leffe186

Problem is Liverpool's fans are far worse. Yeah, it's shite any way I look at it.

All my eggs in the Chelsea basket this week. Shit.

It really was. It helps that the crowd in Seattle is always good value, but there were some proper players on the pitch and that made a difference too.

Should have done better there too.

Palace should have done too.

Sunderland nearly broke the crossbar there.

Everton could have had anybody bar Arsenal or Man City and waltzed into the semis.

63 points . Not bad from seven players.

Only saw the top part of that picture at first and thought it was a rugby kit. Think the Aussie kit is pretty damn smart.

That's a pretty good question. Ours would probably be: Archer Smith Hall Veljkovic Fryers Townsend Bentaleb Eriksen Carroll Lamela Kane Plus a bench made up almost entirely of attacking midfielders . I'd quite like to see what team people like Man U would be putting out.

As if it wasn't bad enough with so many players off, now two who were going to play are injured. FFS.

I love Adidas, and I'm glad that they have the MLS/NBA here - I have a beautiful Cavs tracksuit top. My main gripe is that my team's the Crew, and there's not a lot you can so with a bright yellow kit and Adidas stripes. I still think they've missed a trick by having Columbus Crew be some Village People, rather than a pirate crew.

...and the refs, natch.

Exactly what people said about Liverpool...how many league titles since the 80s? That was down to bad management mainly. They still attracted big name players though and still won trophies just not the League. I mean how does a team like Liverpool attract say a Suarez? Money is one factor but im sure Liverpool's history is a big pulling power as would Manchester United's. Suarez wasn't an elite player when they bought him though so that's why. They also paid him a lot of money. Their wage bills in 09-10-11 were 96.1M-114.3M-128.9M: they finished 2nd (08-09), 7th, 6th, 8th. Our equivalent wage bills and league positions were 60.5M-67.1M-91.1M: and 8th, 4th, 5th, 4th. Again, they maintained the wage bill of a CL club - capable of attracting the top players - by running at a considerable loss.

Article doesn't mention they spent £50m on players last year and only recouped £6m. They could cover that loss and turn it into a profit approaching as much simply by selling Suarez. Losses on player trading aren't necessarily bad. They were for us because we bought £16m crocks and let their contract wind down, spunked tens of millions on utter s*** on ridiculous wages, long term....like Portsmouth and Leeds Losses are losses. Of course they could have sold Suarez and broken even but...they didn't. They are clearly reaping the reward of breaching Suarez's contract and making a loss, by having a stronger squad and (most likely) qualifying for the CL. If we could run at a loss of 50M a year then I'd expect us to be better too...but we aren't and can't. We don't have the disproportionately high commercial income, or owners willing to subsidize losses over a sustained period of time.

On the one hand, I really hope this is true for many, many reasons. On the other hand, why pick the fucking Sun on Sunday?

https://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/the-football-association-investigate-daniel-agger-s-challenege-on-jack-wilshere-during-the-international-friendly

We can but dream. They have made a loss in each of the last eight years apart from 2008, where they broke even by selling loads of players (http://swissramble.blogspot.com/2012/05/liverpool-keep-car-running.html). Fenway have subsidised them by reducing the immediate debt and consistently loaning the club money at 0% interest (IIRC, though I stand to be corrected here), plus securing enormous commercial revenue that dwarfs that of everyone else in the world bar the top handful of clubs. Essentially they are demonstrating that it doesn't really matter how you perform on the pitch in the short term - if you are one of a select few clubs you will get bailed out by commercial partners/owners until the weight of money tells and you start winning again.

Me too. Actually more of a Pardew - completely evaded responsibility by not touching the team for three weeks (in the process missing out on all Terry's points). Luckily that meant I had two free transfers to mitigate this week's clusterfuck.

Mine will probably always be this one.

I'm sure there was a lot going on behind the scenes with AVB, but sacking him basically signaled an end to any intent of having a great season. Invest 100m in players, give up halfway through. Yeah, it was clearly the behind-the-scenes stuff. There is no way you can appoint a manager - any manager - at that stage and expect to mount a challenge for top four. There seem to be three schools of thought about Sherwood. One is that he is out of his depth, that we are just surviving on individual class, and that he should be fired at the end of the year. One is that he has worked miracles in keeping us involved, and deserves to stay on. My preference is the mix of the two - that he was worked miracles in keeping us involved, but that he is not yet ready for this job and so we should look to appoint a more experienced manager at the end of the season.

We're supposed to have approached Louis Van Gaal, among others. The main thing confounding everyone is that Sherwood's contract is for 18 months, not just this season. Were it not for that, we would all be presuming that this would just be a short-term thing. Before his appointment, Sherwood had established himself in a more entrenched role - not DOF, but something along those lines. Again, it just seems bizarre that he would risk that for a punt at the manager's job. If Levy doesn't want him to stay on as manager for the next season then he will presumably have to sack him. The 18-month contract just seems bizarre from every possible angle. Anyway, another scrappy as f*** win . Van Gaal is going to ManU. Maybe. That People story just reads like they completely made it up though.

Wonder what Sunday trains back from Hull to Brum are like. Could easily be a total nightmare.

We're supposed to have approached Louis Van Gaal, among others. The main thing confounding everyone is that Sherwood's contract is for 18 months, not just this season. Were it not for that, we would all be presuming that this would just be a short-term thing. Before his appointment, Sherwood had established himself in a more entrenched role - not DOF, but something along those lines. Again, it just seems bizarre that he would risk that for a punt at the manager's job. If Levy doesn't want him to stay on as manager for the next season then he will presumably have to sack him. The 18-month contract just seems bizarre from every possible angle. Anyway, another scrappy as fuck win .

This is the difference between our 2 teams. When we blag, we don't really win. Excellent example is our game a few weeks ago. Neither of us were good but ultimately you won. You keep winning. I agree that I don't think you're anything great (currently - you've clearly got some excellent players) but you keep winning. That's an enviable quality to have. You're probably right, although have you really been blagging it that much? Genuine question. I thought Martinez had you pretty well-drilled, but (a) all your strikers - and the ones you borrowed - got injured, then (b) other injuries stretched your squad. The main trouble is that our expectations were so much higher at the beginning of the season. We certainly have enough quality players to be dangerous, but every game seems to see less talented opponents looking more coherent.