timeEd32

These 35 minutes are the best we've looked since the week of Chelsea / PSG / Man United.

More please. My biggest doubt is how long can we keep this up for. Almost certainly not 90 minutes.

YESSSSSSS

I don't even know how much he intended it but that was an incredible ball over the top by Gordon.

We've been excellent so far. Really need to take advantage of this.

WWE style introductions

I'm generally on board with that. I just think we're in a unique situation and would really benefit from a fresh face and energy. Full trust in Eddie and the club, but not taking the opportunity to bring in a CM without the need to sell anyone goes down as a mistake for me (assuming we don't find another one in the next 24 hours).

@brummie in shambles over the team news

This is disappointing if true: Just moving up two places in the table covers half of the fee + wages.

Ended 3-3. Trailed 2-0 and 3-2. We played a different system with Trippier as a third CB. At the time I thought we might have done it to give Emery something to think about before the first game of the season and, considering we haven't tried this formation again, I still think that may have been the case.

Hopefully not like that. There's no doubt this is an (attempted) improvement though. The explanations you get in the NFL are far more useful than PL referees being mime artists.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/25608023/major-change-premier-league-rules-var/

I understand why he doesn't fit for Pep, but isn't the best version of our team creating chaos and thriving on transitions?

Kind of confused why you're only looking at his passing contributions. He's obviously not De Bruyne. Despite the fact he's a negative passer and an average dribbler, his OBV is 94th percentile largely because his defensive action OBV is 99th percentile. He offers something you will not find just about anywhere else. And per Statsbomb, defensive action OBV doesn't just mean he's cleaning things up in our half of the pitch: "some defensive actions higher up the field could add value by making their team more likely to score, and the player will be credited as such." I think these stats are quite representative of who Joelinton is and why he's been so important for us. The perfect player does not exist and we're unlikely to get players without flaws, so in that case give me the one who is elite at something.

Only because everyone else is being regulated and they provided an outlet in the summer. I think they’ve actually made the problem worse, at least temporarily. A natural reaction to these rules would be downward pressure on transfer fees and wages, but they are creating the opposite environment.

That’s funny. I had all the opposite takeaways as there are a number of positives in there and the negatives just seem like he’s not right for City / Pep.

There’s a big gap between not being able to step in for Rodri and improving our current midfield. Also, Pep himself: “When we need a game with transitions or games with chaos, Kalvin is perfect.” That suits us a lot more than City. Good character, great teammate, the overweight stuff a bit overblown. He would have been a very good addition for us.

This makes me regret not getting Philips even more: https://theathletic.com/5226888/2024/01/26/kalvin-phillips-manchester-city-guardiola/

There are quite a few bad teams, plus Everton and possibly Forest getting docked points, but Brentford's fixtures until early April... Spurs (a) City (h) Wolves (a) Liverpool (h) City (a) West Ham (a) Chelsea (h) Arsenal (a) Burnley (a) Man United (h) Brighton (h) Villa (a) Sneaky relegation contender.

It’s pretty clearly impacting everyone. It may feel worse for us because we are decimated by injuries and could really use a couple new players.

Said it a week ago

UEFA's has three components around Stability, Solvency, and Cost Control. The main one that is new and different is squad cost ratio, which has elements of a salary cap and luxury tax. Basically the cost of the team will need to be at most 70% of a club's revenue (phase in as 90% in 2023/24 and 80% in 2024/25). Costs include: Wages of players and head coaches Player amortisation and impairment Termination payments for players and head coaches Agents’ fees and cost of other intermediaries Revenue includes: Operating revenue (adjusted for fair value, if required) Profit from player sales Other transfer income/expenses The penalty for exceeding this threshold is a fine that escalates based on how far over a club is and how many years they've been in violation. Though it sounds like the penalty for the other pillars can include sporting sanctions as well.

Pretty disappointed we didn't get Phillips, but honestly not sure if we could afford the loan fee + six months of wages.

I'm pretty confident the public outcry at a closed Premier League would blow away the reaction to the Super League.

I think we'll sell Miggy to buy someone if we can get one of these financially impaired clubs to blink first. That's about it though.