brummie

Dawson's Creek face.

This darts thing, which they are still doing, is the most hilariously desperate shit they’ve resorted to on deadline day. This time next year they may as well just show a couple of films or something. To be honest, it’s all been downhill since the peak of dildo-ear.

I reckon the big Greek lad at Forest just doesn't give a fuck and is one of those types who, having made a fortune, don't fully realise they're not masters of the universe. Their transfer activity is fucking insane. I'm half expecting them to sign me by 11.

Now showing Paul Merson playing darts FFS. Surely this is going to reach the point at which even Sky can't pretend anymore?

Man City manage to be an example of both sides of the coin with FFP - the cheating and manipulating it side, but ALSO the 'flog enough kids for relatively small money, it all adds' thing. The lad we just paid Boro 8m for signed from City for a million but also a sell-on percentage. A few little deals like this all contribute.

You could also argue (like monetary economic theory) that FFP is reducing the amount of money in circulation (in the transfer market) which should effectively bring down transfer fees inflation. FWIW, I find the idea of FFP to be completely sane, and there's no doubting that football clubs need some sense knocking into them, and also that state-owned clubs (sorry, chaps) are a fucking terrible idea for a number of reasons. So I am a big fan of doing something to address all these things, but it has to reflect the fact that you have a few clubs who have wilfully and repeatedly broken those rules, got away with it, and now built themselves an absolutely unassailable financial position thus making themselves absolutely immune from these rules.

Also, re SSN and F1, this F1 bloke talking now looks a right smarmy cunt.

Just thinking exactly the same.

I think it's basically clubs focusing on loan fees approaching amortisation values over the period in hand. I reckon Chelsea are already fucked because of their general transfer madness of late, but if the transfer market starts to cool as clubs start getting really worried about FFP, then they're going to be left with a huge dung pile of mediocre players on massive eight year contracts who are devaluing faster than an Austin Allegro being driven off the forecourt.

I reckon Luiz's form dips whenever he's back shagging Alisha Lehmann.

Obviously, I am being particularly sanguine about this result this morning, yesterday was a different state of affairs!

Yeah there's a degree of truth in that. We were always going to have a dodgy patch - Spurs did, Arsenal did to a degree, there's no way we weren't going to have one. We're in ours, and have done well to still pick up points along the way, but obviously ran out of luck this week! There's so much football left, I'm not really arsed about other teams results here and there. I'd rather be in 4th today but it's never a continual progression from shit side to really good one, there are ups and downs in there (I've said exactly same on here about you this season).

Well, that was without a doubt the worst performance under Emery, absolutely awful from start to finish. You played very well, very organised and did well to get the most out of it and deserved the win. You didn't let us do what we do, and we didn't have a rsponse until it was too late, and even then it was only for about 15 minutes. It was a bit like the reverse of this fixture last season in that sense. Can't overstate just how much not having Pau Torres available changes things though, not just defensively, not even mostly defensively, but in helping us move up the pitch. Also Diaby is desperately out of form, Bailey should have been on from the start. Zaniolo came on and bounced around trying to get booked and offering nothing (which is what happens in 95% of his performances) so hopefully we'll not turn that one permanent. Ramsey is clearly not close enough to being fully fit either, and it showed when he came on. The only players who I think came out with any credit were McGinn, Martinez and Bailey. Reminded me a bit of losing 4-2 at home to Leicester last season. We put on a major bounce back after that, and I hope we do the same after this stinker of a result, so we've got a lot to think about. Anyway, well played, you deserved the win, and if we had to get beaten and break that incredible run, at least it was to a side who'd got a good plan and executed it really well rather than, say, the usual undeserved Man United or Liverpool last minute catastrophe.

I am 99 percent sure we will start with Bailey rather than Diaby.

The best thing you can see on the team sheet is exactly that, Carlos and Lenglet with Konsa at RB, as he's absolutely wasted there, and Carlos isn't anywhere near as good a CB. I hate it when we do it, but we do do it quite a lot.

No idea what will happen tomorrow, but home form dipped in which way? We've played 10 home league matches, won 9 and drawn 1, scored 29 and conceded 8. We also won 7 out of our last 7 home league matches at the end of last season, and haven't lost at home in the league since Arsenal beat us, very nearly a year ago. ;-) Getting back to the matter in hand, though, we've not been great in general the last few weeks, and we're really, really missing Pau Torres, who is massively important to the way we play (although Lenglet has looked ok of late, he's still nowhere near as good at passing out of defence). We also could do with a fit and firing Jacob Ramsey back asap. Diaby is also currently going through a terrible period, really out of form. Digne is also out, he was excellent for us first half of the season. On the positive side, Tielemans is back fully fit, Moreno is starting to look the player he was before his injury, and after having decided he was the only player Emery could not do anything with, Bailey is now making me look like an idiot and starting to look like he's worth every penny of what we paid for him . Hoping we get firing on all cylinders again soon, though. Martinez Cash Konsa Lenglet Moreno Luiz Kamara McGinn Tielemans Watkins Bailey I reckon.

Which is not the same thing as "by June", which means "this week". This is just a rehash of the same story about you last week. The annoyance in all of this FFP shit is that it basically just forces ambitious clubs to sell their best players to the six richest clubs, and in particular home grown ones.

I've no idea why they are fixated on Duran. Yeah he looks promising, but he's heavily rumoured to have pissed off Emery with his attitude, and every time he comes on he charges around like a bull in a china shop and looks like a red card waiting to happen.

I fucking hate Liverpool.

Ornstein is good, but I am not sure how he ties up us needing to make an impact on FFP by selling players this week with us simultaneously going out and buying players, especially 'future punts' like this.

This is nonsense. “Raise funds by June” means “This week” given the window closes this week until July.

i think if he left - to go anywhere at all, genuinely anywhere, in this window - there would have to be something pretty seriously up.

The only way we’d ever sell Ramsey would be if we really needed the FFP money, which is the same much publicised problem you have, so sounds a bit weird, given how monumentally expensive he’d be. Then there’s if we’d want to sell, if he’d want to go etc. He’s the local fan come good, both his brothers been at the club and Emery loves him so I don’t think there’s anything in this. This would be a weird time for anyone to buy him. He broke his foot in the summer, was out for ages, came back and played against Brighton, scored, and then reinjured the same foot, was out for weeks more, came back for a game or two looking well short of match fitness then got injured again and is now still unfit

No, it's the Black Country derby, properly and deeply unpleasant. Derbies in this part of the world are complex and hard to explain simply. Villa - Albion, for example, is the original derby and massively important to a big chunk of our support (that side of the city) and not really to the bit south of the city. That's a 19th century rivalry. Wolves - Albion is more 20th century, but it's no Villa - Coventry one-way nothingfest.

Albion - Wolves is properly nasty, like.