Tiresias

Just will be an absolute fire sale in summer. Saw some saying clubs should hold off buying from them as will fuck their accounts but no chance of there are easy bargains for the likes of gallager going can't let other clubs get them cheap.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/apr/25/inside-the-crisis-at-juventus-andrea-agnelli-fabio-paratici-plusvalenze?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other Good article. It does have to be said European leagues have a point about how financially damaging to turn the runaway success of the premier League is. No doubt some is sour grapes but some is desperation to be competitive in European competition. Great to see Italy despite all this represented so well in late champions League but it is a problem. Equally part of the success of premier League is because how easy it has become for premier League to wrestle away exciting talent. Still all would be better if all sides weren't grasping egotistical idiots loading debts onto their clubs

They fleeced man u with him once should try and do it again for lols. It's kind of fair enough they are built around him but they do have done competition now and i am not sure he is as exciting as he once was. Feels like he had then over s barrel though fans would be very pissed if he was allowed to leave on free

Botman is best but schar is not a bad defender ffs although i do think he is a bit flakey compared to how he was first half of season

Is his official title interim interim manager?

Wenger used to say you could make three signings maximum before you risk serious squad cohesion issues. Now I'm confident we will continue to sign well and we should aim for quality in depth through squad but i think it is a really delicate balancing act.

You know that Einstein definition of madness about doing the same thing over and over? Just saw headline on SSN: "Barcalona make Aubemayang their number 1 striking target this summer" What...

Just did this, ended up with us 3rd on 74 points with brighton making 4th which would be amazing, but also doing it realised basically i'm going on form now and that will fluctuate. Would love it if it's us and brighton though

And that was just against spurs!

I wouldnt get too relaxed about Brighton up front, Solly March and Mitoma are both scoring for fun generally

I remember Rafa completely having Dyke's number. Practically free 3 points every time. Just put extra cover out wide to cut supply to the forwards and loaded the midfield and we'd normally win comfortably 2-0 with their clogger midfielders unable to stop attackers getting through the lines. Having said that in Dyke's credit he has adapted and plays 3 in the middle, although that is largely due to Everton having 1 striker. Onana and Doucore are better midfielders than he ever had at Burnley

Yes going to a back 4 was clearly a mistake that unsettled their defence, I don't rate dier and i especially dont rate him in a 2 (albeit used to think schar couldn't work in a 2 so what do i know( but quite frankly they ought to be able to defend better than that no matter if they haven't played in a back 4, that was much worse than should have been

I like the Athletic generally but he has got cringeworthy. I do still defend him a little, he is a decent writer but there needs to be something more... he's just a wow this is great every week right now. Especially for having a dedicated correspondent i'd hope for a bit more (there's a new writer hopefully they are good) The rest of the football writer and pundit world is so poor at covering us, I know every club thinks the media hates them but I swear just as an example if our centre back partnership was at Liverpool or Spurs the media would be going mad over them. Luke Shaw played one good game at centre back and I saw opinion pieces about him being the new beckenbauer or something. Instead all we get is talk about how Howe has somehow got Schar to look like a good player as if noone rated him previously. It even goes back, I remember when Sheffield United played two ball playing centre backs who joined midfield in theri 3-4-3 formation while in posession, just as we did with Lejeune and Schar under Rafa for last half of season, they stepped forward to add numbers to the 2 man midfield who were mainly there to win ball back and Schar was often the one carrying ball forward and spraying passes. That got no comment anywhere and yet another team slightly closer to where half the journos live nad they were all over it. Have we got any analysis of why we are conceding a goal a game at the moment, is it our defence got worse, is it Burn having a slump, is Schar letting players past too much, is it Howe reacting to us struggling to score and so releasing the handbrake a bit to attack more and that resulting in ore chances other way or is it teams learning how to attack us? Stuff I want to read but doesnt seem like anyone in whole media is interested. All the analysis of us seems to be totally surface level. While it does irritate I do understand to the degree of if say Spurs had got bought by Saudi Arabia I'd be fuming and mocking them for their wealth too so maybe that does come into negative view of us, butt I still hear pundits surprised about Howe-ball being more sophisticated than it used to be, cos I assume they think he just sunned himself when he was away from the game. They just see us doing well, probably trott out the fans just want to see hard working players and thats what they're doing so they're happy or something...Maybe it's cos their mate bruce has been shown up to be the chump he is so they dont want to talk about that. Realistically i don't think it's a conspiracy or anything, it's just the national press didnt need to devote much energy to us cos we were shit and irrelevant, and now they have to it's taking a while to catch up. It's just frustrating that Caulkin of all people isn't really producing more than WOW THIS IS AMAZING every week

Gives me some hope, weirdly I am less confident of us against Brighton than I am us against Arsenal, whom I suspect will have lost against City in a few days time and will have had their spirits broken

If he can start producing a passing range like that week in week out what a player we have

I was excited about him lol, another on long list of exciting French talents we nearly destroyed

Well we have one good sign, i wasnt able to watch today live due to being social with non football supporting friend, and likewise i have a prior social commitment on thursday so won't be able to watch. Let's see if me not watching becomes a positive jinx, albeit that will kinda suck for me

Shelvey's an odd one, he fluctuated when he bought in he really did, but that half season when things proper clicked under rafa was almost entirely brought about because Rafa realised that Shelvey needed too much carrying in midfield, dropped him, went to 3 at the back and essentially made Lejeune and Schar the playmakers in the team. Shelvey sulked and was all for bruce when he came in because of this, then blew hot and cold cos bruce was never demanding much of him. I still will give him credit, he did step up under Howe when he was fit but he needs to feel the special one in the team.

Looking at the criticism of spurs players and others through the league it occurs to me more now following the bruce years how much players are improved or impinged by management. All the spurs fans screaming all players not fit to wear the shirt, I think of feeling the same about Longstaff who I thought may have just had a purple patch in a specific tactical formation, I never hated miggy (how could you) but thought he was probably just a likeable hard runner lacking anything close to talent required to succeed in the league and i thought Joelinton was hard working but completely ineffective too. It's genuinely distressing when you think about it how many players who I'm sure could have had great careers with right coaches but got written off because of waste of space PFMs and were at the wrong place wrong time. So much luck.

We're all so brutalized by the bruce years when basically any result had to come from one player actually doing something over and above, it's a proper fucking team now, everyone, not one or two, taking responsibility. Joelinton was a beast, as was everyone around him

(admitably it's probably easy to love a squad that is winning, but I think actually weirdly even in the bruce years the squad were a good bunch, following relegation we lost the mercenaries and rafa built a good unit, lascelles, ritchie, hayden etc all had character etc, just not quality. Still, all the additions all seem right good eggs

What a team spirit this guy has fostered, see wilson celebrating with isak after the game, despite Wilson i am sure feeling its a bit rough to be scoring goals and being on bench, but there seems to be so much buy in and love in the squad. This is by far the most likeable squad in my time supporting the toon, and as much as i look forward to new players i really love all this squad even fucking murphy right now

Well i can see that now see time advances quickly ffs

The issue is there is something in the rules about it being uninterrupted or something but it is just ambiguous enough

I'm wrong but i hate that run up