Kaizero

They were ran straight into the ground by incompetent leadership. Then they sacked the board and appointed an even more incompetent board, hired a manager that was the anthesis of what had been their «style» of football for over three decades and kept bringing back players 33+ years of age because they had been great for them when they were in their early twenties before they got sold. Now they’re managed by a guy who’s only known for relegating teams and can’t put a penny together between them. It’s like watching a car crash in slow motion.

I actually remember, jesus fuck time goes by fast ? I used to do betting tips for the Norwegian leagues during the off-season in the betting thread, feels like yesterday but it must be at least 10 years or so since I stopped doing them? ?

Milan is an absolutely filthy shithole. Hated every minute living there.

I have it on good second-degree ITK basis that a major reason for PIFs prolonged interest when it looked tough to push through was down to the fact Al-Rumayyan has always been a NUFC supporter for some unknown goddamn self-torturing reason like the rest of us previously miserable fucks. Info was given me by the producer on the series I'm working on, he and his wife (film director) wrapped a feature they shot in Riyadh and the desert - fully funded by the PIF - and my friend brought up Newcastle when they had a production dinner with Al-Rumayyan after wrapping where that was supposedly said. To me it makes sense, as we're not the only club in the world and they have unlimited money after all

Norway WC 1998: Premier League: 11 players Bundesliga: 2 players La Liga: 1 Player Austrian Bundesliga: 1 Player Greek PL: 1 Player Danish PL: 1 Player Norwegian PL: 5 players (4 at Rosenborg, who were doing well in the CL those days) Norway EC 2000: Premier League: 9 Players La Liga: 2 Players Ligue 1: 1 Player Scottish PL: 1 Player Greek PL: 1 Player Danish PL: 1 Player Norwegian PL: 7 Players (5 at Rosenborg, still doing well in the CL those days) Norway June 2023: Premier League: 3 Players Championship: 1 Player Bundesliga: 3 Players 2. Bundesliga: 1 Player Serie A: 3 Players La Liga: 2 Players Ligue 1: 2 Players Belgian PL: 1 Player Polish PL: 1 Player Norwegian PL: 6 Players ----- All in all we clearly had "better" overall squad back then as most of our players were 1st eleven choices at their clubs in the big leagues, as well as Rosenborg being competitive in Europe.

What's the best course of action when dominating a match and having a 1-0 lead? Obviously subbing out your best player and going all out defense to invite the opponent to attack you. Jesus tittyfucking christ Solbakken is the absolute worst

He's already at Ranheim.

41 year old Morten Gamst Pedersen off to Wrexham apparently.

I'm not sure if I am to take it as an absolute jinx or as a compliment from the Norwegian pundits who are absolutely ignoring us and just saying "Liverpool have with a fantastic run of form closed the gap on Manchester United as the two duke it out for the fourth and final Champions League spot"

WDLL or WDDL is the same end result with regards to that, they'd have to win all three remaining games to overtake us. The point was that "only" WDLL would see them having to win all remaining three games to overtake us as our GD is superior. If we take 4 out of 12 remaining points (or 5 out of 12 remaining points as you say), they'd have to take 9 out of 9 points to overtake us. Meaning if they don't do that and take 7 out of 9 points for instance, if we take 4 out of 12 they'd be on equal points with us and we'd go to the CL on GD. If they were to win all their remaining three fixtures it wouldn't matter if we took 4 or 5 out of 12 points as then they'd have overtaken us anyhow, hence why I used 4 out of 12 points as the example of how "little" would be needed on our end to make them have to win all three of their fixtures.

It'd take a complete meltdown from players and staff to lose out on a top four spot now. Even if we end up having a complete meltdown and in fact lose all four remaining matches, even then what we already have might end up being enough depending on if the teams chasing us manage to get enough points to catch up. Brighton would have to essentially win all remaining five matches, Liverpool need 4 points from 9 possible to overtake us. If we win 1 out of 4 remaining matches, Liverpool then need 7 out of 9 possible points to overtake us. If we take 4 out of 12 remaining points, Liverpool need to win all three of their remaining matches to overtake us and Man Utd would need to get 7 points from 12 remaining to overtake us. As things stand, Brighton needs 11 out of 15 points to overtake us - and that is if we lose all four remaining matches. If we get only 4 points out of 12 remaining, they can't catch us. It's almost impossible for us to screw up at this stage.

Is it due to the possibility of West Ham winning the EC, which then qualifies them for the EL - would that in turn remove an EL spot from the league and move the ECL spot up to 6th? Or does an English club winning the ECL (whilst not qualifying for Europe through the league) add another spot to the PL for European Competitions, meaning eight teams qualify for Europe?

Union 5 points off 1st with 5 matches to go. Dare to dream?

