Erikse

He built the perfect team of players to be able to handle it (Salah, Mane, Robertson etc), managed trainings extremely well, and must have had a very good team of physios etc. It's a completely different scenario to train your players for this style when you don't have Europe, because you can train with high intensity all the way. This is a much greater test for Iraola. Who else have been able to replicate "the inhalers"? We're talking about one of the very best managers the league has ever seen. I don't think this set of players would handle the load as well as the team Klopp had at their peak anyways. In recent years under Klopp they dropped off when trying to replace some of those players, as some of the new ones couldn't keep up. Also worth mentioning that the meta has shifted quite a bit since their peak. Take Guardiola for instance, he kept changing up his style a bit to adjust to new metas, because the thing that worked so well 5 years ago doesn't necessarily work all that well anymore, atleast not for the top teams competing for trophies on all fronts.

He'll either have to change his style, or he'll run the players to the ground with the load of games. Lets see what he's really made of.

Man City building an absurd team once again.

Second longest-serving manager in the PL behind Arteta. Third longest if you count Championship aswell (behind the Wrexham manager).

Isn't this how it would've panned out if Isak was sold in may? Gordon did nothing wrong, but who on earth would be a cunt about a move if you get the move before the window even opens? Noone knows how he would have acted if we kept rejecting bids until august, saying that he was not for sale. Edit: Just read through the pages, I guess this has been covered already.

I actually think that Man City will do better with Maresca than Liverpool will do with Iraola. Maresca is underrated in here imo. Chelsea is the problem, and he did improve them. Man City is a much better place for him to come atm.

Only for Big Joe to kick his knee too hard.

Romano often gets our numbers slightly wrong, and it's allways to make our deals seem slightly worse. Never the other way.

Can we please just get a good replacement for a decent price and I'm happy. That's really the only worry.

Given that several clubs want him we should be able to negotiate some.. If they wait they'll just lose him to a different club. Liverpool was the only team willing to pay that kind of money for Isak, so they weren't in a hurry. Plus, getting Gordon before WC could matter a lot. Getting Isak so late did end up screwing Liverpool over, btw.

From Iniesta - Villa - Messi (or Neymar - Suarez - Messi) to Anthony Gordon..

Why not 8 years? Clearly wants a move.

5 points off Europa League is a bit of a moot point, and rather just highlights the missed opportunity in a season where reaching Europa League required so much less than in earlier seasons. In the 23/24 season we finished 11 points higher than this one, and we didn't even get Conference League. Last season 7th got 65 points. This season Sunderland got Europa League with 54. That's probably a new record.

Not getting out of that CL group stage, given the opposition and required points tally (top 24), would have been absolutely scandalous. Whether you could expect us to get past the next stage highly depended on who we faced. Most PL clubs would get past Qarabag on a normal day. The biggest achievements were holding PSG and Barca to a draw. The same goes for the cup really, we beat Bradford, Fulham and Spurs. Winning 3 rounds isn't bad, but once we face a team like Man City, we didn't stand a chance. This is why I didn't give the season more than a 3/10, because I don't think that we did anything special to outweigh the poor league performances.

It's mad how bad West Ham have been lately given the situation. Gotta give de Zerbi and the players a lot of credit for the recent games, but the timing of that Villa game was also a bit of luck. I guess that was more than justified considering the luck you've had all season. I agree about de Zerbi, I highly doubt that you will be anywhere near the relegation spots next season with him there, so it's all about staying up now. Just remember how hopeless it all seemed for Everton even when they kept escaping relegation (which seemed like it would be inevitable in the end), and look at them now. You have more financial power than them.

I guess what you really wrote was this, so maybe not exactly what I remembered: Are you looking forward to another season in the Prem now, then? I definetly see some reason for optimism with de Zerbi.

I thought you said that going down was for the best like 2 months ago? As someone else pointed out you don't need to win.

That's a pretty good humblebrag.

Then teams will keep spying on other teams, if it's low risk high reward. Southampton may never have been in the final, or even the playoffs (who knows), if it wasn't for spying on other teams. If football is won and lost on the pitch, why are they out there spying, knowing that it's against the rules?

Sure, but the problem in this equation would be Chelseas punishment. Not this one. What if the spying was the reason that they beat Boro? In that case a fine would have been a massive net positive for cheating.

A ridiculous way to frame it, but I guess it's desperation. In the same way that you're not getting to play the 200m match, you may have deliberately cheated another team out of a 200m match pre punishment. Imagine if you could just cheat your way into a 200m match and just take a 200k fine if you get caught. Yeah, like that wouldn't be problematic at all, cheating would just be the right thing to do at that point. Oh, and they talk as if the final had already been won when comparing the financial punishment to other things..

Yeah, we'll use that in negotiations for sure. "If we had to pay 55m for Wissa, then surely Tino is worth atleast 100m." That will do the trick.

Howes job on the line here. Surely he'll get sacked if we win this.

The conspiracy of him putting in more work against the best teams or in CL than the rest of the games is getting more real by the minute. I have a small but unrealistic hope that we can get in a more exciting winger this summer. It gets boring watching us play with wingers like Barnes, Gordon, and Elanga. With Eddie in charge I guess that's something we just have to accept as it suits his style the best, but it isn't all that exciting to watch them struggle to beat a man. The same goes for the Burn over Hall at fullback stuff. It might work for his style, but my god, it's so boring to watch. I get that his job is to win, and everyone will be happy when we win, but if we still lose with this kind of lineup then fans get more annoyed and uninspired when there are also no excitement to any of our attacking play.

I feel like it was a bit like the new manager effect. Opponents quickly learned how to nullify him, and our attack with him in it.