TheBrownBottle

Longstaff won't be leaving in the summer - nor should he be at any point in the near future. There are UEFA's HG rules for a start.

I was a right back tbf lads - we’re well stocked in there at the moment.

Haha had to re-read that - Christ, that sentence of mine needs the end rearranging. Or does it?

It’s grim, like. It is only meant to be an entertainment and it’s becoming a complete misery of spreadsheets and accounting. It’s never going to happen, but the best thing that could happen to the sport now is for interest around the world to wane off, the money to shrink, and everything to return to a more localised support base. For all the ‘best league in the world’ shite, that has never, ever arsed me one iota. I’d just like to dream about my home town club doing something again, rather than all of this fucking nonsense.

Conte and Tonali absolutely are similar to me as players edit: Conte was excellent at what he did, mind

Controversial football opinion klaxon … I never thought either Inzaghi brother was top-notch (though Pippo was definitely the better of the two). Always thought Pippo was the Andy Cole of Italian football - needed a lot of chances to put one away, but in fairness also very good at getting into those positions in the first place

And Steeevie Geee

Roberto Mancini was a superb centre forward - top rank Antonio Conte was one of Europe’s finest midfielders in his pomp Luis Enrique was excellent for Real and Barcelona as a player In his prime, Laurent Blanc was one of the world’s best centre backs

About £40m. But it simply replaces one with the other. The CL money distribution is another reason that, at the moment, I just cannot see how we bridge the financial chasm with the ‘Big Six’. The game is completely rigged at this point, and I’m not seeing much from the current ownership to suggest that there’s any serious effort to do something about it.

Yep. Seven European Cups between them, but we want to see matches between two clubs who until last season hadn’t won a single one.

There’s no reason that they’d block a Castle Leazes application given that they didn’t previously, but there’s nothing to suggest that they would support building on a different part of the Moor, either.

No internet access on the Nissan back shift presumably

West Ham, Aston Villa, Wolves, Nottingham Forest, Crystal Palace and Bournemouth voting for it. Arrogant twats - and worth remembering that all of them were playing football below the PL relatively recently.

The PL has never had the biggest names - since the PL breakaway, a player playing in England has won World Player of the Year just once. Marketing, more entertaining play, and packed stadiums are as much behind it as anything.

For me, the Moor has that unbroken expanse that Castle Leazes doesn’t - though it’s a reasonable point you raise. I bastard hate the Hoppings, so I’d do that too - though that might be because I’m a curmudgeon at heart.

Totally agree with its grazing use rather than what it should be - wooded park land. I would never want to see it have housing or owt slapped on it, though - let alone a football stadium. Castle Leazes would be fine - not the Moor

Bruno isn’t ’too good for us’. No player is. I think he’s the most likely of our ‘crown jewels’ to leave in the summer - due to age and the fact he’s been here a little longer than the others (admittedly not by much). If he does, I hope it’s abroad and for a massive sum of money. If he stays; excellent, we’ve still got a top notch midfielder that we don’t need to replace. Getting overly attached to individual players isn’t a good idea in football - all that really counts is whether or not the club is just going to pour the profits into the owner’s pockets or reinvest it. As long as it’s the latter, I tend not to worry too much about it.

This in bucketloads. I miss the noise and roar before a game, before the ‘Flashing Blade’ was shouting ‘make some noise’ or Barry in the Box and his Dire Straits obsession. The current man in the box seems no less shite.

Fuck it, a ridiculously improbable 2-0 to NUFC, let’s bastard go for it

Because football has pyramid structure, and if you don’t have other clubs to play against you don’t have a business? Also, we benefitted from this not so long ago. Like Brexit, it would hurt us more than it would hurt them. They did manage to survive after banning English clubs for half a decade - but English football took over two decades to get back to where it was before the ban.

It’s a perfect comparison; we scored 86 league goals that season I was being deliberately hyperbolic - I don’t for a second believe that the rate we’re conceding at will continue. But it does put into stark contrast the rate at which we’re conceding vs what we were conceding

We’ve conceded 34 in the last 14 games. For context, if we continued at that pace for the rest of the season, it would be the worst we’ve had in the top flight since 60/61 - when we were relegated (and about half of those seasons were 42 game seasons). It is hard to imagine that pace will continue when Pope returns, but still - it’s a horrendous record of late.

Nah, it was definitely the result of some top notch coaching. The question of whether or not Howe can take us to the next level remains an open one, but it’s very unfair I think to suggest that Howe simply had a ‘new manager bounce’.

I don’t acknowledge the existence of ‘MK Dons’. AFC Wimbledon - quite correctly - list the 1988 FA Cup in their honours roll. ‘MK Dons’ don’t.

We know what they are; they’ve been around for two years at this point. The PL has effectively ratified UEFA’s FFP regs. It doesn’t need any further explanation - how it works is established: https://www.uefa.com/returntoplay/news/0274-14da0ce4535d-fa5b130ae9b6-1000--explainer-uefa-s-new-financial-sustainability-regulations/