PRL

Not realistic but still possible to dream about - Arsenal have Man City to play twice, as well as Manchester United next weekend. Lose two and draw one and they could get pulled into the group, although second fixture against City not til April. European football restarts and they have a paper thin squad without a lot of signings in January, particularly now Jesus may be out longer than expected. Man City are fully focussed on winning in Europe and feels at times like they aren't even that bothered about winning league (which seems insane) while an injury to Casemiro (much like with us and Bruno, sadly) could have something of a derailing effect. Basically, not impossible, but if you've bet your house and are able to cash out at profit, I'd probably do that.

Has Joe Willock always been announced as Joseph? Only noticed that today. Also calling Willian ‘Will I An’ was strange

Joelinton just been driven in by Bruno

We do seem to be in a habit of trying to rescue / finish off cup games with most of our better players coming on for substantial game time. Same against Palace. Personally I’d prefer we started a stronger team and made changes if/when comfortable. Having Bruno, Trippier et al coming on to supply Wood, when they could have been supplying Isak for 45 mins, is a little painful. That said, if we make it through on Tuesday then I won’t be too upset.

Think Walker and Stones were signed by Guardiola

I do feel VAR has made the refs even worse, mind. Think that pen is given today pre VAR, but they are so used to being bailed out so don’t make any decision remotely controversial. Either all VAR or no VAR for me

To be fair, I prefer our draw to both Manchesters

Interesting quote from the article on Murdyk: When suggested to Palkin that such figures mean only a handful of clubs could afford this, he replied: “It’s five or six clubs in the world. But sometimes, even some Premier League clubs can surprise you, not just the (normal) six top clubs.”

Had an absolute ball at AJ Hudsons. Thanks so much for recommendation. On plane back now, just hoping we land on time as straight up to St James’ for the Palace game.

Chicago tomorrow AM for Southampton game - anyone know a bar showing (realise it’s 8.30am)

Not sure if it's been mentioned within the thread, but having seen a few mentions of Kane and his whining, I also wanted to give a shout out to Son, who was diving, agitating and whining throughout. Reminds me of how Solskjaer behaved on the pitch. All cheeky and smiley by reputation, absolute prick every time we played them.

Most of the country are not overtly political, and it's incredibly clear from the reaction that this transcends politics. There's plenty of pros and cons to argue in relation to monarchy; politically, economically, ethically and beyond. But I think you can say fairly definitively that most people in the country do not feel negatively towards the Queen herself, that most wish to pay respect to our Head of State who spent 70 years serving the country. I don't see that as controversial at all, like I don't see any issue with the recommencing of a debate regarding monarchy commencing in the coming weeks, particularly with Charles in charge, I just don't think those on the republican side of said debate do themselves many favours using an old lady's death as a negative trigger. As mentioned above, Wor Flags are in an utter catch 22 here, but may feel on balance that more folk who donate or who make the decisions within WF would like to see a tribute than not. Unfortunately I've no idea if that's true or not, but I trust them to make the right decision, and if they put on a display I don't deem it as political (going down that rabbit hole you could argue that no display in and of itself is a political statement). I don't expect this to open floodgates to party political flag displays or religious banners, simply an acknowledgement of the longest serving public servant in the history of our nation, which won't happen again in any of our lifetimes.

People have paid and turned up to support their team and given up considerable time and money to do so. I really don't mind losing out to a fluke or a screamer but VAR has already taken away the ability to celebrate after a quick glance at the linesman, which has muted probably the most cathartic reaction I can regularly have in life. Now that we aren't only seeing bad decisions missed, but good decisions turned into bad ones as a result of VAR, I really don't know what the solution is. I agree that it's those using it rather than the tech itself and it has been fine in other tournaments and leagues, but I think I'm leaning to the view it should be scrapped as it's just too inconsistent and does not result in better decisions being made regularly. I think I'd rather go back to complaining about missed injustices and at least being able to celebrate properly again. No chance of this happening, sadly.

But Pope wasn’t there at the start of the window?

How is it weaker overall? Swapped Pope for Dubravka… seems stronger surely?

West Ham fans don't seem pleased about prospect of him leaving

He’s worth 1.5 Gordons

No ‘here we go’s’ for a while tho. Pedro has scarred him

on the day we smash our transfer record... fucking priceless

Bahahahaha

Got to go back to when we did Stoke 3-0 in the season we finished 5th for the last time I’ve seen us that dominant at home. Wilson looked a little unfit but still dangerous throughout. Pope had a couple of flaps. Other than that thought we were pretty much flawless. Atmosphere was great, ASM was absolute quality and forest could handle us from minute 1 to 90. Hot take - unless forest do something, they could be in running for a record low points total

Yup. Football and family. Same applies

Posts like this are why it’s really worthwhile having educated fans of other teams on the forum. Been plenty of bollocks spouted about Leicester on this thread due to people getting precious about a Leicester forum - then you get insight like this that I’d garner 99% of us had no idea about but that gives visibility to some of the frustration for Leicester fans, and also empathy to the number of managers we have had follow this same path in the last god knows how many decades, then the frustration we have felt when other fans have discounted those frustrations.