oldtype

After the friendly against Ghana today, I'm fully on board with this. If it wasn't for the disproportionate amount of political power from Asia within FIFA I could see Asia losing a World Cup spot. Done stuff all to deserve it. Certainly not on merit, but one purpose of giving the lesser continents a disproportionate amount of slots is to give it some exposure on the biggest stage to raise the level of football there. It's a slow process but it's certainly worked so far. Let's be honest, if the purpose was to just have the 32 best teams nobody outside of Europe and South America would be invited.

After the friendly against Ghana today, I'm fully on board with this.

I think he's fine but we were certainly expecting a lot more when we signed him. He's not appreciably better than Haidara or probably even Dummett and there's really not much point in paying three left-backs at once, even if Pardew would play eleven if he could.

I love how in English football you can be so obviously and completely washed up for years but if you were ever good for any amount of time your reputation will still keep those paychecks coming for as long as you want.

Don't mind this signing really. Colback is a significant improvement over what I was expecting for the summer (nobody.)

Japan

Wouldn't it be nice to be in that fucking group Lucky Asian Mackems

Didn't Neil used to have a "last time since Everton FC paid money for a player" timer? We should get one of those running.

I mean, my only expectations for the club at this point is that it stay in the Premiership/stay in existence for long enough for somebody else to buy it. Given that, I don't see why expectations for new signings should be any higher.

This. To be fair we've been in the habit of signing mediocre Premiership players for about a decade now. The likes of Cabaye have always been more the aberration than the rule. At least he's free. How bad can a free transfer be.

We should just put all transfer rumors in "not worthy of a thread" now

Was there some sort of protest for voting for the Bigi goal that we weren't aware of?

Not sure if serious. Where are you now? Boston innit? As if they don't have crazy alcoholics there. It's not the same when you're not all supporting the same team though!

First WC I'm watching away from Korea. Just won't be the same without the drink and crazy people doing crazy things

Yakubu

I get the feeling that the club never really bothered developing a comprehensive scouting system beyond "let's use Graham Carr's extensive personal connections in France to get well-known French prospects at a knock-down price." Now that the well has dried up a bit in France, they've just got no idea how to sign players anymore.

Ben Arfa himself said that Pardew was the best manager he'd ever had at some point so clearly things were going well for a while before they went bad.

There is zero chance that Ashley has not left the club to Kinnear in his will. Zero.

No Korean on the list And no, I wasn't seriously expecting us to get anybody

I think there's a line between corruption/incompetence and systematic oppression. I'm not thrilled but okay with awarding the World Cup to the former. (Brazil, probably my own country as well) I'm probably not okay with awarding it to the latter. (Russia, Qatar)

Dreamt last night that I went into a coma and missed the first week of this. Was more bothered by the fact that I missed the World Cup than the coma

It was basically a glorified testimonial for him. He's not going to Brazil. Precisely. Seems a bit of a crap use of preparation time. Tbf it was just Israel they were playing, and he only went 38 minutes. Still, fuck 'em. You could've told me he was starting for them at Brazil and I probably would have believed you

It's pretty amazing that he's never missed a penalty in a competitive match

Thank fuck for General Chat. Let's just watch basketball Mike, at least our teams aren't shi... ..Actually, never mind. It's May and I've already written 14-15 off. Give me my draft pick and my new start. We're gonna get you into the NFL this year. I mean, the Pats are supposed to be ridiculously good every year right? Even I can't possibly screw them up, right?

Never mind, misread the posts above