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Monday Jul 8: Thiago is retiring. I’m kind of shocked, although I probably shouldn’t be. He missed virtually the whole of last season despite spending so much time rehabbing to try to get himself fit. Every time he got close, he broke down again. I don’t know if it was the same injury or a different one, but it doesn’t matter I guess. It must have been utterly demoralising for him. His body was breaking down, it just wasn’t up to the demands of professional footy anymore. He probably could have taken a big money deal in Saudi but big respect to him for deciding to bow out now. It’s such a massive fucking shame as he’s one of the best players I’ve ever seen play for us. A brilliant technician who loved putting his foot in and working his nuts off too. Seems like a top fella as well and this has hit me quite hard. I’m surprised at how sad I feel about it actually as he wasn’t here that long and he missed more games than he played. What a player he was though when fit. An absolute joy to watch. Meanwhile, Uruguay are in the semis of the Copa America after a penalty shoot out win over Brazil at the weekend. They’ll play Colombia, who romped through with a 5-0 win that saw Diaz get a goal. He’s still being linked with Barca who have somehow now apparently come into some money and can buy players again. I’ve said before that I don’t want him to go and I wouldn’t sell him, but it does kind of feel like there’s some fire to go with this smoke, especially with all the Anthony Gordon talk. If we sold Diaz and brought in Gordon for a similar fee would that be an upgrade? Personally I don’t think so, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world either. We would be getting younger and it’s another homegrown player, which helps, and Gordon has developed into a really good player over the past 12 months. I just think we often under-rate some of our players and over-rate other team’s players. What on earth has Gordon done in his career to this point to be seen as being clearly better than Luis Diaz? Maybe I’m in the minority here, I don’t know. Don’t get me wrong, if it happens I’m ok with it, I’d just rather it didn’t.

Monday Jun 24: The hero who hacked Man City’s emails and exposed them for all the shit they’ve been up to says he has more emails that prove their guilt and there’s enough there for the authorities to find criminal activity. I wondered why he hadn’t already released them, but it’s probably the smart thing to do to keep them back as an insurance policy so he doesn’t mysteriously “disappear”. He’s not taking on a football club here, he’s going up against the U.A.E. and I don’t think it’s a stretch to say his life is probably in danger. This is from the Mirror and honestly I don’t know how this isn’t massive headline news everywhere. “Pinto, who has been in a witness protection programme since 2020 after being unmasked as the man behind the football leaks revelations, says he has handed over five hard drives which will implicate the club. The 35-year-old shared some hacked City emails with the media in 2018, but kept hold of the vast majority, which he says have now been shared with the relevant authorities. “The Man City releases showed amounts of money being paid into by the club that were not mentioned to the football authorities. These documents are from part of the Premier League investigation into City. I have now handed five hard drives to French and German authorities with millions of documents, including more on City and I have described what is on each. I am confident they will find criminal relevancy.” Lot to unpack there, but firstly the question should be how come he’s had to go in witness protection? What are the authorities worried about here? Who would be a threat to his life? City’s owners? Noel Gallagher? Curly Watts? Little and Large? He’s having to live like Henry Hill in case the mafia come for him. I didn’t know about most of that stuff in the Mirror. I thought the emails that were leaked were all he had but now we’re hearing that he kept hold of the “vast majority”. I mentioned above that it makes sense to keep some as an insurance policy but for the ones that we knew about to only be the ‘tip of the iceberg’ is quite the revelation. The ones that were released had them bang to rights. I read a few of them and their guilt is indisputable. Now we hear there are more that are even more incriminating? Fucking hell, this is the biggest story in English football in years but virtually nobody is even mentioning it. Imagine if this was us, or United, or Arsenal. City’s irrelevance is working massively to their advantage here. Why has he handed the evidence to French and German authorities though? Is he afraid that if he handed them to the English authorities they might “go missing” perhaps? If so, he’s a smart cookie. I wouldn’t fucking trust anyone over here with this kind of shit either. Abu Dhabi would be on the blower to whichever fucking stooge happens to be Prime Minister and before you know it, government pressure would make it al go away. Whatever happens to City, anything short of the being wiped off the face of the planet means they’ve got off lightly. Meanwhile, Darwin scores for Uruguay in Copa America. He missed a few chances before that though so there’s enough for everyone there, lovers and haters alike. What a guy, always thinking of others. We were linked strongly with Nico Williams today as there’s a buyout clause that’s only around £45m or something. He’s on massive wages though so we’d have to at least match those. Lots of people believe there’s something in this, my gut says there isn’t and I’m just waiting on the Pearce the Grim Reaper to shoot it down.

Monday Jul 15: The inquest into England’s failure begins. As you’d expect, the Athletic - bless them - have done the whole deep dive “inside England’s Euros disappointment” thing and much of their focus is on Bellingham being unpopular with the rest of the squad. It’s all pretty tenuous “sources say” “some players believe” etc but honestly I reckon it’s probably even worse than they’re reporting. Bellingham gives off that Ronaldo stink even though he hasn’t achieved anywhere near as much as Ronaldo achieved. Ronaldo earned the right to be a bellend. Of course you can choose not to be one, as Messi has for the most part, but the point is when you’ve done everything Ronaldo has, if you want to act like a prima donna “I’m better than all of you plebs” type of knobhead, you’ve earned the right to. Bellingham hasn’t, but he seems like an absolute cock. The claim is that some players didn’t like the “who else?” celebration while others aren’t happy that he took up a position in the leadership group and then just refused to do press duties, leaving it to the likes of Palmer and Gordon etc I’m mindful of going in too hard on Bellingham because he’s still a kid really. We judge these lads to a high standard of behaviour when they’re still maturing and learning. Bellingham seems very mature but he is still a kid, and some of the things he’s said and done that have annoyed me are probably not that big of a deal and can be put down to his age. That being said, if the lads who are around him all the time think he’s a knobhead then he probably is. It seems like Trent is his only mate in the squad, which makes me worry a bit about Trent's judgement. His best mates are Hendo, Bellingham, Ramsdale and Robbo. If it wasn't for Robbo I'd be seriously questioning his taste in friends.