Papavasiliou

Desperate to beat Shola's European goals tally.

I've just sold Matt Ritchie to Chelsea for 107million. You win!

Completely irrelevant but in my last FM game Perez ended up as a 25 goal a season beast that ended up winning the Ballon D'or by 2022, getting called up to the Spain squad for the WC in Qatar, came off the bench for his first cap in the final and scored the winner. Possibly the most unrealistic save I've ever had on it though. Atsu ended up 2018 Ballon D'or winner and Pep turned Borussia Monchengladbach into a European powerhouse inside the first two seasons.

Well that's a bit damning

noice that'll do. Bet Bale is raging Was just reading some news blog type site that put a big piece up about how Allegri shouldn't feel safe at Juve while Zidane is waiting in the wings to snap up the job. Guessing Allegri's feeling safe about now.

Not a bad shout actually. I still say one of Hayden's best performances for us was that Man City game where he was constantly swapping between CB and CM. Looked absolutely seamless when he did it and made us a bit less predictable.

Completely depends on who replaces him. I can see us missing him if we persist with WBs and Dummett is still our only LB by next season.

Still together afaik Guess it's family and not wanting to be away from them with a young baby. in his interview recently he said that they wanted to be close to the hospital that had been treating the littl'un rather than changing to yet another one. That and they get a lot of support from his lasses family. It's not as simple as some people making out with the "Just move the family up here". The whole extended family aren't exactly going to quit their jobs and come up here just for the benefit of their daughter's boyfriend.

Depends on how many teams around them spend billions more than them.

Thanks for this. Really enjoying it. One of the writers must be a Newcastle fan There's been some class little digs at Ashley throughout it. Loving the constant footballer based puns too.

Reel Big Fish - Sell Out - FIFA 2000

The Proper Galácticos were up there for me. Figo, Zidane and Ronaldo were 3 of the best and most entertaining players going, all on the same team. Roberto Carlos was hammering every free kick into orbit 99 times out of 100 but then that 1 was always amazing. That Spanish core of Raul, Casilas, Salgado, Hierro, Helguera, Morientes and even Guti were all solid. Makalele in the middle breaking up everything. I will never understand how Geremi got games for them though.

don't know how to rate him honestly. If pushed I'd say he's a good manager who can get caught up in his own hype when things are going well The Brent act always seems like a risk. One that doesn't seem to have backfired that much yet but I always feel like it's something the players could easily turn on if things aren't going well. It's all well and good having him Brent about the place with his envelopes when you're winning but it's probably a lot harder to get the players to buy into whatever bollocks you're talking when you're on a 4 game losing streak.

At least I was right about the tache in my head. Looks like Henchman no.4 from pretty much any Bond film of that time.

Del Bosque played that game. I can't for the life of me picture that any other way than him as he is now jogging round the pitch. Same with all managers that played before my time. I can know fine well they used to play, know what they looked like back in those days but as soon as the subject gets brought up I can still only picture them in their 60s, using their now ample frame to muscle some poor 21 year old off the ball.

The amount of players who manage to get consistent Premiership playtime for us then drop off the footballing cliff as soon as we get rid of them is staggering.

Yes, Colo was good but, i always felt he got shrugged off too easily at times for a CB. Lejeune is a unit. The only area I can think of that Colo has the advantage is just pure skill on the ball (which isn't exactly much use as a CB). I remember Rooney shadowing Colo as he was trying to let the ball roll out for a goal kick. Most would have just tried to stay strong and back into him but Colo just casually Cruyff turns it through Rooney's legs and casually jogs away as if it was nothing. He obviously had the ability to do stuff like that but in reality it's not what you want your defenders doing every time. Especially when they're prone to errors too. I think with Colo, people also overlook the fact he spent a lot of time playing with Williamson too. That's the sort of situation that could make Maldini look like Titus Bramble. I always wondered how he'd look in a competent defence. I'd still take Lejeune over Colo any day, though.

Ref's definitely going to try and even things out after we actually had someone sent off against us for once. Dubravka, Lejeune and Rondon sent off in the first 20mins.

Just started one called "The Offensive" on the same network as the Football Ramble. Into the 2nd episode now and it seems to be essentially The Thick of It but set in a fictional Premier League club. Some nice digs in at Ashley already lol

That last panel

He's been at Napoli since before his new team even existed.

At least he's used real words He used all the right words... but not necessarily in the right order.

Will that be a 50/50 split between people who think the new manager is "Shite" or "Fucking Shite"?

See you in court. Didn't the Atlanta fans start calling him "Miggy" in the first place so they could sing that?

Yeah I agree we don't give them as many chances, but I don't personally think there is a production line of talent waiting below the first team at PL clubs trying to get through. The loan system is fine and should be used all the time, these players wont learn a thing playing against their own age ranges. They need to be playing comp football against pros and grown men. It's completely ludcirous that Woodman is still here and not out on loan. Very detrimental The problem is the levels they end up loaned to. Longstaff doing from Blackpool to keeping Man City quiet is mental. Makes you wonder if it's worth giving more incentives to Champ clubs to start taking them. Not sure what form that would take though. Maybe a clause in the loan deal that gives them first refusal on the player if they go up? Maybe a set fee to make the deal permanent at the end of the season that reduces the more games they play? At the moment it just doesn't seem worth it for Championship teams. Why should Championship clubs take them when there are absolutely stacks of players in the Championship worthy of PL football that bigger clubs won't take a chance on? It's the same issue really, PL clubs prefer to shop abroad when the Championship is absolutely full of good young British players and usually the only way they ever get a go in the top flight is when their club gets promoted. The gap between the top flight and the Championship is much smaller than it was a few years ago. The prospect of getting in on the ground floor on a young, English player with proper potential. I think most Champ teams would have snapped your hand off if you'd offered them a Ryan Sassegnon or Will Hughes type player with the option of buying them at a cut price if they do well or shipping them back if not. I think the harder sell would be convincing Prem teams to agree to part with them if they do well. It's a daft idea though. We'll just have to make do with loaning the poor buggers to Motherwell and Carlisle and hoping they actually get on the pitch once or twice.