leffe186

Yeah, be careful not to sell your soul to the money gods of football.

Liverpool St is on the Central Line. That said, Victoria from Seven Sisters then change at Oxford Circus would normally be quicker, but on matchday maybe not.

That’s a key reason. They’re all out for weeks or months too. I do feel for Frank, the injuries have been a joke for months - years, really. You end up with players struggling to build partnerships and patterns, it’s hsrd to implement new tactics and the fit players just get worn down. It’s a spiral that you have to break out of somehow but I don’t have a lot of faith in Frank to manage it.

Northumberland Park station is also a good option usually - takes you into Liverpool St. Have you got the Citymapper app? Worth getting for London. Only thing I don’t know is what they do now with away fans after the game. Northumberland Park is an easy walk from your section, but I don’t know if you get escorted out or which bits are cordoned off. If I were you I’d go there though. Where in Zone 1 do you need to get to?

From BBC Text: Not the infinite money then?

I do wish people would stop going on about this. We all know. And there are actually some mitigating circumstances: 1. Decent-sized club but mediocre at best that wins the lottery and spends infinite money 2. Get given a stadium. 3. Win everything. 4. Millions of games a season 5. Least interesting cup. 6. Already winning from the first leg. 7. Pissing it.

I thought you guys were down on Pope? Has Ramsdale been ropey?

Just a feeling. It seems like teams have been keeping their powder dry a bit and the World Cup tends to put a lot of names in the transfer spotlight. Basically the entire world is playing in it this year. There are a handful of managers who we expect to move in the Summer too, which you would expect to stimulate more action. Then you look at this season’s Premier League which hasn’t been particularly good: I suspect a lot of teams are looking at a rebuild or significant strengthening. Finally, you have six teams with significant CL money and three others who you’d expect to go far in the other competitions.

Summer transfer window is going to be an absolute bloodbath.

Burn it all down.

I mean, I’m about three injuries away from a spot on the bench.

Yorkie man, you do know better than that. They’re not deliberately paying more to raise the baseline prices . Seems a lot of money but presumably they’re fighting off interest from every big club in Europe. They obviously need a CB to replace VVD and build the defence around and I guess they figure he’s a sure thing.

Watching the Championship highlights and fuck me, this Doncaster Robers kit is an eyesore. Blackpool away kit too. Colours I have never seen on a kit before

Nah, it absolutely does. The Premier League is miles ahead of every other league in depth, we had the most favourable fixtures of every team and we actually played well in patches. We were down to one senior player on the bench in Frankfurt (Solanke) and then three players got injured in that game. This is the barest bones today.

I don’t think you can ride it out at this point. That was obviously the plan for a while, but with West Ham showing some life I think it’s no longer an option. Again, I’m not entirely without sympathy because we’ve got Maddison, Kulusevski, Bentancur, Davies, Bergvall, Richarlison, Danso, Porro, Spence, Kudus and Van De Ven out, most for a while. Dragusin is just coming back after about a year out and shouldn’t be starting, and Odobert is injured and wouldn’t be on the bench if we had anybody else. It’s not really salvageable. It’s an awkward situation all round. You would in theory want to get a couple of players in now, but we’re only allowed three changes to the CL squad IIRC and you ideally don’t want to get anyone in just as a body because then you’re stuck with them and in theory some of these players will come back at some time this decade. It’s January so there aren’t really a lot of players available, and there also aren’t many good caretaker managers…because again, you ideally want to wait until the end of the season to get a replacement. We are fully expecting them to want to get Poch back. There’s a feeling that we have this tough run of games right now and maybe they are waiting to get through that.

Yeah, t’s been clear for a while it’s not working. It’s just awkward because the injuries are insane and also there isn’t an obvious candidate to come in right now. They were obviously hoping to get through to the summer and then get a manager off the back of the World Cup. I do feel for Frank a bit because he’s just trying to put a team out each game right now, but it was a bit shit anyway.

Looks like three new injuries after midweek. Supposedly Danso, Odobert and Spence are going to miss out as well as all the other guys. This is just ludicrous.

I’ve felt jaded as fuck for decades when it comes to the Champions League in particular, but that was genuinely a great CL moment.

Yeah, the format is pretty great in these moments. Felt like nearly every game had something riding on it. That Benfica finish was lush for so many reasons. Real Madrid being petulant children, Mourinho being Mourinho, keeper timewasting like an idiot manages somehow to get Rodrygo sent off then Mou sends him up for the free kick. Terrific cross and an absolutely brilliant header. Was at my next door neighbour’s with him and his brother and we almost celebrated that goal more than ours. I’m definitely in the “love Mourinho” camp but it does help having him at Benfica.

We have 14 players unavailable tomorrow. It would be so frustrating at the best of times. Apparently Odobert and Kolo Muani had some kind of car incident but are both ok so it could have been 16, but it may as well be 15 with how unmotivated Kolo Muani has been lately. It’s proper laugh or cry stuff at the moment.

It’s a sensitive time tbh - one of those where you feel so powerless and are just hoping the decision-makers know what they are doing. The one big advantage you have is a Manager/Head Coach who knows what he is doing. I can’t remember your DoF situation - it always seems to be in a bit of flux.

Our ownership is soulless? Easy there, tiger It’s just like I said, we’re currently missing a proper DoF, our CEO and ownership is a bit of a mystery and our Head Coach is becoming a concern. Until we fill these posts and let guys settle in it’s all going to be a bit up in the air. That’s what transition is, it’s just that we’re undergoing more transition than almost any other club without a complete change of ownership. It’s a weird situation. We bought all those young guys under Levy - it’s generally been our way for 20+ years because we didn’t have the money our rivals had. That’s what you had to do to be successful. Then towards the end of Poch’s reign we failed to revamp the squad properly, which he was pissed off about. We’re playing catchup in that respect. The belief is that Lange’s speciality is finding young gems. The hope was presumably that they could develop under Frank and with experienced heads around them. Then some of those heads got injured but ultimately the squad wasn’t good enough to allow the kids to breathe and learn. The concern is that Lange’s really just a glorified super scout and we need a proper DoF to knit things together. I don’t worry about the soul - the fans and the long-serving staff and the spiritual “club” will take care of that. I worry about the competence.

That word “soulless”. I’m not sure it means what you think it means. Nah. We’re not like Chelsea at all, and I don’t think many clubs are tbh. Brighton maybe closest with the multiclub stuff and buying lots of young players from abroad. Seems a bit weird and forced to link us. We’re in a peculiar position because the person that has effectively been the club - outside the fans, remember them? - for 20+ years was suddenly booted just a few months ago with the season well underway. We’re in a bit of limbo behind the scenes and on the pitch - but the fans are still here. We know what we are, and what we want, and that’s part of the reason why Frank is under pressure. Plus all the losing. I can talk forever about this but it’s the wrong thread. Bottom line, we need to get the DoF and Head Coach right. The we can talk about the rest. The soul is still there. Back to the thread - somebody said Robertson’s been doing some work at LCB which would make this move make a lot of sense. Straight replacement for Davies, allows us to do 3-4-3 which makes sense with the personnel. Broadly

Probably not but we’re probably insured against Davies’ injury so that will offset it. We also just need some experienced heads on the pitch. I dread to think what the average age of the team was that was trying to close out the game against Dortmund. That’s unsustainable. Gallagher and Robertson - if he comes - provide some real experience and nous that will hopefully avoid any setbacks being quite so debilitating.