ponsaelius

I'm reading The Farther Corner by Harry Pearson at the moment. It's brilliant like. Absolutely hilarious, really informative, but poignant too. Would highly recommend both it and the original from the 90s (The Far Corner) to anybody with an interest in non-league and the North East in general.

The Northern League was always a bit of an island though - managing to keep it's talent because of geography and isolation. Will only imagine the quality will go down further as more teams are moving up through the divisions and providing more options for players at a higher level. I think that'll be good for NE non league football in general mind.

Mad how Messi is now shite.

Just what Scotland need is another talented left back. Lazio bizarre this season. Derby win last week and a good European win midweek - followed up with this horror show.

Shite Seats Quiz is on at The Carriage in Jesmond tomorrow at 8pm. I normally do it with Wullie but unbelievably he's decided that his wife's birthday is more important. Anybody fancy it?

Got £1 tickets on Northern Rail so went down to watch Whitley at Thornaby yesterday. Lost 1-0. Terrible form at the moment. Managed to latch onto a team even more disappointing than the toon.

It says a lot about the imbalance of European football that the only shot Eastern European sides have these days of even bloodying a superclub's nose is if they're funded by some dodgy oligarch and can assemble a side of obscure globetrotting mercenaries. Look at the representatives this year and it tells a story - Zenit, Shakhtar, Sheriff. Still brilliant to see them win today obviously.

I don't think they really need the money. They're owned by one of the biggest companies in the country and have won 19 of the last 21 league titles.

Scenes in the derby. 2-0 to Lazio already and Pedro has scored against his old club.

Went to Blyth Town vs West Allotment Celtic today in the Vase. West Allotment won 8-1 and spent the last 25 minutes showboating. Winger for them did a full, completely successful rainbow flick over a Blyth midfielder before carrying on with the ball. Genuinely not sure I've ever seen anything like it. Absolutely bizarre 90 minutes.

What a game. Dimarco has been like a new signing for Inter since coming back from loan but I have no idea why he's taking the penalty. Absolutely sickened for young Piccoli being robbed of the winner.

Can't hear his name without remembering this:

Yeah. One of the major problems with the Italian sides in Europe is lack of squad depth and being able to manage both competitions. This issue is exacerbated by not trusting young players from the Primavera to step up. Inter going out of Europe completely last year basically paved their way to the title (probably would have won anyway - but they cruised it in the end). The year before I genuinely reckon Lazio had a chance of pushing Juve all the way playing just 1 game a week - but Covid took away that advantage.

One thing about Spalletti at Napoli so far is while they haven't signed anybody (other than Anguissa and Juan Jesus as 4th choice CB) he's seemingly brought together the whole existing squad, and is involving players who have previously been on the periphery or not trusted. A player that they'd invested decent money in and flopped like Rrahmani is now looking a confident first teamer, and somebody like Ounas who was has been repeatedly farmed out on loan is getting pitch time off the bench. It's quite a change from having a new manager come in and demand shiny new toys they want and just jettison or alienate the ones they don't fancy. Very early days obviously but I do feel after what Napoli have contributed to Italian football over the last decade that they are in some ways owed a Scudetto.

Have absolutely loved the games being on BT Sport so far. So easy to load up their app on the TV and watch the games. Other than those during the 3pm blackout I'm not sure there's been a single game so far that wasn't televised. Only improvement I would ask for is if they brought in the timeline feature they have for PL and CL games. Personally don't mind too much the lack of studio coverage - once a week on a Sunday for the big game and to round everything up is fine.

Napoli had the quietest summer of all the big sides, which was seen as a bit of a disappointment, but actually probably a show of strength and continuity in that they kept all of their key players. Spalletti is a big upgrade on Gattuso. Not really done a bad job anywhere. Second spell at Roma he got them their all-time record points total in a season - and even at Inter he dragged them back into the CL after six seasons out.

Absolutely brilliant scenes from from that YB goal at the end

Semplici gone from Cagliari too. Wonder if they will appoint Ranieri.

First managerial axe of the season.

Glad you enjoyed it. The author is an absolute eejit like. Although his fish out of water and brash American abroad shtick probably drives the story on somewhat he absolutely did my head in at certain points. I think that's why A Season With Verona is still the better of the two. Haven't got it yet as I'm waiting for the paperback but this looks a good read too - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Juve-Herbie-Sykes/dp/1787290514/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Zenden

Gutter for Scamacca at the end with that disallowed goal but he was great after coming on in the second half. With Caputo leaving there's a great opportunity for him and Raspadori to kick on this season.

Absolutely superb game. Sassuolo unlucky, but can only really have themselves to blame for the finishing.

Atalanta have probably the best squad they've ever had. So much strength in depth now. And yet somehow I can't help but feel the magic has gone. With Papu and the Ilicic of a couple of years ago you felt they could rip teams apart at any moment and break down any defence. They don't quite have that. Need more from the likes Miranchuk and Malinovskyi.

Tbf Juve were without Chiesa, Dybala, Cuadrado, Danilo, Alex Sandro and Bentancur. That's pretty much all their attacking momentum and full-backs. They've definitely got issues though. Not seen a Juve team look as weak as they did today in a long time. Ronaldo massively papered over the cracks, and the team was built around him, much to the detriment of other areas of the squad. Now, overnight, they don't even have him. But it's still too early to rule them out. Allegri could pull something together with this squad. You only have to look at the 2015/2016 season to see it would be churlish to rule them out.