leffe186

Barnsley and Birmingham both losing. All coming up mackem again. Surely any red card for relegation candidates is a plus?

You can thank me for that - I dropped him in FF .

Was at Disney last week - saw one Orlando home shirt (purple and hold) and it looked absolutely mint. I'm just not sure I can bring myself to own an Orlando shirt.

Mahrez’s Facebook hacked?

It often seems like refs in Europe just do not care about this rule.

If you mean Berchiche, he was with us as a kid. Good player, too.

Let's ignore the bizarre notion of trying to set aside finances when considering whether a club should be competing for the Premier League. You're not arguing the point. You seem to be saying that Arsenal's squad isn't good enough to challenge for the league. Well, yeah, that's what everyone's saying. The point is that there's no excuse for them to have put themselves in that position. If the squad is deficient in certain positions then that's through poor choices, either poor appraisal of players, conscious focus on - say - attackers rather than defenders, or players seeing underlying problems and not wanting to move to Arsenal. If the squad is poorly-organized then that's a coaching issue. If the squad is poorly motivated then that's a coaching and playing issue. All of these are things that Arsenal have had within their power to address. If I was a fan of Arsenal, Man U, Man C or Chelsea, I would be expecting to challenge for the Premier League every year. That's not a factor of some vague 'big club' notion - it's because my club can choose almost any manager it wants, almost any player it wants, and because I've been challenging for the league for years. Under those circumstances, if I'm not challenging it's because I fucked up - say, I chose Moyes to replace Ferguson, or Hodgson to replace Rafa, or Morata to replace Diego Costa - whatever. I would then expect my team to put that right. Arsenal have consistently failed to put things right over the last two or three years, and that's why fans are pissed.

I think I'm the only one in our league still taking it semi-seriously (I'm just trying to get all the Spurs players) but you keep winning games against the other non-attendees 'cos you have three Spurs players and Salah. Oh I see you made changes last week. Somebody beat you to PEA too. At least there are a couple of people still engaged. Had a look after that post, figured i'd try and sneak him. Apparently people are still playing It's a mildly interesting week in our league too . You (55pts), me (54pts) and OCK (? - 52pts) at the top. I've already won this week against Neesy, but you have Lingard against Shak's Alexis Sanchez and Valencia. Also, OCK has De Gea, Matic, Mata and Van Aanholt against Beren's Smalling & Townsend.

I was going to follow up that post two days ago . Finally I get the chance! I checked the league positions over the last 10 years. Every time a big side underperformed - almost without fail - they changed manager. The problem is that Arsenal never had a reallybad season. They kept chugging along in the top four, rarely looking like winning the league but always doing enough. The one time they dropped out of the top four was last year. Other big teams had perfect excuses/opportunities to freshen things up. Arsenal would have had to make a much tougher and less clear-cut decision.

Bang on and extra seats that are often empty anyway. West Ham fans have a right to be p*ssed, they may as well be called London FC. Unrecognisable club. Yes and no. Of course they've been fucked over because, well, it's Gold, Sullivan and Brady. However, a significant number of West Ham fans were happy to make the move to Stratford, genuinely believing that it could prove a springboard to them challenging for the CL etc etc. They felt like they had put one over on us in particular: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2243562/West-Ham-fans-reaction-to-Olympic-Park-stadium.html http://www.bbc.com/sport/football/22525290 Most heinously, they completely shat on Leyton Orient. Sure, a lot of West Ham fans disagreed, but I suspect an awful lot more simply went along with it in the end thinking that it was a great chance to bridge the gap between them and the top six (or more). A lot of people now feel betrayed by the owners, but again, it's Gold, Sullivan, and Brady. What the fuck did they expect? In addition, Levy had already pointed out the problems with the stadium and the process - it's not like people could plead ignorance on that score either.

Who got relegated then?

That's nonsense though - the second part at least. Sure, the money spent by Man City (in particular), Man U and Chelsea has been obscene, but Arsenal are usually third in revenue generated/EBITDA etc etc every year. More importantly, they have been miles ahead of us in almost every facet of money generation for years and years. They really should be competing for the league every year, just like Man U, Man C, Chelsea, and to a lesser extent, Liverpool. All those teams have used a combination of managerial changes and filthy lucre to get themselves out of any recent ruts. Arsenal have ignored the first option, and have erratically and unconvincingly adopted the second. It would be more excusable if us and Liverpool had failed to overtake them, but I think we can all agree that that is precisely what has happened.

