Smal

https://www.espn.com.br/futebol/manchester-united/artigo/_/id/12157802/ex-namorada-acusa-antony-do-manchester-united-de-agressoes-e-ameaca-bo-relata-quatro-episodios-de-violencia the reports are grim as fuck:

Can I shoot the messenger? I'm not sure why you would post this unless you can verifiably say it's the certain truth.

‘domestic violence, threat and bodily injury' police report filed against Antony in Brazil by his partner

aye. The best argument for keeping him is that he's a totally different winger to what we've got and has proven he can cause massive problems against the big teams. We're going to be playing a few more of those big teams next season. He needs to stay fit, but honestly him saying on his Insta that he's "lost important people" this season could explain a lot of his absences. It might explain why he supposedly had a hamstring injury but was sprinting around in the south of France. It might explain why he was missing with covid. etc.

Trippier spends half the game coaching Almirón through it. I'm sure he'd do it with ASM too.

The above is also why I'd like to see Howe try him on the right. I think he'd be less predictable against a low block there and would combine really well with Trippier.

Totally agreed. His best work is nearly always when there's space to attack. He can be effective against a low block as he's our best player at getting to the byline and beyond the defence, but he still needs more coaching there imo. Still cuts inside too much.

He was in Opta's tots too. Trippier created the most chances from set plays (76) and played the most passes into the opposition box (551) by a player in a single season since Opta started collected this data 20 Premier League seasons ago, in 2003-04. Meanwhile, his 138 successful crosses are the most by a player in Premier League season since Jermaine Pennant in 2005-06 (146). The 110 chances he created for teammates are also the most by a Newcastle player in a top-flight season since 2003-04, while only Cheick Tioté in 2013-14 (1,825) has completed more passes for the Magpies in a single Premier League campaign than Trippier did this season (1,568). League-wide in 2022-23, Trippier played the most progressive passes (275) and had the second-best expected assists total (11.8), behind Kevin De Bruyne. Not only this, but he also had the joint most assists from set-plays (six), along with Andrew Robertson. Not bad for a full-back. These are ludicrous figures.

I think it’s become psychological for him. I remember a miss this season where afterwards Isak kind of came across to reassure him afterwards. The rest of his game is so full of confidence now but his finishing has prevented him from becoming top level so far. Hopefully next season he starts well and progresses from there. He looked majestic at times towards the end of the season and I really enjoyed watching him. Bulked up over the season as well. He kinda looks like a throwback to a mid-00s Brazilian flair player now.

It’ll hopefully come but he really should’ve scored more goals. He has 3 goals from 7xG this season which is just terrible . If he hits his xG next season we’re cooking.

https://twitter.com/milesstarforth/status/1665971288710561792 Starforth: Asked Eddie Howe at Stamford Bridge about Allan Saint-Maximin’s importance at Newcastle next season. Howe spoke about the winger's ability, and stressed that his future role at the club would be ‘dictated by Maxi himself’. But will he still be here? 1/2 #nufc Eddie Howe doesn’t have to sell this transfer window, but, we know, he’s quite prepared to move players out if it’s right for the club – and the player. It all depends on what offers are out there this summer – and what Allan Saint-Maximin wants to do. 2/2 #nufc

"Thanks to everyone for the support, whatever happens, I will always give everything when I have the chance to step onto the pitch" doesn't make it sound like he's off to me, like. It reads more like he's had a difficult season and wanted to say something.

where does John Stones rank in terms of English centre halves? I think he's better than Ferdinand and Terry etc. now.

City been linked with Gvardiol as well for a while. They'll be rolling in cash.

I thought they changed the FFP rules around 8 year contracts etc. in February? Yeah, they did - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/64383217 Uefa is to change its Financial Fair Play rules in response to Chelsea's recent trend of signing players on long-term contracts. Signing players on extended contracts enables Chelsea to spread the player's transfer fee over the life of that deal when submitting their annual accounts. That means £89m signing Mykhailo Mudryk will be valued at £11m a year over his eight-and-a-half-year deal. Uefa is to set a five-year limit over which a transfer fee can be spread. Clubs will still be able to offer longer deals under UK regulations but will not be able to stretch transfer fees beyond the first five years. The change to FFP rules will come into force during the summer and will not apply retrospectively.

respect him a lot for going to the retirement league for a season or two and then deciding it was too easy and he needed proper football again.

just watching this again because

I imagine it's for his own safety more than anything. I'd have preferred it if they'd left him to get the shit kicked out of him, like.

this is proper sus refereeing like . Should be 2-0 to City and Man U with 10 men.

I think/hope we will continue with the same principles, but with added quality we'll naturally gain more possession and control too. Adding more comfortable ball players than (as much as I love them) Dan Burn, Sean Longstaff Miguel Almiron and eventually Nick Pope will automatically give us more security in possession. We just have to make sure we get the upgrades right in order to maintain the same strengths too.

yeah, I think the most important thing is we keep the identity of the team with physical, high energy players. If there's style in recent years that we're most similar to it's Liverpool when they were at their peak before the midfielders all left or got old.

the stuff laid out in that video is exactly why I think we'll do better than expected in Europe next year. I don't think European sides will quite know how deal with the tactical nuances and flexibilities of our play. I think we'll have to be patient in the league 'cause we'll have less preparation time than usual to deal with other Prem sides, but I reckon we'll get out of the groups in Europe.

OBV measures actions which reduce the team's chance of conceding as well, yeah. On set-pieces, a player is assigned a negative OBV score for a corner taken that doesn't find a team mate as it has reduced the chance of scoring and increased the chance of conceding.

football metrics definitely aren't for everyone and a lot of people just quote them to fit a narrative but I quite enjoy them all the same. I guess we have all these useful metrics like xG and xA etc. but they are exclusively measuring goalscoring and assisting. There are a lot of other actions in a game which increase/decrease the chance for your team to score which aren't measured by xG/xA (think carrying the ball to a more dangerous area, or passing the ball from a less dangerous area to a more dangerous area) and that's what all these possession value metrics (xThreat is another similar possession value metric) are trying to measure. The limitation is that it doesn't really tell you how good a player is. It tells you what their role is in a team more than anything. So Trippier is making much more valuable contributions than the average right back largely because we send a lot of our play through him - much more than the average team does anyway. Kevin De Bruyne is used as City's primary creator and penetrative passer so he scores highly, Brentford give the ball to Jensen to get it forward to Toney etc. They're mostly high risk, high reward players. If we used it as a measurement of ability then well... using xThreat we'd think that Ashley Westwood was one of the most threatening players in the Premier League a couple of seasons ago. It's useful to use to identify players who can fulfil a certain role though. If you want a left back who can do a similar role to what Trippier or TAA do on the right then Borna Sosa could be that guy etc.