St. Maximin

Fair, all good points, though personally I don't really hear much about sanctions avoidance from the critics. I mostly hear about how sportwashing improves a reputation by deflecting negative attention, with the idea countries can commit atrocities behind the front of a football club, which to me doesn't really make sense due to the added media exposure. I can understand the issue of sanctions avoidance (compared to Russia, for example, who are not our allies), though as has been mentioned the greater media exposure and economic connections could help show they cannot continue to behave as they do and get away with it.

An argument I've seen is they don't control the majority of those companies like with NUFC. The flip side is they are much bigger and therefore far more Saudi money has gone into them. Ultimately people can choose their position and what they feel happy with or not and I'm fine with that. More an issue when people start telling people what to think or try to influence a takeover to be blocked due to 'sportswashing'. It's fine to be concerned about that, but it's a subjective take on a situation rather than a legal issue and therefore not a reason to prevent a business transaction.

It certainly happens but the question is more how effective is it? Supporters of a club even the size of Chelsea make up a small minority of football fans in the country, let alone the world, so a small minority of them choosing to be his apologist can't be that effective in the grand scheme of things as the overall reaction to the war here has shown. With regards to Russia, the 2018 WC is an argument it worked because many people were saying it's a great place to visit. That in itself can't be bad - last year I was thinking I'd like to visit at some point and maybe still will, despite the human rights abuses. At the same time the war shows its limitations because I doubt many of the 2018 fans who visited are defending it now. That the war happens to be in Europe and Russia are not one of our allies doesn't help their cause mind.

Yeah how I see it, so in a sense it’s still about reputation. The way some talk though is as if they’re trying to please us worthy westerners or hoping by buying a club those reports about human rights abuses will just go away. I really don’t think those apologists have much of an impact though - they’re very small in number and if anything are a hindrance when they get noticed on Twitter etc.

I think any improvements to the reputation would be in the long-term, but I’m pretty sceptical of a lot of these claims that journalists and Amnesty International like to use - “whitewashing their brutal regime”, “laundering their reputation”, “cover up atrocities behind the front of a football club” etc. If you’ve got a bad reputation, it won’t just go away because you bought a club, especially if there’s added media attention. What this will likely do is have indirect economic benefits to KSA as it tries to diversify its economy and as such this will still be part of providing a positive image towards the country and encourage tourism etc. Therefore the benefits from ‘sportswashing’ aren’t necessarily bad. As long as they’re in the public sphere I can’t see how their abuses will go unnoticed though and if anything they’re get more attention - the last and next World Cup and prime examples of the limitations of sportswashing.

Grealish helped us win the Championship and now he’s made Miggy into a future Ballon d’Or winner while providing much amusement through his poor form. We owe a lot to the guy.

Tbh I love supporting the club hundreds of times more than I did under most of the Ashley era, but even then I will always feel somewhat uneasy at our (majority) owners. At the same time you may find some fans who couldn’t care less and some who are deeply uncomfortable even if few and far between. Each to their own really and there’s no morally right or wrong position to be. You don’t have to love your owners and like I’d wager the vast majority of our fans, I feel no allegiance to KSA or need to defend their human rights record. It’s sad when I see people who do, but I think these are a small minority and unfortunately every club will have its share of moron supporters for one reason or another and this just happens to be a way to demonstrate it. You can’t change people sadly. I also find it odd how many of our fans get defensive to criticism of KSA’s sports investment, but saying that many people do it hypocritically and can use it to attack the fans, so to an extent it’s understandable. At the same time as feeling uneasy about human rights, for all the concerns about ‘sportswashing’ (rightly or wrongly), I have no doubt this takeover will have positive impacts in KSA and ultimately I don’t see that as bad. I think it’s also fair to point out we have multiple people (UK and KSA) that must have some direct or indirect involvement in how the club rather than simply being Bin Salman’s. I have little knowledge of the PIF employees’ views on human rights, but personally I don’t expect them to all be evil people with a moral compass to reflect his.

He played like Almiron when he came on.

Emery has now managed Aston Villa, Villarreal, Sevilla and David Villa. Sure he has a nice villa or two in Spain also.

Don't think enough is mentioned about how good he is at signing good blokes as well as players. All the signings seem likeable, honest professionals that really get the club and city. I think Fraser and Burn were saying a while back on Sky Sports how much the likes of Trippier and Wood (for all his limitations on the pitch) are having impacts off the pitch. Good results and atmosphere clearly help, but having a very likeable bunch of players that seem to get on it and not have ego problems seems to be helping a lot here.

