leffe186

Nah, can't see it. Malaga are looking fairly comfortable at the moment. I know, just a feeling I have. I'd expect Malaga to be looking rather better given that they're up against 10 men. 2-0.

Nah, can't see it. Malaga are looking fairly comfortable at the moment. I know, just a feeling I have. I'd expect Malaga to be looking rather better given that they're up against 10 men.

Still think Porto might get something here.

Another crazy sliding tackle. Really enjoying this.

Hope you had some money on that mate Can't afford it, man - I hope someone else had a punt.

Didn't even make it five minutes into the second half. Lovely red card, worth seeing it for a real old-school foul. Defour just kicked him .

I've only just started watching it, the Bayern - Arsenal game bores me Doesn't look like it's raining to me. Yeah, me neither, but there have been a couple of tackles diving in that looked tasty and I presumed people's footing wasn't great. Guess they were just silly tackles.

I'm only half-watching and it's not a great picture - is it pissing with rain there? Lots of collisions and people sliding in. Great finish that, though.

THey are now.

Malaga v Porto is quite open, with lots and lots of niggly fouls. Fully expect to see a red in the second half.

Would be even cannier if they all got injured, and lost by ten. They won't do that either.

And? Who are they? I hate it when the BBC does this.

IT'S A BLOW FOR THE NATION!! I can barely hold the tears back.

The prime issue is whether Short will keep funding the losses, but FFP is now an issue for them because of the scale of those losses. The UEFA regulations theoretically require these to be €5M, but IIRC allow you to lose €45M over the next two seasons (2013/14 and 2014/15), as long as the owner covers it. Sunderland are already in line to be well over this amount. If they go down they will be in serious trouble.

So frustrating that we didn't finish it off. Ah well. They do have a good run of games now, and all their first team fit, plus no cups to worry about. I'm counting on you guys to shut them up.

It amazes me how people are so out of touch with the finances of their own clubs. It's such a crucial part of football life now. They've been losing money for years. The guy who says "every club has debt, it's no big deal" well, yeah, sort of, but if you can't service that debt then you're fucked. Particularly as FFP looms.

Serie A clubs like to sack their managers. There's just no continuity whereas in the PL you have Ferguson, Wenger, Moyes as long-serving managers. The current longest serving manager in Serie A has like 3 years it seems. You do wonder if it has to do with the continental set-up as 'head coach' (+DOF and other roles) instead of the English-style 'manager' that Serie A find their head coaches more dispensable. The other rule which I can't ever understand is that a manager who resigned or was sacked in a Serie A season cannot be signed by another club. It severely limits the options a club has when seeking to find a new manager and they probably have to reconsider the same guy they sacked a few months ago. If it's meant to offer some form of security to a manager, then it's not working too well either. There were 20 managerial changes last season and 25 the season before that. It stands at 20 so far this season. Mental, even if Palermo accounts for a significant chunk of the number. That rule makes sense to me. I'd expect it to minimize the likelihood of a bigger club poaching a smaller club's manager, at least mid-season. It might not work too well as a guarantee of job security, but it's surely better than nothing. In addition, if a club has limited options having ditched their manager mid-season, well, tough! Don't ditch a manager mid-season then.

We're properly old now, aren't we?

15M on Felcher too. It's classic MON.

What did he say? I imagine Lerner doesn't give a fuck.

Well the new financial results are due soon, and I presume they'll be grim reading. They lost seven million in the year up to July 2011, but that included the sales of Bent and Henderson. Operating loss was 31M. That's actually broadly in line with the previous two seasons, and in each of those their final losses were over 25M. I don't know if Johnson and Fletcher will be included in this next set of figures or not, but even if not, I can't see the operating profit taking much of a leap up. If you throw in relegation this year, I think they will be in serious trouble. Not QPR levels of serious, but serious enough.

told mon he wasnt staying in the summer imo- and got sidelined. He got injured, then went back to us for a bit to recuperate. I thought he was still injured tbh, though maybe he's been back for a bit. He was making noises about leaving to get first team football, and fair enough, although I suspect the likelihood of it being at Sunderland is receding by the day.

Absolutely. We got the tactics spot on, then a couple of silly mistakes just gave it away. I mean, I fully expected us to lose beforehand, but I don't know if I'm more annoyed having put ourselves in a position to win it and lost, than if we'd actually been shite. Most importantly, we won the passing. Everything else pales into insignificance. Joking aside, if AVB can achieve that without three or four key players, then I'm very, very impressed. I just hope we get back on the horse soon. Suarez is still an utter cunt. And Defoe, Jeez. Yet another match providing a clear argument that if we had a good centre-forward we'd have cruised into the CL this year.

Lennon's a doubt, came off against Inter with a hamstring problem. Big, big potential miss - this is where keeping Townsend would have been useful. Liverpool fans are saying that their team is: Reina, Johnson, Enrique, Agger, Carragher, Gerrard, Lucas, Downing, Coutinho, Suarez and Sturridge. That's a really strong team, and as I say, I'd happily take a draw. We're likely to be Lloris, Walker, Dawson (Caulker?), Vertonghen, Dembele, Parker, Bale, Sigurdsson, Holtby(?), Defoe. Hopefully Defoe decides to have one of his games where the shots actually go in. He's due.