Tiresias

Hmm fair enough, but I just don't think he's had that spectacular a season from what I've seen so feels odd to get big wage increase off that. He could certainly play for a top 6 squad, it's up to him he does seem to enjoy being the main man at Palace too rather than a cog.

Would be slightly concerned about how easily he gets yellow cards at international level. In prem he's got away with rag dolling a few opposition players with warnings that are probably worse often in international games

Oh yeah i can understand that somewhat. It's just bolsonaro is fairly...um extreme but can let go with most players not being too engaged. It's mainly really neymar being very close to him, claiming a pious social conservatism while fucking everything that moves in wild parties etc etc

I had that opinion of Chelsea but from all the potter fallout one thing that emerged was that the players while obviously very concerned it wasn't working didn't hate potter or try and force him out apparently they liked him and appreciated his approachability and honesty with then. Yes there were some jokes but he wasn't a disciplinarian and they weren't apparently coming from a place of disliking him. All to say as much as i thought it may be like the psg dressing room out Chelsea of old it is a kinda unique situation with way to many players. Poch will need to be more disciplinarian than potter i expect and they just need to sell sell sell half the squad and start again.

Somehow klopp will win it still and we all know it

Young hungry promising and quick right side centre backs to deputise and eventually replace schar is 100% high priority imo along with defensive mid and left back

Apologies for some reason thought you bought him for £50m or something my memory is completely off there

All fair

Aye one of the reasons he was very popular at everton was he's apparently a real good egg. Lets not forget he was one of very few in the brazil squad who was publicly anti Bolsonaro. (Don't want to know what Bruno and big Joe think about it all lol for fear of disappointment)

I said botman was better but may be overcorrecting from seeing schar doing more sort of last ditchy stuff and so my mnd thinks botman probably sorting things out before gets there, but its just difficult they've both been brilliant.

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