Personally I think the reaction to it could be a bit patronising to Miggy. Like Grealish is the bully and Miggy is this innocent weak child. Reality is Grealish is just a stupid young man who was hammered and Miggy is still a tough premier league footballer who has shown before he has a bit of shithousery in him (well attempts to cheat actually). Maybe not quite the angelic child he might look. Plus he’s 28 and has probably been called far worse so I imagine he’s not let that get to him too much. However, Grealish has continued to be be terrible while Miggy has been phenomenal since that was posted, plus Grealish is no doubt a massive whopper. So still pretty funny.

Bit of a humiliation for Palace here. Interesting how Lampard is a ‘PFM’ but Vieira seems to be this exciting up and coming manager. Everton seem to be in a much better place since Rafa left even if they’re still a bit crap.

Perez is one of those players that gets judged more harshly on his end-product because he’s thought of as a striker, despite typically not playing there. He was an attacking mid/winger that scored 12 in a Rafa team that finished 13th and people thought was terrible. He was frustrating mind, due to to the sheer disparity between how he started and ended the seasons.

No I completely agree with you here. Aside from the odd nice spell where we had some impressive performances (e.g. Bournemouth away 2020, Leicester away 2021), we were absolute turd to watch and it should have been apparent to anyone that the organisation and plan we had under Rafa had been unravelling and not replaced. I was just saying based on the final league positions he wouldn't have been deemed a failure. I think he was in probably every other way here and he also would have taken us down if he'd stayed, but if you didn't watch the football closely (like I imagine the West Brom chairman didn't), then it would be easy to look at that record and think he did well enough to keep us safe. We had a poor squad with injury problems to our star players. He also must have had a decent Championship record until Villa as he managed to get teams promoted. He could probably get away with his managerial style of being a 'man manager' more back in the day, but hasn't been bothered to learn and progress with the times.

The thing is (and I'm going against the grain a bit here), his record doesn't necessarily suggest that. We know he's a disgrace but it's not like every season his final league position suggests he was a miserable failure - even if everything else does - but ultimately it's the league table that gets noticed most by people who don't follow his teams closely. He would have absolutely taken us down if he'd stayed, but the sacking spared him from that and the 13th and 12th place finishes were reasonable on paper. Pretty sure he finished above Potter, who everyone has been praising for ages.

Very disrespectful stuff from the Guardian on such an important football manager: https://amp.theguardian.com/football/2022/oct/05/steve-bruce-west-brom He’ll get his pay off nicely in time for the upcoming T20 World Cup. Saying that, he’s probably going either way.

Good work Fede. That was my main issue with Bruce - he just couldn’t be arsed. I don’t dislike him due to his tactics (or lack of) and to an extent I think some of his interviews are forgivable as it isn’t nice receiving abuse, whether or not you’ve brought it on yourself. However, the lack of effort can never be excused.

Different part of London mate plus the Fulham fans are often quite posh. Sorry to be a pedant but I lived half my life in the south. So on that note I fitted in really well with the fans.

First Toon match since pre-covid got me. I lived in Newcastle then, now I live in London. Work got corporate tickets literally right behind the dugout and lunch before. Absolute class experience, even if I had to pretend to be a Fulham fan (who seem a decent bunch and Craven Cottage is great btw). Red card clearly helped, but for we were still excellent and it was about as dominant a performance as I’ve seen.

I agree with those points, though I do think defence and attackers can't be compared, at least from my experience. Often strikers just seem to get that extra bit of confidence playing internationally in a way I don't tend to see for defenders. Maguire himself has been well protected by Southgate's defensive system also and now his confidence just seems shot to bits rather than just being a bit off form. I find it pretty hard to justify keeping picking players like that internationally as ultimately they will have a game like last night. Feel sorry for the bloke though - needs to move to a mid-table/foreign club where he'll be first-choice and hopefully less exposed to toxic fans.

It’s coming home.

Think I’m in complete agreement with what you said about Southgate . Think some of his biggest critics fail to acknowledge the state of the England team before he came in (that 2016 Iceland defeat still lives long in the memory…) and the complete disengagement from the fans. He deserves a lot of praise for his, but he also has his limitations and nowadays they’re what are having the main impact.

Yeah without doubt, though that has a lot to do with having great players and leads back to the arguments he’s not getting enough from them!

I completely agree. I do think his tactics were poor that game though and that’s only continued since. I also like the bloke a lot and thank him for a lot of positives I feel he’s had a direct influence in. I just also think he was very lucky with the draws and was exposed when he came across stronger teams/managers he was lucky not to play more of earlier on.

I don’t think anyone is saying they were ‘easy’ fixtures but (especially given home advantage) they were part of ‘easy’ draws because it’s all relative - you’ll never get to the final/semis without some challenging fixtures. Every win we had, however, we were definite favourites.