Bada Bing

Awful from Burn. Absolutely awful

Disappointed Isak is not starting. We need his ability to hang on to the ball up the pitch. Don’t get it.

I'm yet to see any valid legal argument as to why PIF, including any politically exposed person who works within PIF, should not own or be a director of a PL football club. Because that's what it boils down to. It's not against the law or PL rules as far as I'm aware. Any ideas?

Noticed the attendance for the Liverpool game was given as 52,758. 

Didn't think the ground held that many. If so, guessing that would be the highest all-seater attendance at SJP?

Edit: Nufc.com has it 52271 so not sure.

Been taught a lesson, genuinely don’t think Man U have had to get out second gear. We’ll learn from it. 

That’s that then. Shat themselves 

London is bouncing tonight 

I was in the PC and the wires were a bit distracting. I thought the atmosphere was good yesterday overall. Noticed even the North East Corner got a few chants going. 

Awful performance. No sugar coating that one

Certainly puts our approach / strategy in context. 

Slow and steady wins the race hopefully.

1 minute ago, KDT said:

 

Lukaku has been awful this season, I'm not sure who will be willing to pay his wages & a big fee for him. It wouldn't surprise me if he ended up leaving on a free in the summer just so they can cut his wages, other than that maybe a loan to Turkey or something along those lines, he'll be 30 by the end of this season.

 

I'm not sure who's going to be willing to pay a big fee for Sterling either, they'll absolutely take a big drop on the £50M that they paid for him last summer. Havertz seems like it has loan to Bayern Munich written allover it & Hudson-Odoi is on massive wages for what he's currently offering, he's not been that great at Leverkusen. I think they'll struggle to recoup a lot in transfer fees it's going to be mainly loans and getting wages off their books.

Yeah you might be right, tbf I've not kept tabs on how they've performed recently. I think shifting those on big wages will be their priority given the upcoming wage to turnover rules. Transfer fees can be absorbed relatively easily for a club like Chelsea with big annual revenues.

Really like a lot of Chelsea's signings. They're betting the house that transfer fees continue to go up (hence spend big now), but I reckon it will pay off.  They'll also recoup a fair whack on Lukaku, Havertz, Sterling, Pulisic, Hudson-Odoi etc. Definitely a method to the madness.

We’re going to Wembley!!!

that was unreal from Isak

Family connections for me. I'm born and bred Essex but my mothers side are all Geordies.  My Uncle and Grandad had season tickets in the East stand and used to take me to games when I was a young lad. That was that.

I strongly doubt Howe is in favour of three Chelsea lads rocking up in the middle of what's shaping up to be a great season...

Atrocious from Spurs this

Absolutely deserved. 

So frustrating. We never got out of first gear and yet should be 2-0 up. If Bruno is out for a while then we will need to sign a quality midfielder this window 100%. 

We can still win this

Making a broad point here, but notwithstanding the fact that the PL clubs operate in a unique commercial environment, the idea that an industry / commercial entity in the UK would actively encourage less money coming into the UK via related parties for non-tax reasons is very odd to me. Certainly don't see HMRC or the government being comfortable with the direction of travel if this comes to pass.

UK and most advanced economies accept and implement OECD guidance on related party transactions needing to be 'arm's length', i.e. the transaction should be priced in line with what unrelated third parties would pay in comparable circumstances, industries, market conditions etc.

That's all good and well, except in an elite football context, there are no good comparable benchmarks for how a related party transaction should be priced as every club / most sponsors are fundamentally unique and own intangibles that I highly doubt can be reliably adjusted for. I would be curious to know by what metrics / benchmarks the Premier League judges whether a sponsorship meets the 'fair market value' criteria...

Almiron looked absolute quality tonight. I know he's been 'reborn' under Howe but technically he is incredibly gifted.

Great performance overall. Perfect response.

We are cooking baby!!

GET IN BDB!!