be in there. Can you imagine that filthy clogger trying to play in the modern game man. Bardsley another who could kick with the best of them.

Strange take. For one thing, Barnes has missed a huge chunk of the season through injury, think we'll have a better idea next season of how he's going to be. Writing him off so soon is blinkered. As for the 2 you mentioned, Madison didn't want to come and Diaby has been largely poor when i've seen him.

Funny how they tend to forget to mention Havertz the fucking rat halfing Longstaff. Was worthy of 2 reds, never mind the weak yellow he got.

As am I, was a bit of sarcasm to a prior post

This is it. We can't not trade forever. It's just the way the game is now, unfortunately. It's just some will hurt a lot more than others.

Aye, getting attached to quality players is for babies

Yeah 100%. Think it was @timeEd32 who made a very similar point the other day. You can mayyyyyybe find a player with his general ability somewhere, though he'd certainly cost a lot more than we paid for Bruno. But trying to find someone who combines that ability with his level of passion, leadership, personality, all the intangibles, the way his family have settled into Tyneside life....different story altogether. He knits the whole squad together and if anything, though it might sound overly-romantic, lets you believe as a fan that almost anything is possible when you have a player of this calibre playing for you. We lose just too much by selling him, would be absolutely gutting.

Can't help but think a player with a past history of injury like DCL wouldn't fare that well with getting through a pre-season under Howe, can see him falling to bits . That said, if there's truth to it, EH will probably wring the best out of him.

He has bad BO?

Feel quite sorry for Ipswich and their fans in all this. All the excitement of a brilliant season and first one back in the big time for 20 years and their manager immediately touted around. It would never happen but i'd love one of these managers to come out and say something along the lines of "I'd never want to go to a club that chews up and spits out their coaches like Chelsea do. There's more to life than London and money".

Ugh. I get the ambition angle but Chelsea...disgusting place and he'll only end up like all the others.

Lacking managerial stability is fine when there are a ton of quality candidates to assess and potentially hire. What Chelsea are doing is mad. If Poch is "not a strategic fit", why on earth did they hire him in the first place? Well, probably because he was the biggest name available at the time and therefore the right man. I saw Nagelsman mentioned somewhere. Why would he want to uproot from Germany, only to get the boot 6 months into a new life in London and have to go through that hassle? Stability matters because there's a huge squad of players that have been bought under several different coaches and regimes. A squad of human beings who were starting to buy into the manager's beliefs. Now a new coach has to come in and mould that into something. He better do it quickly too because the next shiny new toy is already being looked at probably. There's a human cost that they don't seem to give a flying fuck about. There may come a time when the allure of West London and a top salary will fade next to the inevitable upheaval and instability that getting sacked brings and suddenly the conveyor belt of good coaches will dry up. Judging by the current candidate list, they may already be at that point.

Success in a sustained way obviously. Look at the top 3 clubs in the country. Just because Chelsea had success chopping and changing previously, doesn't make it a good call now. Their structure and personnel was very different and they could throw limitless money at it before PSR. You can't seriously think getting rid of Poch in the manner that they did, after improving considerably, was a good move?