leffe186

Might work but I feel like we need a more physical presence up in the middle. Also I think Perisic isn’t going to be up to playing week in, week out. He will probably rotate with Solomon.

Son’s actually been really good last game and a half, just playing a different role. Richarlison’s confidence is shot, but he’s still working hard. Kulu’s the one where you just feel like he doesn’t fit what’s needed. Suspect that’s where he’ll play Brennan if we get him.

And have the constant threat of your best players being poached at any point during the season? I’m not just referring to the Saudis either. I’m happy with the concept of a transfer window.

Just watching Match of the Day. Saka pulls Bassey down, injuring him in the process, he’s left on the ground in pain, Fulham are a defender down, 10 men on the pitch and Arsenal play on and score. Mildly infuriating.

Oh let me play! Newcastle had such an amazing team when they didn’t win anything it was basically fraud. That’s not how football works.

Total now exceeds the domestic per year: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-10500065/amp/Premier-League-overseas-rights-pass-value-domestic-deals.html That’s, what, £1.8bn a year. Sub-Saharan Africa was less than a tenth of that. US was £2bn over six years so let’s say 333M, roughly double the “African” rights. Looks like “APAC” is comparable to the US deal: https://media.sportbusiness.com/2022/08/premier-league-defies-trends-to-increase-value-in-asia-pacific-outside-china/

If we’re looking at what “Africa” might pay for the Saudi league, it would be more instructive to know what they pay for other leagues tbh.

https://www.sportspromedia.com/broadcast-ott/media-rights/premier-league-supersport-south-africa-2025-tv-rights-deal-extension/ Only figure mentioned (don’t know about the details) is £168M per year for the whole of sub-Saharan Africa - that was in 2017. Not insignificant. Current domestic deal is roughly 10x as much though. Looking at the domestic deals on Wiki, the closest comparable deal in terms of value is probably what Brazil pays for its own league (£171M per season).

I mean, you’d have to be sure they wouldn’t, if you think the below… So presumably they (1) ditch the foreign player restrictions (2) ditch the smaller, provincial clubs and (3) create a handful of new clubs? So players and brands are even more interchangeable and meaningless and the supporters in the ground are even less engaged? I’m not convinced.

How much top talent though? There are 18 teams in the league. Four were promoted last year. Currently they can have 8 foreign nationals each. So that’s a max of 144 foreign nationals. I don’t know how many teams are paying the big bucks. Someone can enlighten us. But last year only four teams had average attendances of >10K. Only one team was >18K. With the changes it looks like there are six top teams now (just based on attendance). That’s 48 foreign nationals. So that’s max 48 top talent foreign nationals playing for six clubs. And a ton of small clubs with a handful of fans, many playing in more obscure parts of the country. Maybe they ditch some of the smaller clubs and increase the number of foreign players. Then there’s a handful of clubs playing each other again and again with interchangeable players and brands. I’m not convinced.

Just to clarify though, what do you think is going to transpire?

Dave Mackay I presume. Graham Roberts wouldn’t be too far off.

We have so many players available for the Saudis

Nope. Kudus to West Ham though.

It’s interesting reading all the above in the Youth thread and then: …in here. You cannot have it both ways, lads

Tend to be on the individual clubs’ sites. Twitter has the goals from this weekend’s game if you want me to link them.

The speed up is mint.

When you came out of your mother’s womb, Mike, like everyone else.

Was gonna say. Next step is leaving the atmosphere.

Everton tale as old as time.

I was hoping so but thought they looked decent for a lot of that first game. Guess there’s still hope.

Yeah, there really is. Sadly

Not sure why Shearer et al are so vehemently defending McAllister either. I mean, as the Bournemouth manager implied it felt like an orange card - could have gone either way. Ultimately he full-on studs the guy in the shin.

We did it by playing the Conte/Mourinho way and having Son and Kane. Not complicated . I suspect we might have have actually got into their heads too. It won’t happen this year.

Finally watching Match of the Day. Any particular reason why Alisson wasn’t sent off at 1-0 and Szoboszlai wasn’t booked for diving for the penalty?