geordiesteve710

And in turn PSG was a hell of a lot better than the away support in Milan and Dortmund which was woeful.

I know what you're saying and tbh I was sat near the incident with a clear view and was convinced it was a nailed-on penalty at the time. I'm just anti-VAR in general and by "howler" I mean things like mistaken identity for a red card or giving a goal when the ball has gone wide of the posts. In this case, I can see why the ref's view might have been obscured and if it was, is it his fault he didn't see it properly. Also, we all know it would have been given if it was Man Utd or Liverpool but that's another story.

What annoys me about that is that the ref has clearly signalled at the time that the ball had hit the defenders chest. Of course half the Gallowgate saw that it didn't, but if that's the reason it wasn't given and var can see there is contact with the hand then should they not be asking if he wants to have another look. Of course, another part of me thinks if we have to have VAR then it needs to be used sparingly and only for outrageous howlers so fair enough.

Lovely move that, but scandalous penalty decision

From the other end of the stadium it looked like he threw himself backwards into Gordon and hit the deck.

That rule was changed a few years ago. I'm guessing to encourage the "play through the press" footall which has been the rage for the last 5 years.

The Wimbledon game had the atmosphere of a juniors match. Pathetic.

First half performance was scandalous, second half he was giving daft decisions both ways and it seemed incompetence more than anything more sinister.

I thought it was OK today, but I've drastically lowered my expectations for the 3pm games. Was more concerned about two weeks ago. Full away end, 5:30 ko giving the chance for a few pints in Liverpool, should have been 90 minutes non-stop backing for the team. It was silent most of the match,as was the home end. Game's gone.

You're right, it wasn't part of any substantive hearing, it was the PL's application to have the hearing heard in private. Iirc the PLs lawyers had found something that had to be revealed to nufc in the disclosure process and this piece of evidence would form part of nufc's case. Whatever it was, the PL wasn't prepared to have it revealed in public. The OP is correct that the PLs legal team were laughably bad. They only had one argument which they made repeatedly and didn't reallt expand upon. Even the judge was visibly losing patience with them towards the end.

More I think about this, the more I think the most important ruling is the one putting the onus on the PL to prove that deals aren't market value rather than for clubs to prove that they are. They've got two big problems here. First, unless they are allowed to disclose the "commercially sensitive" data they're already starting the task with one hand tied behind their backs. And secondly, we have seen oer a few years now how bad the PL is run, how it is unable to robustly defend its position in courts or tribunals and the cost to them of doing so. Say Man City sign 100 blatantly dodgy sponsorship deals tomorrow, how much resource will it take for the PL to defend them, do they have any other skeletons in the closet that will hinder them at disclosure and do the PL clus have the stomach to keep on funding several expensive legal battles?

Aye. Bloom might lose a £300m asset on the loan to Brighton, but at the same time £300m is removed from the liabilities on Brighton's balance sheet meaning the club's value (on paper) rises by £300m. Given that Brighton is wholly owned by Bloom, his asset has just appreciated by £300m and his theoretical net worth isn't affected. Brighton must have a massive ffp headroom due to consistently buying players cheap and selling them for megabucks.

Aye, this is it. Nobody is going to force (or can force or should be able to force) a club to actually pay interest to its owner, but they can include a nominal rate of interest in the PSR calculation.

Drew 2-2. Funny enough it was 36 years ago today.

If he's got any sense, and continues improving, he will see out the full contract and go where he pleases as a free agent and commanding an outrageous wage packet.

Because he's a tit. And in this era of social media and youtubers being a tit is a viable way to make a living if not a recognised profession in its own right.

There's been a gap between defense and midfield that hurts us in transmission and away from home in particular. We've been shite away from home (apart from at Fulham ironically) for over a year now. Nobody seems to be arsed about fixing any of the above.

I'm getting that as well. Can listen on the nufc app, but can't play it in the background on there so can't do anything else while it's on like I would do last season. Another masterstroke from the club.

There was a bit of a scrap in the corporate seats at the top of the Gallowgate-Milburn corner (think it might have still been The Magpie Room restaurant at that time actually.) Two massive blokes slugging it out before the stewards managed to separate them and boot them out.

Massively under-rated save that. Probably the best one I've seen from a Newcastle keeper. The way he dives again while he's already mid-air doesn't seem physically possible. If you see the extended highlights, Pav dummies around one of their forwards in the first minute and again in the last minute.

Probably slightly off topic for this now, but earlier today out of curiosity I had a look at the European fixtures to see how spreading them out over two weeks actually works. I was surprised to see that it turns out that "spread over two weeks" was slightly misleading. Basically, all the CL games are played in the first week and the Europa League is in the second week. So, there is no good reason at all why any of the CL teams couldn't have played each other during w/c 23rd or why Spurs and Man Utd couldn't have played each other w/c 16th. They're taking the piss again.

Despite being injured for pretty much the last 2 months of the season he still finished last season with joint third most assists in the whole league whilst playing right back. I know he had a dodgy December and January and he had set extremely high standards previously but I struggle with how easily the narrative has stuck that he was shite all of last season.

Said exactly the same last week either on here somewhere or in a Whatsapp group chat.

This would suit me, as I've got the kids the first week so wouldn't be able to make it, but can go if it's the second week. Tbh, the non-European clubs should have been able to make their arrangements straightaway. All the ties are televised this season on the red button if necessary so it doesn't make much difference to fans of any participating clubs. But I guess Sky will want to schedule them all so that they get the best combo of matches for the "main" channels to maximise neutral viewers??

Them giving European teams a bye from the second round to decrease their workload overall will backfire on us this weekend as well when we play European-qualified Spurs who will have had the full week off to prepare (at a time they don't really need it) after we've had a cup game midweek. I'm not sure what the solution is but it seems a bit off.