Kaizero

Chelsea has the "hardest" run-in when utilizing the only "proper" metric such a thing could be judged extending beyond "vibes" (PPG average of remaining opponents in the season so far). Villa's remaining opponent's PPG is lower than ours by 0.02 PPG, so on paper an "easier" run-in.

Easy; take over Redcar and make them field 11 youth goalkeepers with no subs in a 0-0-10 formation. Take over whatever club Shildon is playing and do the same you did to Redcar with them. Should see an easy 15+ or 15- goal swing in all required matches.

Didn't think much of this until I opened the full size image, after which I think this is one of the better posts on this forum in absolute ages

Genuinely starting to believe Bodø/Glimt actually could go all the way. If they don't end up ruing the fuckton of missed certain goals tonight, Frankfurt is the only team left I think could stop them.

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/13303455/national-league-clubs-launch-campaign-for-three-promotion-places-to-english-football-league This needs more backing tbh.

I absolutely love when new "Gennaro Gattuso being Gennaro Gattuso" moments occur, please enjoy watching Gattuso (now managing Hajduk Split) coming in for a post-match interview; being asked a question in Italian, responding in English by asking another reporter if he speaks English, the reporter saying yes – then the two argue in Spanish, which isn't the native language of any of them – before Gattuso turns away from the guy shouting "I don't want to speak with you!" in English, before then going back to speaking Italian with the first reporter Never change, Gattuso. Never change

FBRef mention claxon Just popping in with my usual response to any FBRef mentioned to remind everyone that FBRef is absolutely hopeless and notoriously shit at stats, even at a "free service" standard. UnderStat and FootyStats are endlessly better than FBRef among the free stat sites. UnderStat being the site that comes out on top for stats if doing a direct comparison between US and FS – as the depth level of available stats on US isn't half bad for a free service with G90, xG90, Sh90, A90, xA90, KP90, xChain, xGChain90, xGBuildUp & xGBuildup90 being some of the available stat options. That said, even US and to some degree FS, aren't worthwhile sources for actual stat-keeping – no free services are. Once you've experienced the genuine in-depth play-by-play stat-keeping done by companies whose databases require payment to access, you'll never look at sites like FBRef the same way ever again. I'm aware the price points for paid stat-database services are way, way, out of reach for anyone that aren't looking at stats for work-related reasons, don't worry about that Just feel responsible to point out that all the stats on FBRef sites and the likes aren't worth anyone's attention, your eyes provide more genuine insights about players than those "stats" do

Guy can't catch a break Went off during another MOTM performance for Schalke last Sunday with what seemed to be a horror injury, news so far is that he's at the very least out for the rest of the season – but that the injury may have forced the end of his career upon him. Really hate when footballers retire due to injury rather than by their own choice, hope he gets thrown yet another career lifeline once he recovers so he can play a few competitive matches for a club and retire the right way. By all accounts the guy's a rather good human being, which is rare for footballers these days – so hope this wasn't the end of him!

Born in Tashkent

This might be the closest in time I've ever experienced posting the same thing as someone else You got there a few split seconds before me, even with the added personal anecdote – I tip my hat to you, good sir

Jesper Grønkjær

Is this something fan-made or something that's been available for purchase (or maybe even still is)?

The announcer saying shit in Spanish... they really fucking thought the Mexicans would show up for the non-Mexico match just because they forced them to buy tickets to both games

This thread kind of proves the opposite, though Not saying the majority of the fanbase aren't able to handle jokes made at our expense, as a singular thread about a specific cartoonist on an online forum isn't exactly proof that they aren't Just pointing out something that's been on my mind when reading this thread every now and then through the years, as the recent negativity regarding Squires triggered that memory in me (though this time I'm in full agreement about the cartoon in question being rather shit for multiple reasons).

I had a bet on "more than 2.5 goals", so I don't care that a Panama player went clinically insane without warning to cost their team extra time All's well that ends well, not to mention Panama is a shit defensive team full of fuckers and they lost deservedly

See my post just above Mike's for a rant about the unhinged, insane, choice made by the organizers for how to sell tickets. The TL;DR version is basically this; The organizers seemingly thought they'd get high attendances for every game by only selling "double feature" tickets – seemingly not realizing that if the Mexican fans bought most tickets (which they clearly did), they'd not bother with the other match and only turn up for the Mexico matches, thus ensuring abysmal attendance levels at the other two matches In addition, they secured themselves lower income from ticket sales in the process – as even though you'd in theory get two matches for the price of one and a half, you got both two matches without spectators and less income as selling single match tickets rather than double at a normal price point would've given the two other matches a larger attendance, which would overshadow the "extra" income from Mexicans paying 0.5 x the normal price for a ticket