The woman Ødegaard is semi-seeing is in my agency. The girl, according to her, had a 5-ish minute a kickabout with Ødegaard and some other players during the warm-up. She got his match-shirt and captain's armband, pictures taken with him and other players and got to ask them questions in the locker room after they'd all signed the shirt. That said, on other days mascots get a stadium tour with players, a history lesson given by players, they get to hold trophies up with players and have their picture taken and more stuff of that nature. So in that sense, she could've had a better day. Not that I think the girl is complaining because the players rushed into the locker room, knowing she was about to speak to the lot seconds after. People just want to be offended, that's the takeaway. Parents will no doubt milk this as well. The choice of video, given all that apparently took place, is abhorrent and inexcusable though

Seems to be OTT by a mile, checked out on Arsenal's website what a day looks like for an official mascot. Mascots walk out with the players, join them on the pitch for the warm up, picture/question opportunities with some requested players and more Arsenal media team just decided that posting the worst looking part of that girl's dream day was the one to go with

I'm not comparing the status of the jobs or how well they pay, I'm comparing the repetitiveness and mundaneness of it for the ones involved. For them this is just a part of their job that the do multiple times per day, every day, for 15+ years. However, if this is from when they arrive - meaning this is their first official part of work on the day - I'd agree they could be more amped up. That said, if it's at the end of the day or after a match is complete, I'd make the complaint that Arsenal are bad at scheduling things like this rather than diss the players.

People seem to be thinking that they don't sign tons of shirts and see tons of people on any given day. Yeah, she's a young kid, so obviously be nicer than to some random 50 year old autograph collector. Doesn't change the fact they'll likely be dead tired of doing things like that and just wanting to get on with their day, for them it's just as mundane and repetitive a thing to do as stacking shelves with Dolmio sauces is for a Lidl employee - yet those employees are expected to smile at all customers as well. As long as they're not actively rude or dismissive towards anyone I feel people are overreacting. The girl got her shirt signed, she got to get up close and personal with her heroes - let's talk shit about them for not being super happy and smiling when doing one of the most boring and repetitive tasks in their profession

If you saw my post re: first matches using VAR in Norway, I just saw a comment from another of the ref's involved in one of the matches using VAR, and... wow "I called it the second I saw the first replay. That wasn't anymore clear and obvious on video than it was to me on the pitch. I'm not gonna disrupt play watching it over and over for five minutes only to get insecure and end up taking a guess. It was clear to me that the on field decison I made should stand." An actual beautiful application of the rules and beautiful application of VAR at the same time? What even is this?

People raging in the comments and the poor guy just went:

Fully agree. It's extremely idiotic that there's no common agreed consensus amongst all PL referees on how to apply VAR and in what situations to do so. Also, the refs being held above accountability. In my opinion an elite referee is an elite athlete within their own "sport". They should be available for post-match interviews on the same level as the players and have to answer the same dumb journo questions.

VAR was used for the first time in the Norwegian Premier Division today. The referees have agreed unanimously how to apply it and in what situations. Also, our refs face the media post-match. The first major VAR overturn was a yellow card changed to a red card, a goal was also overturned for a microscopic offside. Following the match the ref said: "In honesty it's a bit of a classic midfield situation. It happens unexpectedly so my attention isn't fully on the incident at the momet it occurs. I assume the opinion of everyone seeing it happen real time without focusing on that exact part of the pitch matches what my own opinion on the pitch was; that it was a yellow card challenge. But then I get called to review the incident on the VAR screen, where at first I got to review photos of the challenge - after which I still thought I made the right decision. But once I saw the video footage I knew I had made the wrong decision, because that was a red card challenge any day of the week. The force the player enters the challenge with is a red card offense and no referee would have caught that on the pitch. The overturned goal due to offside however is us following the laws of the game by utilizing the technology available to us. Without VAR there is no way a linesman could see that was offside and I am sure people at home will argue that it was unecessary to overturn a goal due based on such small margins. That is the reality however, the player was undeniably in an offside position so the goal gets overturned. I have to apply the rules of the game and I can't ignore evidence. If it should be the law that when a player happens to be offside by such extremely small margins that only camers with ultra high frame rates is able to catch it is not up to me or for me to have an opinion on, I just enfore the rules as they are at any given time." If the PL had the same type of openness about referee decisions and the referees actually agreed on how to apply VAR and no to apply VAR, I think VAR in the PL would work a lot better.

With regards to the statements people are making regarding which teams are "benefitting" from VAR, yes. Other than that, no. Some of the most popular statements being made on here concerns VAR absolutely fucking us over all the time and showing preference for the "top six", which is false. I've already made my opinion quite clear on the subject, the standard of refereeing and there not being a unanimous decision reached amongst PL refs on how to use VAR is an absolute shitshow. If there was a set of rules all VAR refs had agreed to follow, as well as the standard of referees being much higher, VAR wouldn't be an issue. The reality at the moment however is that the referees are shit and there are no set rules for how they are to use VAR, which makes VAR absolute shit in action for the Premier League. The standard of referees being absolute shit in the PL has been an issue for years, though. They're not elite athletes, they have inflated egos and they can't handle criticism. Referees at the top level need to be at least close to par fitness wise as the players they are meant to control. The PL refs all seeming to share the same narcissistic tendencies doesn't help either when you're meant to be impartial.

Oh, not saying that there's not some teams that are destined for the drop. But we all know that a few sometimes pull off a "great escape", those clubs are the potential banana skins. We might cruise through the lot, just saying I'd feel more certain we'd not slip up if the teams we were facing were already on holiday mentally and had nothing to lose or win going into our fixture. If we're lucky, none of the teams we play are on some great escape shit when we face them.