St. Maximin

Sorry I forgot you have to toe the party line here. Will do better next time

It might be hilarious seeing Arteta bottle it again, but City winning is no victory for football. They appear to have broken the very rules that have stopped us and screwed over the smaller clubs. They aren’t the good guys here. Arteta is a melt but at the end of the day he’s not harming anyone if they win, same with Klopp.

Love Eddie, favourite manager we’ve had and hope he gets a while to turn it around. Think there are too many factors impacting our performances and results that are beyond his control for us to say this is as far as he can take us. Like many I have doubts though and in fairness he’s done bloody well just to still be our manager over four years on given how frequently they change. Good times do come to an end and managers still get sacked from clubs they brought success if their methods no longer seem to be working. A lot has been said about our attack but I’m surprised not more about our defence. Obviously the full-back situation hasn’t been ideal and Trippier would rarely start games ideally, but we seem to have a group of very good CBs and two keepers that are England standard in theory, but shipping way too many goals even at home. It also becomes a lot harder to talk about PSR when we lose to Brentford, a team everyone thought was set up to fail this year given last summer. Unfortunately you do have to adapt to your situation and it doesn’t look like Eddie has been doing that nearly well enough all season. Sacking this season is only a consideration if we look under threat of relegation and I fully back them to sort themselves out if that becomes an option. Personally think he needs the summer and a good clear out and then we can judge him more next season, but he will naturally be under pressure from the off.

Call me fickle because only a few months ago I thought he was potentially our best ever CM, but if he doesn’t want to be here he can clear off. The club supported him after his ban for being an idiot, so he owes us.

I agree with all of this tbh, but that doesn’t make him our worst ever manager. He had a largely crap squad with as I said worse players with hindsight than other teams in relegation battles, and he hardly inherited a squad that was comfortable under Rafa. We finished off well under him but before that were constantly battling relegation - remember fighting it out with Cardiff for a while. McLaren on the other hand did inherit a squad that only stayed up on the last day if I recall right, but it was way too strong to be in that position when he took over and had money to spend. We at least managed to have fun brief spells under Bruce, abysmal as the football was. Anyway that’s enough Bruce defending here… just to be comfortably above relegation twice with that squad shows we’ve had worse.

I haven’t though, because that doesn’t explain why he was the worst manager when his record suggests he clearly wasn’t. Maybe the most detestable. I don’t like him at all and I’m glad he’s been found out, but if he was worse than McLaren for starters logically no way would we have stayed up either season. Like I said, might be a low bar but finishing comfortably midtable twice with that terrible squad seems a better achievement than many other seasons we’ve had.

Sorry I know this is a very unwelcome opinion on here but how was Bruce the worst of the lot? We played some absolute honking football most of the time and he’s a complete melt, but we comfortably stayed up two years in a row. Can’t say that about Kinnear and McLaren for starters. Also we had very few good players under him. I mean we were often doing better than Brighton, who had several players that have gone on to be top Prem players. Did we really have a squad that was at least 12/13th on paper? I’ve asked this before and no one has said so. Our star players then included Almiron and ASM, who has disappeared into obscurity. Ruining Schar was pretty unforgivable mind. I know positions don’t remotely tell the full story, but they are how managers get judged ultimately.

Spurs gift Isak a goal, then injure him directly afterwards. In an alternative world, there was no injury and he’d have gone on a mad goalscoring run. But he won’t now. Good banter from Spurs tbf.

I only remember as far back as 1998, but is it wrong I now think he’s the best CB we’ve ever had?

Yeah I’m sure I’d feel unsafe walking through some notorious estates or dark alleyways but I avoid them . Feeling unsafe is subjective - doesn’t mean you are in danger! That’s not to say you shouldn’t be smart about decisions, but it’s something you get used to. Limited circles I know but I don’t know a single person who moved here that complains about their safety (or how unfriendly it is for that matter).

Good thing it wasn’t the sharia in London that made Jonjo move to Dubai. Would have been funny though.

Lived in London for a few years and I genuinely feel the concerns about crime seem to either be from people who have never lived here, or people from here and are raising children. If you’re an adult you’re probably removed from it all. I lived in Brixton when I moved here and there was definitely violent crime within a mile from where I lived, but I was surrounded by other ‘young professionals’ and all the places they visit, so always felt safe there. Without analysing stats in much depth, I am pretty confused by the fact crime seems to be becoming a bigger and bigger concern, yet everywhere seems to be getting gentrified also. What were all these inner city areas like years ago before all these people (like me) moved there?

Not sure why this is that surprising. He’s been ridiculously good since joining Chelsea, in (arguably) the best league in the world.

