leffe186

Seems insane. Still, that would leave us, Burnley and Crystal Palace as the only teams without a single new player coming in. Our nearest rivals have also spent a mind-buggering amount of money. The natives are getting restless. We have a significant amount of (*cliche alert*) deadwood to clear out, many of whom have been out on loan, and we are going to have to find some homegrown players to beef up that side of things. Hence the interest in Grealish and - I think - Zaha. I think Levy is going to have to change his modus operandi. The sort of players we used to pick up for 10-15M are now being bought for two or three times that amount by everybody in the Premier League. Key members of our team include Lloris (12M), Vertonghen (10M), Dembele (15M), Eriksen (11M), Alli (5M), Dier (4M), Alderweireld (11.5M), Trippier (3.5M), Wanyama(11M). Those days are long gone. That sort of money now pays for players you take a punt on: kids like Foyth (8M) and N'Koudou (11M), or cover like Llorente (12M) and Janssen (17M). We as Spurs fans still have to tailor our expectations somewhat. Much of our increased income is going to new contracts for...well pretty much everyone. We are still not paying nearly as much in wages as five other sides in the Premier League, so we are trying to redress that balance somewhat, which means less money for new players. We have made a virtue of our togetherness and team spirit, so we can't really complain when that squad is kept intact and merely tweaked occasionally. We finished ahead of three clubs that paid approximately 45M more (Liverpool), 80M more (Arsenal) and 100M more (Chelsea) in wages, which means that they are looking for players to catch up to us with far more money available to throw at them. It is harder and harder every year to improve. So what do you do? At least the fucking stupid questionable purchase of Sissoko was an attempt to address a gap in the squad. 40 or 50M for Richarlison just seems insane all round, but these are the sums of money that clubs now have to front up to try to compete with the top tier. I expect to see Grealish come in, then possibly one more big splash, with Alderweireld & Dembele (sadly) and N'Koudou & Janssen (less sadly) heading off. Llorente and Sissoko would be ideal departures because they would force us to make it three or four big purchases, rather than one or two. tl;dr Everton are crazy, football is fucked, Sissoko is shit, I hope we (Spurs) buy one shit-hot player for a ton of money.

Why? They’ve always been utter cunts. Just to add to this: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/council-under-scrutiny-for-40m-down-the-drain-in-olympic-stadium-deal-a3889086.html?amp&__twitter_impression=true And while we're at it, this from KUMB's summer transfer discussions:

I’m still annoyed that the ref can’t use VAR to book Griezmann for diving before that first free-kick.

Would never have given that. The French guy is right in front of him, and I would only have given it if the guy had his hands up in the air trying to make himself bigger. That’s a terrible decision.

My weekend job at school was at Homebase who had a footy team. The first and only game we played while I was there we won 27 or 28 to 3, and the ref blew the whistle about 20 minutes early. I knew that me and the goalie played county football, but I hadn't realized that three other guys played semi-pro . Nobody would play us after that.

Yes. There’s a doc at work who’s a Barca fan and an NP with a Greek family, but nobody else cares about soccer football. I just keep telling them “it’s coming home” at inappropriate moments which confuses everyone. Also I am completely shitting it.

We will win, then half an hour later Rafa will resign. Following the sale of Lascelles for 21m + add ons. We do get Carroll back on loan though, but he’s injured. Pardew returns too saying he can’t wait to work again with Andy and that we will be a fret when he’s fit. But we won the fucking WC! Thank you all for your sacrifice.

Just noticed somebody had both Lukaku and Suarez .

It’s the hope that kills you, always. I’ll be gutted and pissed off, but if we give it our best shot what more can you ask? Do that and we have a chance. Quite. More importantly, we’re a very young team without a huge amount of star quality, so I fully expect us to get better. (Also, sooner or later FIFA will decide to use VAR to clamp down on diving and feigning injury, which should help everyone against the South Americans ).

Might be that players are realizing they can't get away with their usual bullshit at corners etc.

I get what you mean, but they’ve looked progressively more fucked in each game. Showing their age.

Not sure if it's the buzz of winning a WORLD CUP QUARTERFINAL, but I feel like we could beat either of these on our day True, but i’d rather play Russia...by a considerable margin.

My first thought was “what a fucking goal”, but yeah, my second thought on watching the replay was “the keeper’s out of position”. I can guarantee you my Dad is doing his nut over it (he was a good goalie).

Couple of useful-looking yellow cards and knocks that half. Hope the second descends into a punch-up.

Fucking hell, I can’t get over how young Stones and Maguire look close up. I am so old.

Ian Wright is just so bloody likeable.

Ditto, with added “it doesn’t feel like a proper World Cup if you’re in the shitty half of the draw” on top.

This was the scariest thing about it. You were playing Sweden and it's not Hockey. Put your fucking pants back on you absolute jammy brankos. You’re right, not everyone gets to play dross like Panama on the way...

Somewhere they had a thread titled "West Ham 66 Sunderland 18" Now apart from the facts that England actually won it in 66 and West Ham had 3 players in that team rather than two ex-players who fucked off to greener pastures as soon as they could, they're absolutely spot on. They really are something quite special Also quite apart from the fact that three out of the five England penalty takers alone were Spurs players . And we scored our penalties. Of course I haven’t read the thread - it occurs to me that they might have considered Rose to be a Mackem too.

Fucking yes. Was coming through security at Newark after flying from Heathrow when the fuckers equalized - heard a huge cheer from down the hall and knew it had happened. Loads of Colombia fans and shirts. There are storms all over so everything’s a bit fucked, so we were all stressed out anyway. I couldn’t watch, but there’s a bar just down from the gate and kept hearing the cheers, so just thought fuck it and took the youngest there...just in time to see the Pickford save and then Dier. So you can thank me. Football, eh?

BBC headline: Are England now favourites to reach World Cup Final? *sigh*

Genuine question - can it not? That seemed like a pretty clear and obvious one.

It was pretty fucking easy to prove he was faking that one.

Oh Suarez you absolute shithouse cheating cunt. Crying out for a VAR booking.

Fucking hell lads , so much ado about nothing. You play to maximize your chances. Southgate probably doesn’t care all that much which side of the draw he ends up on, he’d just been handed a great opportunity to rest his best players and give the fringe players a game and a chance to prove themselves. That’s what gives us the best opportunity to progress. The risk outweighs the reward. All he can do is put his team in the best position to succeed, and yes, that could also mean avoiding the better teams - not being afraid of them, just maximizing your chances. Anyway, it was interesting if uninspiring. I thought Rashford tired late on, but was generally good with one almighty fuck-up. Rose was generally good with one almighty fuck-up. Alexander-Armold’s delivery got progressively worse as the game went on, but he found some good space out right in the second half (when they shifted over because they were concerned about Rose?). Dier was poor, Delph wasn’t much better, and Pickford didn’t exactly cover himself with glory. RLC did OK. They looked like the B team, basically.