Raconteur

Surely it's pretty significant that the frigging FA was found guilty of breaching child protection laws regarding the transfer of minors? You'd like to think the governing body would be above board...

This is where I'm at, like a long farewell. There might be sweet moments on the journey, but it's only going to end one way.

Sterling's control and finish was sensational. What a player.

Desailly was not a centre midfielder, he was a centre half that Milan bought to play in a centre-midfield role. He was a fantastic player, but his best work was at centre half.

Atletli 2

Surely Ambravovich has become terminally disengaged by now. Wouldn’t be surprised if he offloaded Chelsea to an oil buddy.

By my count eight of those are non-permanent managerial appointments.

We're going to shake the fuck out of him, then beat his ass. That will sort him out

Still say that’s the game in the club’s history we’ve never recovered from. Probably the biggest sliding doors moment in the PL era (rivalled only by Freddy getting sick and allowing Hall to make a snap sale to Ashley).

Cried when Australia failed to qualify for the WC in 2001 and 1997 - the latter in the work smoke room Funnily enough, when we lost the 1999 FA Cup I responded with punching walls. Aus makes me cry, Toon makes me rage...

I’d like to see this, but expect Ki and Diame.

Really looking forward to Lonsdale taking over God, you’re a cunt, Ashley.

Or maybe he’ll only make two changes

I imagine that, over the course of 90 minutes, we’ll see all of our fit players get a kick. Starting lineup will probably look very odd, and bear no resemblance to the XI on the pitch at the end. All I’m hoping for is that Rafa rotates through a few combos at centre midfield. Like Shelvey said in his interview: five into two doesn’t go...

Isn’t Sean like four inches taller?

He has not been great, he played very well for half a season, rest of the time he's been worse than s****. He’s not been worse than shit this season. Not as good as last season aye, but he’s still been alright It's only because he was playing like Kante last season that the start of this year was underwhelming. I’m sure he’s leading all sorts of club stats despite not playing as well as last season.

Tbf, there’s nothing in that article that HTT hasn’t said already with greater insight and verbosity.

I'm still strugglin. Top right of a post. Like this Let me instruct you in the use of question marks. I have no idea. I'm an old fart you know. Season ticket holder for 30 years (during the war etc). Think this year could break me like. Me and the wife have missed a few games this season. Unheard of years ago. Which war? The Falklands? That’s closer to 40 years - Iraq 1 was 28 years ago(!!!) now

Just read that (20 yo) Kylian Mbappe has scored the same number of Champions League goals as (the real) Ronaldo. Some stats are just too mind blowing to comprehend.

Hadn't heard a thing about this. Crazy. The follow-up, after al-Araibi was freed following 11 weeks of imprisonment: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/ng-interactive/2019/feb/15/david-squires-on-hakeem-al-araibi-and-bona-fide-hero-craig-foster

That's an astonishing record. Surely a small club they've just been booted from? Commentator on the post-match wrap: "Solskjaer got technically schooled tonight"

What if they reestablish themselves as The Greatest Club in the World? The reason the European Cup was set up was to shut their fans up. Establishing themselves as a "power" in their region is easily achievable, and after that it's as much a case of where you set your ambitions as what conventional wisdom says they can achieve.

Same here. Its one of my pet hates. If we bulk him up he loses agility and quickness. I want him to stay around the weight he is You'd think Rafa would be across this, given he chastised Mitrovic for bulking up against instructions.

Not that I'm changing from zero, but the Tottenham and Wolves matches were ones we would definitely have closed out more confidently last season.

We made a sub in time-on, which is an automatic 30 second addition. You could see the ref look at his watch in the 94th minute (the commentators mentioned it) and think "one more phase" - perhaps that decision is questionable but the refs union would agree 100% with that decision. The goal went in at 94.37 didn't it? 7 seconds "over". Whether it's a foul or not, whether Almiron was fouled or not, whether Moutinho should have been on the pitch - these are all different questions. But I don't think we can quibble with the time-on.