Don’t like the timing of it of course, but I say I’m angry with the club for accepting a £130m offer from Liverpool. Firstly even if he’s underpriced, he’s played 86 Premier League matches in three years. Maybe he’s been unlucky, but that’s a long enough time of injury struggles that will take the price down. Whatever pride we might not have for selling to a ‘rival’ I don’t really care about as we’ve lost a rotten egg who has ruined his reputation and we’ve made a huge profit. He’s Liverpool’s problem now. Fair play if they can make it work, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see Salah, Isak and Ekitike struggle getting the best out of each other. Sure they will have fantastic rotation options, but at least one of their strikers will spend an undesired amount of time on left-wing/benched and potentially there could be some struggles off the pitch as a result - especially as we know at least one of their new strikers can definitely be selfish and disruptive. All speculation though of course. Finally lots of people hate Liverpool even if they are the bully here and we can join in on that. They’re also doing a great job of proving more and more that PSR is a shambles and that’s not going to win them friends either. Any success they get won’t be seen as remarkable too given their squads, or alternatively we can laugh at the Guehi situation meaning that could result in them struggling at the back.

I don’t see why people get irritated by things like this or when people describe a lot of things in sport as “utter woke nonsense”. It’s clearly being used in a semi-ironic way here judging by that tweet. Bit different to calling people woke because they’re standing up against racism or the like. Oh yeah in other news, Isak’s a knob.

Fair, well we’ll see. We’re they to buy Isak they’d be sacrificing a CB purchase and that could be an issue. I just don’t think we should keep him at all costs if there’s an option to sign for Liverpool for the right price. He’s already burnt his bridges, is not doing anyone any favours creating a toxic environment here and I would look forward to giving him stick with Liverpool. Certainly teams I’d much rather him join mind.

Well we don’t know exactly how the league pans out, but I’d say as far as the league is concerned they aren’t rivals as they’re probably expected to win it again, whereas we aren’t. I agree otherwise though.

I may be in the minority here, but for the right price I don’t really care if he signs for Liverpool and we use the money to get another decent striker in. They aren’t our rivals and unfortunately it seems we’re not allowed to compete with them anyway, plus I’m all for giving them and Isak stick when they play us - all for a bit of spice here, which we’d miss if he plays abroad. Would be funny seeing him in our reserves mind.

Yeah it can be a lot of fun. Can also be one of the most frustrating and mentally distressing sports . But there’s always a lot of drinking to be had.

Played against him before he’d played a competitive game for us and he’s pretty bloody good. That’s about as good a standard as you get without being pro (he dropped a level to play against me btw), though I don’t blame him for focussing on his football! Apparently Hall and Gillespie are very good at cricket too. Could spell his name right if they say hes one of our own mind…

It looks shocking from Arsenal playing him, but he hasn’t been charged all this time and the evidence had only been sent to the CPS a few months ago. I understand Johnson had been charged and the club had read all those messages while continuing to play him. Obviously no way Arsenal and Arteta can look good here.

Particularly enjoyed Wilson and Osula having an argument about how they never argue.

Don’t care about Liverpool really but I don’t really get the hatred some of our fans seem to have for them. I don’t think it’s really reciprocated - met plenty of Liverpool fans recently (because I live in London…) who were very nice to and about us after the cup final etc. They’ve been easily the best team, but also it’s just so boring seeing Man City win everything again. People say they’d rather City keep winning things as they’re irrelevant, but that’s hardly an exciting way to look at the league! This clearly means a lot to Liverpool who never got to celebrate in a stadium in 2020, the same day Man City are getting stick because they don’t care enough about another Wembley trip because they’re so used to it. And if you hate Liverpool fans, well let’s be honest they’re probably far worse when they don’t win things, similar to managers like Klopp, Arteta etc. I think that’s partly why Man Utd and Arsenal fans seem so dislikable on here now.

I listened to that and while journalists are definitely going to sensationalise the comments, I don’t think too much has been taken out of context. She’s clearly saying the likes of Wright are limiting opportunities and need to be aware of that, so it’s still a criticism of sorts (because she knows he could say no to being asked). It does just seem strange when he’s been such a good advocate for the game.

Mate I’ve put some detailed stuff in here trying to outline the complexities, which I think has been fair and balanced, but it’s often only the odd sentences that you’re responding to. I’ve written tonnes about what a difficult situation this is for Christians, who don’t want to hold those views but feel they have to and become conflicted. Surely we can understand that without agreeing, rather than seeing them just as people full of hatred. Like I said it’s hardly stopping many of them from having friendships with gay people so maybe not everyone sees their personal views in quite the same way?