Isn't it McManaman? Would make sense, like a Liverpool love in Could have been any one of a dozen or more, tbh.

Not that you guys really give a fuck, but our second goal today was mint .

Yeah, West Brom surely gone now, which only leaves two spots. I think that's Watford confirmed safe, with everyone below them in danger. Bournemouth have friendly fixtures and I expect them to be safe after the next four matches. Everton too, although they could be a surprise package if they lose their next two games (Brighton and Stoke). Two from Brighton, Swansea, West Ham, Huddersfield, you guys, Southampton, Palace, Stoke. I think it's almost impossible to choose. Injuries are f***ing with Palace and Huddersfield, and I keep waiting for Huddersfield to drop, yet they have been picking up wins. Only 2 wins in their last 12 - replicate that form over the remaining games and they're in trouble. Plus they don't get to play West Brom again. True, but 2 wins in their last 4 - replicate that form over the remaining games and they're safe . They don't have to play us or Man U again too. Next four games - Swansea H, Palace H, Newcastle A, Brighton A. Mind you, if they get less than, ooh, five points from that little lot I think they're screwed.

Come on lads, anything will do.

Yeah, West Brom surely gone now, which only leaves two spots. I think that's Watford confirmed safe, with everyone below them in danger. Bournemouth have friendly fixtures and I expect them to be safe after the next four matches. Everton too, although they could be a surprise package if they lose their next two games (Brighton and Stoke). Two from Brighton, Swansea, West Ham, Huddersfield, you guys, Southampton, Palace, Stoke. I think it's almost impossible to choose. Injuries are fucking with Palace and Huddersfield, and I keep waiting for Huddersfield to drop, yet they have been picking up wins.

...and there goes my Fabianski clean sheet FFS.

Drove back from Disney last night with my gammy Achilles (17 hours or so) and then woke up five minutes too late to make my transfers. For fucking fuck's sake. Then I couldn't rant about it on here until now.

The Grand Old Team match thread is absolutely brutal about both Williams and Keane: https://www.grandoldteam.com/forum/threads/burnley-v-everton-saturday-3rd-march-2018.102555/page-70

You guys want Stoke-Soton to be a draw I presume?

Burnley Man Utd (Postp) Southampton Chelsea Stoke Arsenal Man City Leicester Everton are they? Lost to Burnley and they suddenly have to beat Southampton. Draw (or lose) there and they have max 31 points with every team left to play apart from Stoke in the top 10 Be class if West Ham went down Yeah, I was gonna post that. Their main hope is that they have two games at the end against teams who will have nothing to play for. If they fail to beat Burnley they are in all kinds of trouble.

Was looking at your team and subs and it must be one of the strongest squads you've had at Spurs for ages. That's without Alderweireld and llorente involved today too It really is. Players not involved today who have played this year - Foyth (excellent young CB), KWP (excellent young FB - either side), Winks, Aldeweireld/Llorente. Gazzaniga as our #3 keeper too. Add to that the fact that the only players over 30 are Vorm (34), Lloris (31) and Llorente (33) and our average squad age is the same as yours, with only Liverpool's being younger. Of today's starting line-up, only Lloris, Vertonghen, Dembele and Eriksen are over 25. That's amazing. Just the usual problem that we can't afford the sort of wages paid by five other clubs in our division, which means that it's very difficult to do what they do and simply spend a fortune on proven quantities. This season alone we've seen Arsenal (Lacazette 53M, PEA 56M, Mkhitaryan) Liverpool (Van Dijk 75M, Keita 48M, Salah 39M, Ox 35M), Chelsea (Morata 71M, Bakayoko 40M, Rudiger 31M, Drinkwater 30M, Zappacosta 25M), Man City (Laporte 57M, Walker 54M, Mendy 52M, Bernardo Silva 43M, Ederson 35M, Danilo 27M) and Man U (Lukaku 75M, Matic 40M, Lindelof 31M, Alexis Sanchez) spunk an absolute fortune on proven players playing regularly, whereas our big signings were a kid and a couple of players who were out of favour (Sanchez 42M, Moura 25M, Aurier 23M). I'd actually forgotten half of the other teams' transfers, there were so many. The ideal is to get to the point when we can pick up one or two of those players to enhance the squad. It's still nice to know that we can field two entire teams who are both very good. This is surely the best squad we have ever had, which is particularly encouraging since our strength is in being more than the sum of our parts.

Hello everyone.