AyeDubbleYoo

Howe's not going to punish Gordon for the sake of it if they've had a productive talk (as he said they had in his press conference). He'll pick him if he thinks it's right for the team.

Under Bruce I didn't care either way.

We've become way too lenient on yellow cards IMO, especially second yellows. Every game there's several fouls I would give a booking for, especially if they happen early in the game. Not that I want people to be sent off, but I do if they can avoid that by not making two bad fouls.

Yeah, goal line tech is fine. Offsides are alright but I don't think the spirit of the offside rule is reflected in the way it is applied down to the millimetre now. Maybe for offside we could look into ways to change the rule so that perfectly good goals aren't disallowed for someone leaning the wrong way. Like handball, that's probably an example of technology showing up that the rule itself isn't fit for purpose.

Players have been abusing refs since well before VAR. I would personally have gone with accepting that refs make mistakes and that decisions are subjective, rather than trying to pretend a replay can solve anything. Especially one so badly implemented. I find it difficult to believe there's any difference between our refs and other countries, doesn't seem to make much sense. It's possible they have better VAR implementations though.

I wouldn’t buy anyone with that fitness record personally.

Burn does attack in moments mind, he's just not very good at it. Think they key would be someone who could be intelligent and disciplined enough to follow the plan, while being a bit better on the ball.

Forgot Ramsay played for Nice. That's the other Thuram innit? Marcus is the one we've been linked with. Agree about the hair though.

Great post, but I still would kind of like to sign Rice. I’m sure our actual transfer strategy will be more like you suggest though.

Hate to see people get serious injuries but massive boost for us if Man Utd lose Martinez for any amount of time.

Odd.

Even his recovery is a bit odd, the best place to train and rehab is along the harbour in Monaco?

We won't be able to jump to a whole squad of CL proven players in one window, but I wouldn't be surprised if we went for one or two.

Yeah exactly, all depends on what the experts think can be done with him.

Stunt double?

Only if he can’t stay fit.

Really depends if this hamstring issue can be protected against with further conditioning and work. If not then we need him off the books ASAP, even if we let him go cheap to save the wages.

Video is class, Kojey is really interesting as well.

Best thing Liverpool could do is spend £150m on Bellingham TBH. And another £75 on Rice if possible

Been to see NY Red Bulls ages ago, Thierry Henry scored direct from a corner and absolutely took the piss. MLS was very different back then though, I guess.

It'll be really interesting to see how they do without Rashford. Shame Martial is fit.

Not for the week though.

He said a couple of weeks but he definitely wasn’t being concrete about it. Wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up involved.

Option 1 - scrap VAR and accept mistakes Option 2 - use it only for objective matters of fact (pretty much just offside) Option 3 - fix the football rules so they are compatible with VAR, and improve communication Option 3 could potentially work but would be take a hell of a lot of work. I can see that each rule would need to be broken down into steps (like in cricket where there are various criteria for a decision) and those criteria would need to be displayed and checked off on-screen so everyone knows how a decision has been reached. For example, for handball something like: - the ball has travelled over X yards or a reasonable distance that a human can react to (tick, cross) - the player deliberately made his body larger by extending his arm (tick, cross) - the ball struck the player below the elbow - the player prevented a goal or key pass (tick, cross) Each rule could be simplified and broken down like that, in theory. I still prefer to scrap VAR, because fundamentally the rules of football are vague and subjective and adding replays doesn't really solve anything. Although I'm sure other countries have decent implementations that we could just copy, I don't know what they are.

Don't think most footballers even know the rules.