Erikse

Scared of that Dembele guy, somehow more scared of him than Mbappe.

"We’ve got to roll our sleeves up and take it on." - @npope29 Did he just use a Steve Bruce phrase? We're doomed.

That's like saying there's no logic between using it for penalties and not for free kick, because every foul should be the same. The is a major difference in consequence between getting your first yellow and getting your second yellow. If a player gets booked just once during a game, we usually don't spend a lot of energy discussing that booking after the game, do we? Now if a player gets 2 yellows, that's a different story. If all yellows are the same, why do we care so much more if there's a mistake made by the ref on the second yellow than if a player just gets 1 incorrect yellow, but doesn't get a second? The second yellow is a much more impactful decision than the first one, because on the second yellow we KNOW that the consequence will be huge. We don't know that yet on the first yellow. Second yellow has the same immediate consequence as a straight red, which they are already checking simply due of the extent of the consequence.

Well, hopefully VAR can overturn the situations where the ref doesn't give a second yellow just because he is scared to do so. Remember Trent against us? They will have to try to make a decision on how high the bar will be set in general. But it seems tricky indeed.

Yes, and that's why I exclusively said that I don't mind second yellow being checked because that's a key moment in the game. I just found it strange how they can check straight reds, but not second yellows, when the impact on the game is very similar. Not sure about corners and free kicks, that seems a bit too much for me aswell.

What if a player gets a second yellow when it wasn't even a foul? What if a player is already on a yellow and makes a clear yellow card tackle (Kovacic comes to mind), and it's not given by the on field ref? There's nothing VAR will be able to do with the first yellow, and they wont be judging the second one based on how harsh the first one was. They just want to make sure that they get the second one right in most cases, because that's the lethal one. And by the way, most of the time the first yellow card will be justified, so in most cases where VAR intervenes for the second yellow, that will be the controvesial one out of the two.

I'm all for using it for second yellows though, don't know why they didn't do that in the first place when they were going to check straight reds.

Usually theres just a few people doing that, and many times it's not those who post regularly.

I'd say 7th would be disappointing aswell, because I know that we're amongst the 6 best teams in the league. Obviously without all the injuries then top 6 would be a given.

It's okay, we have another striker. Didn't you guys see that insane finish last game?

And whenever a player do get back, the injury just comes back again. It's infinite.

The best outcome in terms of getting top 2 if we draw would be for Milan to beat Dortmund. That way a win against Milan will guarantee that we get top 2. If Milan doesn't beat Dortmund, we rely on PSG not beating Dortmund at home in the last game. Edit: I see now the potensial for a 4-way tiebreaker at 8 points if Milan beat Dortmund, PSG draw the remaining, and we beat Milan. Overall goal difference will decide everything then, but we will be guaranteed top 2 in goal difference anyways unless Milan win by atleast 4 goals vs Dortmund. Also I'm sure this has already been talked about, haven't read everything here.

PSG playing 4-2-4 after we kept 4 clean sheets in 5 games or something like that. As if they expected us to be a park the bus team.

They spent 37m euros on 2 goalkeepers while selling Mendy for 18,5m euros. It is reported that Real Madrid can by Kepa (currently on loan) for around 20m euros. Basically spent the same amount on the 2 goalkeepers that they bought, and their first choice goalkeeper seems worse than both of the keepers that they let go. Such a Chelsea thing to do.

Luke Shaw coming back is huge. I was surprised that he was starting already vs Everton after just 1 week of training? I know he's important, but that seemed a bit risky. I did put Wan Bissaka in my fantasyteam, so with my luck it makes perfect sense why that happened.

It was crazy actually, 17 clean sheets (nearly half the games).. I believe next on the list was 14. They still conceded a decent amount of goals, simply due to some horror shows.

They blamed the weather forecast, but it seems like the weather turned out to be just as the forecast was telling us. Who knows what they were thinking, the CEO resigned after it was known that they lost on walkover.

Ofcourse! But then again, the difference is that you actually have senior players to put on at around 60 minutes into the games. We kind of need to keep most of our senior players on the field for 80+ minutes, because no player on our bench are of PL material. Not sure if we can play our style in a good way if we play the same players for 80+ twice a week, just look at the Bournemouth game. Then again, maybe they wont be as tired as we would think.

IK Start from Norway were supposed to play their first qualifying game for promotion to the top division on saturday, but the board gambled on not heating the ground before the game (to save money), and they lost on walkover due to the frozen ground.

Our game against you guys is hard to predict. If we get more injuries tomorrow, then it's tough for us. We also basically have to play the same players every game at this point, so fatigue will be a factor aswell.

Especially when your entire groups consists of teams that you need to be at your best to beat..

Next thing you know he's banned from being in the stadium, or even from watching football on TV.

Just goes to show how crazy the top 8 is this season. Right now: 30 = 1st 27 = 5th 25 = 6th 22 = 8th 21 = 9th

Yeah, well, this is the last place for you guys to complain about injuries (considering our situation). Villa literally have just 4 injuries, that's less than the PL average. Compare these benches.