leffe186

Have to make your own entertainment when watching these games

Bit soft but it was up.

Should have chested that down tbh.

Unproductive certainly. Those two plus Mount and Foden have been on the periphery for the most part.

He’s just trying things out I presume. You might as well say “how doesn’t he start Sterling?”

Not the most inspiring set of subs but it feels like Grealish might be able to take this game by the scruff of the neck if we make him the centre of things.

Cheers. Found it on ESPN+ in the end.

God I used to love those, playing at LB/LM. Nicely finished. I missed the beginning but saw most of that. Switzerland are well-drilled at pressing and nicely organized all round. We just look like a team with players who aren’t totally sure what their role is. Mount and Foden off Kane isn’t really doing anything. Gallagher has run around a lot but he and Henderson have been out of position at times. Telling that the goal came from just a speculative lob over the top. Biggest problem is the movement off the ball when we have it.

Anyone in America happen to know if this is on anywhere?

Not like he can just part the Black Sea - there’s a war on.

There’s definitely something about Villa fans though. I was working in Villa territory around the beginning of Martin O’Neill’s tenure and there were more than a few guys who had considered themselves to have always been a top two or three side - basically on a par with, say, Liverpool. It was just the way the talked about it, like of course they were a bigger club than just about everyone, and it was just a matter of time before the glory days of, ooh, the 1800s were back. It really stuck in my mind because it took me so much by surprise.

I think Grealish comes up so much because there are some pretty clear and egregious examples of him flinging himself to the ground when he clearly hasn’t been touched. He certainly did get rough treatment on the regular. Mane’s the one that gets me riled up. Yet all this frustration with Premier League players diving gets put into perspective with every Clasico I watch.

I think lack of empathy does stem from monetization, because it stems in part from the lack of parity. As well as making it harder for, say, your typical Ipswich fan to have empathy with your typical Liverpool fan it’s even harder for them to have empathy with, for example, some Indonesian guy who’s decided he supports Liverpool because they’re good. Or whatever. Not that those guys didn’t exist years ago, but there are so many more of them now, we’re in more direct contact, and they factor more into clubs’ financial considerations.

I will say, looking from outside, you overrated Lascelles for a while and now you’re overrating Burn in a very similar way. That’s just natural fan stuff though.

And the whole point we’re making is that that’s silly. You get one chance every two years. There are at least half a dozen really really good teams. You get close and then try your best and sometimes that isn’t quite good enough. Sometimes you get a break and win. He has Pickford as arguably his best keeper FFS. Switching Dan Burn for Maguire, much like Lascelles for Maguire, isn’t going to make a difference. We’ve got a couple of great players, a handful of very good ones, and a really good team spirit. I do wish we had a better tactical coach, tbh, and the one big argument is that we could have beaten Italy maybe with different penalty takers. You just can’t say that any team “should” win a World Cup or be European champions.

I brought it with me to the US. Fun seeing what the docs here make of it I don’t think I’ve ever laughed as much in my life as when I first read it. Surprised nobody mentioned Black Bag.

What’s his team’s value? Many of the top guys have values over £104.

Man City weren’t a nothing club to me, but then someone came along and gave them infinite money. See also Chelsea. After that happened nothing they achieved really meant anything to me.

“Always” is a moveable feast though. My always goes from the late 70s, my Dad’s from the 50s etc etc. Clubs have ebbed and flowed. We’re dangerously close to that stupid tired old conversation about what makes one club “bigger” than another

I’m a Spurs fan. I didn’t want anyone to win the league except us (or Leyton Orient). In the rare occasions when we didn’t win the league, someone has to. I’d much rather it was a nothing club that I didn’t give a shit about. Ergo, come on Man City!

Dunno - think you can draw some direct parallels. Both parties were basically given huge amounts of money by their state (in different ways). Both parties looked to diversify their investments and I think it’s fair to say both (Abramovich and PIF) were looking for some international acceptance and acknowledgement.

Yup was about to post exactly this then did something else and forgot about it

Cheers . That’s partly my point though, it’s not so much about whether my team is good or not, more that I just don’t like what football is any more. I was biding my time for a few years and when the CL run came along my plan was to sign off after one of our greatest achievements. One soft as fuck handball later…

I mean, surely Wraith Rovers?

…So yeah, a combination of things but parity (or the loss of it) was at the root. Abramovich. The Champions League. Mansour. West Ham and the Olympic Stadium vs Leyton Orient. The utter balls-up they’re making of VAR. Man City, Man U and Liverpool shirts all over London playgrounds. Drip. Drip. Drip. I stuck with it for a while because my team seemed to be doing it the “right” way, but I’d had enough a long time ago. Found out this week that one of my Dad’s passwords is KaneSon61, which simultaneously make me feel happy and sad. He’d become disillusioned with modern football way before me but was never not going to be a Spurs fan and just fucking loves the game. I still want Spurs to win every game 5-0. It just truly does not feel like the same game any more, and the number of ways that was true reached critical mass. I’m just an old fogey, basically