leffe186

He’s really good. We’ve been after him for a while but probably the fact they’ll loan him back for a year will make a real difference. Fofana’s confirmed, yes? If so that’s a bonkers amount of money they’re spending…again.

I posted about this in the Other Games thread. Just saw it for the first time. I was really expecting some proper shithousing but it was just so innocuous. He gets the ball, does a couple of quick keepy-ups, lays it back and gets on with the game. Far better than, say, when a player takes the ball to the corner flag then does that shitty “shielding the ball” thing without having any intention of playing it and just wasting time. If you don’t want him to do that then close him down and take the ball off him. Like I said in the other thread, I fully expected some real shithousing, but it was nothing, really.

Yeah, that’s because everything’s a fucking aerial duel for him.

Weirdly enough I just saw the Richarlison thing for the first time. I was in the bog at the pub when it happened. After hearing the outcry, I cannot believe how mundane and trivial it was. He just did a couple of little keepy-ups, passed it back to someone, went to receive the return pass then got absolutely obliterated by the most obvious red-card tackle I’ve seen in ages. If the Forest player hadn’t lost his shit we wouldn’t have mentioned it. Then Carragher throws his toys out of the pram. Honestly, I was looking forward to some proper shithousing but it was so innocuous.

That’s without even considering the bloody World Cup in the middle. It’s so hard to predict.

Surely the strongest all-round Premier League ever. It’s nuts.

Yeah I deleted my post ‘cos his popped up while I was typing

That’s all well and good, but the question isn’t just “why didn’t Newcastle buy him” but “why didn’t any of the top six clubs in England, the top clubs in Spain or the top clubs in Italy buy him?” I think he looks great, but that’s a genuine question to be answered.

My Dad would want me to bring up Jimmy Greaves at this point. Shearer played 559 top flight games and scored 283 goals (just over one in two). Kane has played 286 games (about half of Shearer’s) and scored 187 goals (just under two in three). Greaves played 516 top flight games and scored 357 goals. That’s insane. He was basically pissed for his last three seasons too and scored “only” 21 goals in 66 games.

Yeah, if you’re comparing Shearer and Kane you should definitely include the First Divison goals. Kane has played 286 PL games and scored 187 goals. If you include the First Division games, from Shearer’s first 287 top level games he scored 160 goals. That’s fairly close. At that point, Shearer was 26 going on 27. Kane just turned 29, so Shearer had a couple years head start. Shearer had another nine seasons in him, and I can’t see Kane playing that long. Shearer’s record from that point was 272 games and 123 goals. It does rather put it in perspective. It’s four solid goal scoring seasons, sure, but if Kane can eke out another 6 PL seasons (and Shearer managed 7 more after he was Kane’s age now) then I think he has every chance.

Possible I guess, but more likely that his agent has made a last-minute attempt to hijack it Edit: quote from Aulas, the incredible bullshitting man:

Presuming this is a

They used to do something similar in rugby. I just don’t think it makes practical sense in football apart from after VAR decisions. In the NFL there are a billion extended stoppages and loads of refs - it’s much more feasible.

I was sad enough to work it out using Transfermarkt. Comes to £327.2M. Even more crazy when you consider two of them were basically free, and CR’s transfer fee was only £13M or so..

Oh fucking he’ll just brought him in

This is so whiny, but Arsenal have been astonishingly lucky with scheduling this year.

Wonder if they’re getting any more taxpayer help redeveloping the London Stadium.

Thanks to Marseille, ours is arguably the most balanced group of the lot.

Classic Aulas-plus-agents media stuff.

Swiss Ramble (an Arsenal fan tbf) has done some educated estimating and reckons they should just about be OK under UEFA’s new rules. Seems like Arsenal have done the maths…but they’re walking a tightrope. It’s one reason why they really really need top four this year. An injury to Jesus and/or Partey could make things very interesting:

Two of the three clubs who most appear to be thumbing their nose at FFP (or that new version) are not in the Top Six - Everton and Notts Forest. Not that it’s not designed to preserve the status quo, like. Just that what Chelsea have done/are doing is especially egregious.

Fuck, just noticed my bench scored 32pts. Meslier, Rodrigo, Bailey and Almiron

I mean it’s quite clearly enormously worse, surely?

Liverpool have a load of injuries.