Jackie Broon

If not, Trippier can.

I don't think advantage technically matters, but in reality if the officials are trying to assess whether someone intended to handle the ball whether they gained an advantage from it is relevant to that. Someone isn't going to intentionally do something that doesn't help them and vice versa.

To be a handball it has to be deliberate. If a player scores with their hand or immediately after it handling the ball, even if accidental, a goal shouldn't be given but if another player scores the handball has to be deliberate for it to be ruled out. It hit his hand accentually and he didn't gain any advantage, in fact it almost took the ball out of play. The game actually turned on the injury to Barnes (no criticism of Barnes).

Love reading through opposition match threads with hindsight... "Howe won’t manage them next season. The Brighton manager is their next conquest. I feel if they lose to us, he has 2 more games before De Zerbi gets poached for life changing millions. Think Hecky could tactically outsmart Howe, so let’s see what happens."

I think there is a sizable minority of Man City fans who feel that, Man Utd and Liverpool's megabranddom is so long standing that very few will remember anything different. In my view though we lost our club long ago, long pre-Ashley. Really there was only a very short period where the club felt like it was 'ours', between John Hall buying the club and the stock market floatation. The nadir was Ashley, but before that we had the influence of the bankers resulting in Keegan leaving and the team he had built being torn apart. Then the Halls turned from saviours into leaches stealing the family silver in dividends and then the final nail in the coffin was becoming a zombie club under Ashley. I have massive qualms about our owners, from the right-wing politics of Staveley and Reuben to the human rights abuses to the insidious influence of Saudi Arabia on global politics and ideology, but, in football terms, I feel far more connected to the club now than I have since that brief period of 1992-97.

Makes it surprising how much he has played, with some other players (such as Bruno, Gordon and Barnes) Howe is brought them into the first team much more gradually, starting from the bench at first, Bruno made five appearances from the bench before his first start. Maybe that's down to Willock and Joelinton's injuries but he has been starting ahead of Anderson, who had a great pre-season. It' doesn't seem to be Howe's way to throw someone in at the deep end if he doesn't think they're ready.

And the PL's rules are so broadly drafted in relation to control that, taken to the letter, any state could be interpreted to have control over a club in the ownership of a individual or company based in their country. Ultimately, they are the PL's own rules and they can interpret them how they like, and there is little to no ability for that to be challenged by anyone other than the club that is directly affected.

Yeah, it's pretty obvious that was the driving force behind the PL's interpretation of their rules to block the takeover and then what they accepted to unblock it when the piracy issue was resolved. But piracy was never officially a reason (although it might have become an official reason if the state had undergone the O&D test). The official reason was always about whether the Saudi state could control the club, it seems likely that the PL accepted assurances that the state would not be involved in decisions at the club. Not that the state and PIF are separate, which is what a lot of people think was accepted.

I assume you mean in terms of ‘separation’. There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding and misinterpretation of the separation issue. The issue wasn’t ‘separation’, the issue was ‘control’; whether the Saudi state could control the club (not specifically MBS; the state itself). From the details released in the High Court case the club’s argument against that was on the basis of legal separation of PIF from the state, but that was not accepted by the PL. The PL’s position was that, irrespective of any legal separation, the state could control the club and so the state itself should undergo the owners and directors test. None of us know what was in the ‘legally binding assurances’ that finally convinced the PL to allow the takeover, but it seems very likely that it was an assurance that, even though the state could control the club, the state would not be involved in the club’s decision making. Again, probably not MBS specifically as he clearly would be involved in his role as the PIF chairman. All of these 'look, this proves PIF isn't really separate from the Saudi state' comments are probably meaningless because that's probably not the basis on which the takeover was allowed.

There was quite a bit of complacency about it back then, maybe we were a bit spoilt. Only the Barca home game was a sell out in 02/03. Even the iconic Barca match in 97 with the capacity of 36,000 was pretty easy to get tickets for. This time round it feels different, no one is taking this for granted!

A repeat of Barca away in 2002... I wonder how many actually did lose their job / get divorced because of that?

Aye Forest H 2.0, Brighton A 0-0, Man City H 3-3, Wolves A 1-1, Liverpool A 1-2 - 6 points and +1 GD. Took us another 3 matches to get our 2nd win as well.

The keeper sees Gordon coming sprints six yards and then lunges into that contact. Whether Gordon hoped for the keeper to be daft enough to do that or not, it's still a foul.

Watch it from here in slow motion, the keeper is committed and lunges to get the ball but Gordon gets there first, it's not like he's just standing there and Gordon runs into him https://youtu.be/eRI6MZmQSlg?t=491 The way he turns his body is to be able to keep the ball in, if he doesn't turn like that he could only kick it out of play or back heel it straight to the keeper. he doesn't get the chance to because the keeper takes him out.

Brighton can make any team look lost, they did the same to Arsenal last season, 7 days after they'd beaten us at St. James'. We're a top team with a top manager and we will bounce back, it's what we've continuously done every time we've looked lost in a match under Howe since January 22... 21/22 Chelsea A 0-1, Everton A 0-1, Spurs A 1-5 > won the next 4 21/22 Man City A 0-5 - Arsenal H 2-0 22/23 Villa A 0-3 > Spurs H 6-1, Everton A 4-1, Southampton H 3-1

A Jesus poo is one of the greatest feelings in the world.

Anyone else hear "record number of clean shits"?

Maybe, depending how much we've manged to increase our revenue by and how much our profit/loss was in 22/23 and is this season. The £70m loss in 21/22 is probably a big part of any FFP issue we have and that will be gone from the FFP calculation in 24/25.

It seems more likely that it's this period that's the main issue, rather than the years ahead when our revenue will be much higher than it has been in the past three year period.

Look back at some articles about his time at Arsenal and what went wrong for him (after 11 wins in a row in his first season) and it's identical to what happened yesterday, the insistence on a high line and playing out from the back even when they're constantly getting caught out. The pace of the PL makes that style very risky if they lose a bit of confidence I can see it snowballing and he's shown in the past he will just stick to plan A.

I thought after the friendly that they might under perform this season if teams start to exploit their high line and insistence on playing out from the back more. Seems like a carbon copy of what happened with him at Arsenal. Went on a great run after he took over then teams started to exploit their high line and playing out from the back, but he just kept on playing the same way.

Aye, like Liverpool for example.

Ritchie, at least, is very unlikely to be in the Champions League squad though.

Aye, it's embarrassingly anachronistic.

The issue is that our current spending power within FFP is based on the past seasons' profits/losses, we might well be near the point where even with transfer fees being amortised over 5 years we couldn't afford the proportion of the amortised fee that would count towards this season, even if we will be able to afford that in the future based on our increased income.