brummie

Yeah but even if that is true, Maguire at his best isn't something we've seen for about 7 years now. He might get himself back there with a new start, and I hope he does, but I'd bet everything I own he doesn't come to us. I'd also quibble the idea he's twice as good as Mings in any circumstances. Since Emery arrived, Mings has been absolutely imperious. I don't know why so many away fans (not having pop at you here, just mean in general) don't seem to get that. He's been absolutely superb in a period where he's had to absolutely change his style of play. Maguire will go somewhere like Everton.

Not a prayer - who is he getting ahead of, Mings, Konsa or Carlos? None of them. If we buy a CB it'll be someone particularly good on the ball and better than what we have, and Maguire isn't either of those.

YES PLEASE.

Palace have always struck me as a sort of 1980s manufactured nothingness.

Says who? Football Insider?

I don't think they'll do quite that badly, but you are right in that that selling / buying / unearthing gems cycle alone is not a sustainable long term model, it takes one bum crop to blow it up. Like you said, Southampton were hailed as the incarnation of the 'well run club' not that long ago, but it only lasted as long as Liverpool were happy to buy their best players most years. Then on top of that they are going to be at risk of losing their manager. They did well replacing Potter, but when you are subject to so much churn in your set up, you're walking a very fine line indeed. I hope De Zerbi doesn't do something stupid and go and join Spurs now, that would be so depressing for football, but the fact that there's a real risk around that is concerning. When a club's instinctive thought after a superb season is "Shit, the manager might leave", then you know they're under threat. It is depressing that football has to be like that, but that's the way it is unfortunately.

What a remarkable job Emery has done, incredible to finish 7th given we started playing in late November when he turned up.

Everton stubbornly rusting away at the bottom of the pan like a turd that won't flush and can't just be pissed in half.

Losing a play off final is absolutely spirit crushing on the day, it was for us against Fulham. As it turned out, it was easily the best thing that has happened to the club in a long time. Anyway. I reckon if Luton go up, they'll go back down with fewer than 15 points

When you put it like that ....

Yep, thank God we've got our way more competitive 'five of the last six'!

As a neutral, the best one I've seen was Hearts throwing it away in 1986. The scenes of crying fans were genuinely quite touching. Obviously Liverpool 1989 as well, but that wasn't touching, just fucking hilarious.

The Dortmund manager looks like the type you'd see in a large group of German lads on holiday in the Costa Del Sol in the late 1980s, throwing beer around and dancing to Rock Me Amadeus.

Chelsea look like they have no idea what they're supposed to be doing, and are just making it up as they go along. Lampard. What an absolute fucking chancer.

I think what would have made more sense was 'his career at Spurs is limping to an end'. He's clearly at the top of his game still. EDIT: the cheating fuck.

It's interesting how you see things differently when you don't have anything riding on the match. Leicester are terrible and have been for ages. They have absolutely no spirit as a side, nor as a club (their fans hate the players, by and large) and they've looked beaten for weeks now.

Marriner is a Villa fan. He's going to have a soft spot for Dean Smith. He's going to make it hard for you. *tin foil hat*

It doesnt matter who they appoint, whilst 'Daniel' is hanging around the training ground day after day acting like some sort of all powerful overlord, they're going to continue to under deliver. Kane must also surely fuck off this summer.

I have said this before but, in general terms if not detail (ie they've got a really expensive squad, we had a load of dross because Lerner got a new girlfriend and didn't like football any more, then Xia was a fucking criminal), they remind me of us for a few years before we actually went down. Circling the plug hole, beloved by nobody, like a sort of scabby stray dog wandering the streets of some Romanian town, looking more and more like it's going to go toes up, and everyone just looks at it and thinks "poor thing, it'll be a release when it finally dies". I actually think it could be good for them. It was for us, eventually. One thing it did do was make us stop taking Premier League membership for granted, and after much grief it flushed out our shit penniless owners and bagged us a couple of benevolent billionaires. Maybe that'll happen for them, too, but either way, I'm sick to the tits of them just about surviving and would be happy to see them finally get flushed.

I hadn’t thought of it that way. I want to finish as high up the league as possible so want Brighton to lose. When he came we were in 17th PL11 W2 D3 L6 Pts 9 Even if we finished 8th or 9th it would be a remarkable six months. it is also weird not wanting the season to end after a decade of just wishing it would end asap almost every year.

I wonder how much that Everton squad cost. Everton seriously the worst run club in the top flight for a while now. Remarkable.

Either would be good, but please, Everton, let it be them.

Really happy for Forest, impossible to be in my sort of age range and not have a lot of time for them.

That massive fat dude who I assume is the Forest owner looks disappointed he's not going to get the chance to sack Cooper.

Mings has been colossal since the day Emery walked in. And as for McGinn, we all wanted shot of him, he was so embarrassingly poor under Gerrard.