TheBrownBottle

Partially because the bottom tier isn’t on a sharp incline. Was just thinking out loud tbh - the likelihood is that the ground cannot be extended in any meaningful sense.

Tbf, if an English player spent seven years in Spain and wasn’t capable of much more than ‘dos beers por favor’ he’d receive a fair bit of criticism.

Though, ironically, some of the Zulus probably were a smidge racist. Amongst other things.

Just thinking about this, extending the Gallowgate is likely the wrong idea in terms of constructability. A potential solution might actually be to demolish the current stand and rebuild it on a much steeper incline, and possibly include a structural tier above. Spurs’ huge south stand is on a very steep incline - something like 35deg. It might be possible to significantly increase the Gallowgate capacity that way, and of course enclose it with the west stand.

Let’s be honest, Chelsea were always a shitheads club. No fucker liked them when they were a run down mess who’d won fewer major trophies than Preston NE when the PL breakaway occurred. Success has not rendered them more likeable.

Gotcha, hadn’t seen that. That makes it even more difficult if that’s the case.

Even if it is structurally possible to extend the Gallowgate, the cost would be prohibitive in terms of ever making the money back; i.e. the increased capacity wouldn’t generate anything like the sales to cover the cost. Of course, stadiums don’t affect FFP, so PIF may do it as a write-off. But you’re comfortably looking at stupid money - and by stupid I mean a decent nine-figure sim - as the construction method would need to involve building over Strawberry Place and there would be a need to have extensive piling in the foundations - given the location of the Metro station, that could mean it is actually impossible to do. Personally, I reckon any feasibility study will come back saying that it is in all practical senses a non-starter. Safe standing would be great, but it won’t increase the ground’s capacity in any real sense.

The tournament being in Qatar and in Nov/Dec has killed any remaining real interest in it for me. As bent as FIFA is, having the brass bollocks to award it to fucking Qatar is almost impressive, given that bribery would be the only possible reason to award it to them. At least with an actual nation-state you’ve got some plausible deniability. The entire point of a WC is to give you something to watch for a few weeks once the proper football finishes. This is all massively inconvenient and a huge pain in the arse. I hope that it has a massive negative impact on Chelsea and their huge squad of highly paid internationals, whose form has been sub par to date in any case, and most of them not wanting to get injured before the WC. Three points today means more than any England win at the WC. HTL

There’s been multiple iterations of it since I was a kid. The PL breakaway had the ‘big five’ or ‘ITV five’ of Spurs, Man Utd, Everton, Liverpool, Arsenal. We’ve been included in this meaningless top four/five/six things in the past. It’s all a bit daft to me.

Of all Ashley’s crimes against football, being chiefly responsible for football’s most enthusiastic man losing his love of the game is right up there

I’ll be honest I switch off whenever I read someone write ‘big six’. Load of sky nonsense. Big six my arse - I’ve never liked the implication.

If there is a ‘Millwall fan in peace’ on there then it just confirms it’s one of them pretending

I hope Dan Ashworth was listening - sounds like we can pick up three future England stars on the cheap, and they’re from just down the road

Yeah, fair enough. It doesn’t allow that either, mind - you can’t select FBs and WBs

Love how the BBC website won’t even let you select the formation that Southgate is likely to play - that exciting 5-2-3 one

I’ve seen the ‘team win’ photo mind. I hope someone puts their arm around Bruno! Poor lad looks gutted. if anything, him being gutted is the mark of him as a player and as a man. It’s so obvious that he gives a shit - he looks like he’s thinking he’s let people down. I take that as a complete positive - the man really cares.

There’s a good chance Tripper is the left back

Christ, no Ivan Toney either? Some of those players really are there because of who the play for tbh

The centre halves are grim reading. No Tomori? Feels odd to me.

Over the moon for the lad. Deserves it. Provided he comes back fit, we’ll have an even happier Callum Wilson returning in December. Champion.

Yep. The two points dropped that day made qualifying for the CL far more difficult

The misses vs Partizan, the Mackems and Blackburn in the cups stick out. His record when it actually mattered wasn’t particularly great for us, tbh. His misses tended to come in games that had meaning. Shola is the best I’ve seen to date in B&W

That’s right, he used that technique That chapter is worth digging out - again, from memory it talks about a well struck pen travelling at c.100km/h or c.60mph meant the goalkeeper had just under half a second to react and move into position. 60mph is well struck but not a thunderbastard by any stretch. So if it reasonably accurate into the bottom corner the goalie effectively has very little chance of saving it

Everyone has probably read it already, but David Winner's 'A Beautiful Orange' has a cracking chapter on penalty taking; due to the Dutch being so hopeless at penalties, they committed an academic study on the optimum way to take one. I think I've lost my copy of the book now, but it was an interesting read. From memory, it was to take a two- or three-stride run up to the ball - and the run should be straight i.e. parallel with the two posts, not coming from an angle which can give the GK a read on the direction, and aiming for the bottom corners rather than high i.e. drilling it (not a side-foot placement). Could all be a load of bollocks of course, but it made sense the last time I read it.

Yep - though he should be thankful that BR isn't the manager, given his reaction to Jenas's fluffed one in a pre-season friendly ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQp2c-nPoxk