TheBrownBottle

Italian football really is in the doldrums if this is a source of pride

I’m 50/50 on it - Gordon is gone I think, and Livramento most likely is. I’m not sure anyone would meet our asking price for Tonali, and assuming he doesn’t do an Isak he might well be back here next season. But I wouldn’t blame Howe for not risking any players with a question mark over their future.

At least we now know how they got hold of the texts - his staff are kicking him under the bus

fucking hell

It would be crackers to play any player in who you’re likely to sell at this point. Why risk it?

We’ve massively outspent them. They’ve been better managed.

The parallel universe doesn’t exist where they’re on par. It’s the FA Cup man. If we didn’t win the league cup last year I’d be astonished if a single person on here agreed with this sentiment. If the FA Cup is on par with the League Cup then football is fucking dead. edit: most football fans can remember large numbers of cup finals. They can remember significant winners. No-one beyond the winners remembers league cup final winners.

Eales had zero top level experience in a major league. Hopkinson has zero experience at his level, zero experience in English football and no practical experience in football generally worth writing home about (doing commercials for Real Madrid is about as difficult as picking up a phone). Mitchell definitely wasn’t an elite hire - Ashworth was highly rated, though it increasingly looks like as often is the case in football the wrong man was taking credit for the achievements of others. I wasn’t referring to players in any way.

Rolling over to let Spurs tickle their bellies and probably escape relegation isn’t exactly sticking it to the cartel

Tbf who gives a shite what they think?

It’s a tough question tbh - I think an FA Cup win would mean far, far more; I’d genuinely get emotional if we won it. The UEFA Cup would be fantastic to win, but I don’t think it would have the emotional heft.

Yes, conceding seven to Barcelona knocks winning the UEFA Cup into a cocked hat

My heart would say the FA Cup - I don’t know anyone my age when they were a kid pretending to score the winning goal in anything but the cup final (and it says it all that when an English person says ‘the cup final’ we know exactly which competition I’m referring to). My head says the UEFA Cup holds more prestige.

It would only make sense if the intention is to offload the risk upfront and then dilute the other investor’s stake with future investment.

Said before, I’ll say it again - if you need a spy with an iPhone to work out 6’7” Dan Burn might just be a target at a corner, you shouldn’t be picking up millions as a manager or a head coach. It was hardly inspired tactical genius - which is why about 1% of corners result in goals across football, for all the super genius tactical minds spending their midweek doing drills.

£300m isn’t likely to fund much in terms of infrastructure …

It won’t help us strengthen this summer at all - we got the revenue this season, not next season. We’ve spent our CL money - that’s how you’ve been able to enjoy watching Wissa and Elanga this year.

They don’t care about qualifying for it, the top players want to win it. If Villa had finished 5th then 6th would’ve qualified. The bar is pretty low for qualification these days - playing in it is hardly a massive achievement.

Agreed, there’s zero track record to go off. Could be brilliant, but there’s nowt to back that up. We’ve never felt like we’ve taken the idea of being actually elite seriously.

Everyone has to start somewhere, no idea if the lad is clued up or not

She did too - and he was her appointment. Lets hope we’re now being run by more competent folks.

Oversaw the FFP fuck up which led to the sale of Anderson, and his only significant appointment was Mitchell

Eales was a poor appointment, and I hope he’s winning his battle

Fair play for taking a TBG post seriously

‘Balloons, clocks, frisbees, yo-yos … are you with me so far, Davey boy? … pizza cutters. We need to make that crest rounderer’