Keegans Export

Given Albert Woodgate Botman Solano Bruno Lee Ginola Beardsley Isak Shearer Probably the best I can come up with that still looks like a viable formation. Can only imagine how many goals Shearer and Isak could score with those five behind them. Nobby might have to do a bit of tracking back at times...

It's ok, I'm sure the Premier League will assess the deal for Fair Market Value and we'll be able to claim a few million for him...

Yeah and if we don't sign a right winger this month it'll BE ALL HER FAULT

I think it's just because red card bans are an FA rule and therefore enforced across all FA competitions whereas the accumulation of yellows is at the discretion of the individual competitions themselves.

The Sky director is desperate to get some controversy around the first goal, keeps showing the replay highlighting/magnifying the "push" , pundits having absolutely none of it 😂

I'm looking forward to the various excuses why this is nothing like our takeover which they were (and remain) so vocally against. Presumably there'll be a point made about how much of the club is Saudi owned. Of course the borderline between "fine" and "not fine" will be conveniently somewhere between theirs and ours. Of course they'll argue that their owners are not directly linked to the Saudi government despite the fact that, like China, no sufficiently wealthy company or individual is truly independent of the state. Some may well take action and fair play to them, but the majority will either lean on the above, or just ignore the conundrum they have got themselves into and hope the reek of hypocrisy fades away on its own.

Partly to change the subject but also because I'm interested... I see people quoting 90+% chance of England getting the extra CL spot, where is that from? If the PL gets the extra place, does the 5th place team need to go through qualifiers or do they go straight into the league stage?

I get it, the ball has obviously hit his hand and we've obviously gained an advantage from it but as the rules are now, it isn't handball (unless you think Joelinton has handled it on purpose, or gone looking for it) So I'd probably be annoyed too, but we'd be annoyed at how the rule is written, not the decision itself which was correct. It's arguably a stupid rule but it's not an injustice/corruption/incompetence.

Nah mate

My son would find that hilarious tbf I mean, he's three so you probably have to factor that in...

The way he manages to turn those occasional poorer spells around is amazing. We had the little wobble around the League Cup final, got us back on track to finish 4th. Looked like we were going to really drop down the table towards the end of last season then put a run together and finished 7th. This season we've struggled for consistency (like most of those around us) but we've beaten three fellow top 5/6 hopefuls in a row now and reigned in Chelsea's lead to one point. Managing a team on a high is one thing but we've seen it with managers of other clubs - once things start to slide, they can't stem the flow.

Presumably that isn't the case any more judging by this; To me, that suggests that if the VAR thought it was a deliberate handball they would have intervened.

VAR did look at it, I'm sure they confirmed that on the TNT coverage. They agreed that his arm was in a natural position and the handball was accidental therefore the on-field decision stands. But yeah, if it had gone in off Joelinton's hand the goal would have been ruled out.

I actually think the handball was one of the decisions he got right. Arm in a natural position, doesn't move his hand towards the ball, with the rules as they are that isn't handball. However I think Burn was lucky with his handball and on another day Joelinton could have been booked earlier. On the other hand, I don't disagree with the collision that smashed Gordon's nose not being given but he then gave them a free kick for the exact same thing. Give both or neither. Regullon (I think it was) definitely should have been booked for dissent for arguing about that throw in. It was just a crap refereeing display, not a biased one.

Plenty of threats in the front four and Maddison and Son on the bench. We need to come flying out the traps like, don't want them to think they're still in it after 60min with those two ready to come on.

James Bunce casually scrolling Twitter in his PJs this morning...

What's the going rate for training kit sponsors these days, maybe £10m at the very most? Certainly not comparable to shirt sponsor or kit manufacturer money. Like I say, there are definitely opportunities for us but the high value ones are already signed.

They're signing the Georgian keeper aren't they?

The issue with those projections is that we've already picked the low-hanging fruit with Adidas and Sela. They're the big-ticket items. That uptick from £46m to £64m is impressive, but it's going to be hard enough to find another £18m to match that growth, nevermind an additional £32m to take us to your 2025 projection.

I'm not saying he actually knows anything but don't assume NDAs = nothing leaks out. I've mentioned before that when Craig Hope broke the news about the extension/refurb of the current training ground, NDAs were in place, so they aren't an absolute lock.

You're absolutely right in fairness. In a non-PSR world, we could allow those players to leave the club and replace them with younger, better players. That wouldn't necessarily involve spending hundreds of millions, but making deals such as that CB playing in France we've been linked with.

Aren't Villa in a similar position to us PSR-wise?

He probably is their #1 target in fairness. If I was a club that needed a CF he'd be my #1 target too. Either way, the press isn't going to bully us into dropping our price and whether he gets his head turned or not isn't going to depend on how much coverage it gets.

Isn't theirs built on a reclaimed dock or something? Imagine that complicated things a bit

Almost identical goal scoring record to Schar this season I think