Sidenote; who thought hosting the semifinals, bronze final and final of the CONCACAF Nations League at the motherfucking SoFi Stadium was a good idea to begin with? Even with the SoFi Stadium as the host arena, who greenlit the absolute clusterfuck of an idea to only sell double feature tickets for the semis and the same for the bronze final and final – without the option to buy single match tickets? What the absolute fuck of a concept was that? Now, I can give whoever it was some benefit of the doubt, as I assume the reasoning for doing that was in hope of taking advantage of the sizeable Mexican population in LA, as they'd then be forced to buy tickets to both matches on both days – meaning the attendance in theory should be fairly high for both matches. That said, whoever got pitched that idea should've been fucking intelligent enough to know that just because someone has tickets to two out of two matches played at the same arena on the same does – that does not immediately equal them being present for both matches Instead, you get calamity attendances like the sub-10k at the USA - Panama semi-final, and the 10k attendance at the USA - Canada 3rd-place match a few hours ago. Now, the Mexico - Canada match had a crowd of 50k, which would've been a spectacular turn-out for a match not featuring the home nation in any other US city. For a match in LA though, that number of people at a Mexico match was fucking low... which makes total sense, as people would've had to pay for a match they'd not watch, had no plans of watching and would've never bought a ticket to watch – meaning they'd instead just not get a ticket, as the price was twice the price they'd expect to pay to see Mexico play. The final will likely see a crowd of at least 60k, but the bronze final only had 10k of those buying the double-feature tickets show up What an absolute shitshow from the organizers from start to finish the double-feature ticketing concept was. It makes me worry for the 2026 World Cup if this becomes a thing, like, will they offer "city/stadium" packaged tickets? I have to believe they won't do that, especially after seeing how this test of the dumbest ticket concept in soccer history turned out for them. All the matches should never have been set up solely at the 70k capacity SoFi Stadium. Especially not if the plan always was for them to only offer fans the two-match ticket option. The semis and bronze final should've been played at LA Galaxy's stadium, with only the final being played at SoFi Stadium. If you'd have known in advance that the final wouldn't end up being the expected match-up of USA vs. Mexico, you could've arguably played the bronze final at SoFi Stadium as well – if you didn't only sell double-feature tickets. Why would Mexican fans bother going to a non-Mexico match? The only thing that was achieved by this ticketing scheme was to ensure that either the US matches would get tiny crowds, or the Mexico matches would. You'd not get massive crowds at both matches, you'd always only get it at the fixture(s) where the nation with the quickest ticket-buying fans would show up. The only thing that could've saved this idiotic concept would've been only allowing fans to enter the stadium before the first match of the day, crossing your fingers that the Mexico fixtures would be the last match on both days – as that way the Mexican fans would've been forced to show up and sit through the non-Mexico match

The US doesn't look much improved under Poch compared to how they looked under Berhalter, which is worrisome for them. AvG in Poch's first eight matches is worse than Berhalter's, which was used against the latter a lot. Better defensive record on average for Berhalter compared to Poch so far as well. Granted, Poch's average comes from only 8 matches in charge vs Berhalter's 74, so still early days. But I think most people following the US national side had thought just the mere fact the players now played under Poch would lift spirits and effort amongst the players, yet it almost looks like it's made them both care, and try, less... Given the fact the US aren't exactly lacking in quality players, it's a scary sign that they've not started performing "better" under Poch than under Berhalter. For all his obvious and apparent flaws as a manager, Berhalter remains the US manager with the highest win percentage during his time in charge (when not including caretaker managers). Interestingly enough, if we do include caretakers, then B. J. Callaghan has the best record – and currently the same amount of games in charge as Poch. Under Callaghan, the US didn't lose in normal time, won the CONCACAF Nations League and reached the Gold Cup semi-final, missing out on the final due to Panama winning the penalty shootout. The US had the highest AvG in their history, and the best defensive record in their history. In any normal scenario making the US look like world-beaters should've been a strong application for him to get the job full time – sadly the USSF had re-appointed Berhalter before Callaghan's caretaker stint had even begun. I wonder if Callaghan could've kept it going had things been different. Looking at how Nashville SC has fared since got the manager job for them kinda implies things would've been better than they became under Berhalter after his return, and that his tactics/managerial style with the benefit of hindsight appears to have been streets ahead of both Berhalter and Poch

Just a random thought I reminded myself of having had when I saw this thread bumped again; critiqing Squires is fair, but far too often it's felt like it's only come when he's making fun of something related to us. I'm not a fan of that, as it makes the fanbase as a whole look like we can't take a joke when it's at our expense – yet laugh at most of his jokes when they're at the expense of other clubs If we can laugh at others, we should have self-insight enough to know there's things to be made fun of when it comes to our club as well. That's not related to the discussion about his or the telegraph's political views and so on, that's another debate entirely. Just regarding the general reaction, over time, when we're the butt of a Squires joke being the majority starting to post stuff like "he's shit", "he's lost it" and "he was never that funny anyway!"

Just to clarify; I don't have any issue with Yasir celebrating on the pitch or lifting the trophy I enjoyed watching him do it, he's earned it more than most other football club owners.

That's probably about it, though

Also, just FWIW, I only have an active subscription to The Athletic because it's an included "perk" in my Revolut Ultra subscription. Wouldn't have it if not

See my original response for my take on owners joining celebrations:

Essentially, it was more about directors as a whole not being allowed (in the journalist's eyes) to partake in celebrations. Saying NUFC fans would be of the same opinion if we'd have still been owned by Ashley and he made his way onto the pitch to celebrate. It's why my original response went on about my thoughts on owners celebrating. Then went on to point out that in this case, it was "worse" than just a "normal" owner joining on-field celebrations, as he represented the Saudi government and so on.