ponsaelius

Oatcake Froggy

Even Liverpool are a bigger club than Man United. Hence double the European trophies. Man U just have an inflated position thanks to the work of whiskeynose in an era when the PL grew exponentially and managed to attract loads of glory hunters from places like Northern Ireland.

'Biggest club in the world' 15th in the PL, but Solskjaer doing a great job. Fantastic cognitive dissonance.

Come to RACA then as we never get anywhere near that! home next 2 saturdays Ha - that's my most local team at the moment. I've been once before - very picturesque ground. However I tend to like to go to new grounds if I can.

Yeah I've been putting off going to games because at 150 I don't want to be taking the space of a regular fan.

Covid-19 has been the worst thing for football. It really seems to have given the big clubs hard evidence that they really don't actually need fans there to make the product work. Now they don't have to care about the interests of domestic supporters in the long term. Personally with the combination of VAR and empty stadiums I have found football to be pretty dreadful over the last year or so, but I'm probably in the minority with that view.

Kazim-Richards has won titles in Scotland, Greece, Brazil. Played onboth sides of the bosphurous derby - scoring in a CL quarter with Fenerbahce. Played in a Euros semi final with Turkey too. It's a brilliant career for an average player. Surely a better life experience than just spending 15 years in the Championship.

His deal already runs until 2025 anyway

He was at fault for all 3 German goals and then got sent off. Dreadful.

Most American owners are flabbergasted by the concept that they can buy a club and the revenues are dependent on immediate and regular high performance to qualify for the Europe - while a particularly bad season could see them relegated and ejected entirely from the gravytrain. There is no security or stability in European sport which is terrible for an investor from a background of US sport. In the US if you buy/set up a franchise that's you secure in the league for as long as you want. Stability for a business model and no risk. No need to finish high and qualify for continental competitions every year. Indeed you can throw a season altogether to get a better draft pick to build for a long-term team/brand. This is quite clearly a move driven in a significant part by American ownership pushing for a model which allows more power for big clubs and ensures stability. This solidifies their investment. It's not the only reason but the gradual takeover by US capitalists is clearly a significant part of this shift.

Quite funny that we ended up this high. Loads of other teams have better players but this was one of the few teams that had basically a whole squad of players from the top 1-3 divisions. Basically the result of having no other Football League clubs near us so hoovering up the whole of Northumberland, Gateshead etc.

Ramsey's club career has been miles ahead too. Winning goals in two FA Cup finals for a start.

Pretty much. Doesn't really fit into Conte's system as a central midfielder as he prefers more engine. Even when playing with an attacking midfielder behind the front two Sensi has looked a better bet. Nevertheless seems a bit soon to sell him IMO he'd fine a niche in the squad over the course of the season. I think the issue is they have too many midfielders right now (Barella, Gagliardini, Sensi, Brozovic, Eriksen, Vidal, Vecino, Naingollan) all for 2/3 positions and need to save £. They've been trying to ship Vecino and Naingollan out to save money but are maybe thinking there is more chance of moving with Eriksen.

The Traore signing is a mad one. Atalanta had already agreed to loan him out to Parma this season. Getting 70 million for Kulusevski and Traore who barely played a game for them is incredible business - as good as they are/may be.

Cavani is one of those players who's movement is very good and gets him ridiculous amounts of chances - and he then proceeds to fluff a number of them. I'm always surprised by the idea that he doesn't perform though, particularly among English fans. Unlike somebody like Ibrahimovic who for years was quite poor in Europe against English teams, Cavani has an excellent record against English teams for both Napoli and PSG. Indeed his record in Europe in general is exceptional.

Still Ben Arfa easily for me. ASM is fantastic though.

Atalanta looking great so far this season with 3 wins from 3 and 13 goals scored. Not got Ilicic back yet nor seen Miranchuk who was their major signing this summer. Last couple of years they've always started slow and clicked into title form later in the season so could be very interesting this year.

Their average age must be crazy high. They do have a younger core of players as well though - Bastoni, Barella, Hakimi, Martinez, Sensi, Skriniar. Even some of their more experienced players like Lukaku, Eriksen, Handanovic etc haven't had significant experience of actually winning things. They came very close last season to Juve, only losing out by point. Adding the likes of Vidal and Kolarov seem quite sensible additions to give a bit more winning experience. Darmian is a bit if rubbish signing but then he's basically just replacing Candreva/Moses as backup wing-back to Hakimi who was their major signing this summer. The 1 point gap is incredibly misleading. The league was basically over at the start of July. Juve took their foot off the gas massively and dropped 16 points out of their last 24. In reality they weren't really close at all. You're somewhat correct that 1 point is misleading but also not IMO. Juve were poor last year and really got away with the fact that Coronavirus halted the season when they were struggling. If they'd had to juggle league and CL for those last few weeks they would have done well to hold off other clubs like Lazio (who totally collapsed after the hiatus) and Atalanta who were undoubtedly a better performing side than them over the course of the whole season. Inter themselves weren't far off for a lot of the season and they really should be looking to push them all the way this year.

It has to be see to be believed. A panenka to level it at 5-5. Both keepers ballooning it over the bar consecutively. Literally had everything.

The best shootout ive seen in a long time. First 7 each were perfection and then it descended into FIFAesque madness. The one that hit both posts was a thing of beauty

Their average age must be crazy high. They do have a younger core of players as well though - Bastoni, Barella, Hakimi, Martinez, Sensi, Skriniar. Even some of their more experienced players like Lukaku, Eriksen, Handanovic etc haven't had significant experience of actually winning things. They came very close last season to Juve, only losing out by point. Adding the likes of Vidal and Kolarov seem quite sensible additions to give a bit more winning experience. Darmian is a bit if rubbish signing but then he's basically just replacing Candreva/Moses as backup wing-back to Hakimi who was their major signing this summer.

This version of Carroll might genuinely be one of the worst players we've ever had.

I agree with him. Watched this in the pub and it felt very weird watching people revel in both the decision and the goal. An absolute embarrassment of a performance saved by a frankly disgraceful decision. The type of scenario that you of course milk if you're in the away end. Otherwise, nah.

With VAR analysing to this degree, I don't think there is an easy solution. The interpretation of this rule always relied on referees applying common sense. Three years ago, players would have appealed for two seconds, the ref would wave play on, and no one would care about the incident because handballs like this are innocuous for the most part. No fan or player of the game wanted to see more of these decisions given as handball. The crux of the problem now is that the consequence of handballs in the box is far too severe. This has always been the case, but the game was protected from it by the common sense that used to govern football. Now that the sport is governed by VAR, it would make sense to alter the rules to limit the consequences a bit. I would favour making deliberate hand ball stopping a direct shot on goal=penalty + red card, non-deliberate handball stopping a direct shot on goal=penalty, all other handballs in the box=indirect freekick. If we cannot fix VAR, maybe we can lower the stakes. The handball rule is abysmal but it is the natural progression from using VAR to govern every little thing. Common sense and the natural pace of the game ensured that we didn't have this nonsense taking place. Now the sport is being manipulated to service VAR. Trying to use video in a game like football was always going to be a terrible idea. It's an imperfect game, with as many grey areas as there are black and white. The more you push for perfection, the more you're destroying the very fabric of the sport.

9 out of 11 Dunne and Long are not British.