Manny

Something I mused on whilst I tried to get a six month old with a cold to go to sleep last night: Fucking hate the shoe being on the other foot. We're normally the team who have last minute winners in mad games like that. I don't like some other cunts getting that glowing feeling and being the ones who have to face up to it. Especially when it's them. Poxy cunts. Still though, agree with everyone saying it's bizarre how much it's being hyped up because the mancs always need to be patted on the head at every given opportunity. It's never enough for them to have won a crazy game, no, it has to be the greatest win against the greatest odds of all time - in the same way it's never enough for them to have a promising young player, no, it's got to be a player who will inevitably become the best player in the league, if not the world. You know as soon as a game like that finishes what will happen: days of headlines about "top 5 FA cup games" with this one at the top, and wank-in-a-flannel puff pieces telling us how bright their future is because of their smiling happy young players with the world at their feet, showing just how clever a club yernited are: even if they're shit now, they're cleverer than everyone by being the best team tomorrow. Just you all wait and see. Fucking hate them, the media darling cunts. Fuck off.

Of all the games we had left this was probably the one I was most ‘meh’ about as I’m all in on Europe and the league, but fuck me it hurts to lose to that shower of utter cunts like that. Especially when it’s completely self-inflicted. Sick of us giving them a fucking helping hand this season.

I mean I wonder, I just fucking wonder, if empty hospitality venues has got less to do with Sadiq fucking Khan and everything to do with NO CUNT HAVING ANY FUCKING DISPOSABLE INCOME AT THE FUCKING MOMENT?

Bizarre argument. I reckon you could take a sample of 3 youngsters who got minutes for any first team, you'd probably find one who didn't amount to much more than a circuit round the lower leagues and obscure overseas leagues, one who establishes himself as a decent player in the middle leagues, and one who becomes a good top flight player - even if he's not necessarily a generational talent. What's he trying to prove, other than the fact that not every player makes it at the very top level?

I watched their penalty shootout against Porto and even that was lucky - for Raya's first save it hits the post, rebounds onto his leg and then drags past the post again. Probably 99 times in 100 that rebounds off his leg and into the goal.

Character-wise, Arteta really is the heir apparent to Guardiola isn't he? Same fucking weird goggle-eyed intensity, same passive aggressiveness, same hypocrisy.

Totally agree that it won't be as cut and dried as "he's over 30 so he gets a year tops" for VVD. Him and Henderson play in different positions - the data will likely suggest that midfielders who rely on athleticism in a high pressing system can quickly tip from monster to passenger so that'll factor into renewal decisions in that area, but VVD doesn't press so he doesn't need that same athleticism, which means he'll have a slower taper through his 30s. Another factor will be competition. I'm willing to bet that Edwards will have contacts throughout the league and Europe, and would probably have known that serious competition for Henderson's signature was lukewarm: there was an opportunity to call his bluff and wait until a point where we could have offered less money or an incentivised deal with less playing time, rather then jumping straight in with a "first team key player" contract. VVD on the other hand will attract serious interest from other top league sides which will have a different effect on negotiations.

When he missed that chance I immediately thought of Wilf Zaha. Pacy, direct, skilful and you can't fault them for effort. Certainly not a bad player. But he took that chance with the same kind of uncertainty - the uncertainty of a player who scores 5-10 goals a season. I think he's generally better than that but his lack of goals has always given me some cause for concern. Next season will be make or break for him.

Assuming they're still resident in the top flight when it's built, and they might - might - play 4 cup games a season there (stop laughing at the back), that's 23 home games a season. 1.5m visitors a season works out at 65,000 per matchday (in a 53,000 seater stadium). So their new stadium is only due to hold ~14k additional seats: where the fuck do the remaining 51,000 additional visitors come from per match? Even if they're being cheeky cunts and just claiming they're 'additional' visitors when they were already 'visiting' before, there's still 12,000 people every game who are just going to what, hang around outside the ground and soak up the ambience? Those cruise ships are going to have to be forcing passengers to walk the plank straight into the upper tier to keep up with these claims.

@Vincent Vega look at me not reading the thread before I post!

https://x.com/KieranMaguire/status/1767095325779440003?s=20 Spot the two outliers on here. Average pay of highest paid directors across the PL outside of the sportswashers (and Chelsea although that's from their mental accounts year when they were sold) is £1.4m a year. But City's all work for free, and Newcastle's are all paid less than £7k per year. Seems legit.

Ah well. No way are these jumpy desperate cunts winning at City on this showing.

Haha I remember that. Cryarsing about how they think they're so much better than the winners.

Superb tonight. He’s been faultless since Ali got injured, massive, massive credit to him.

Ah fuck, Section has been talking to my therapist again.

Indeed. Benefit of the doubt should go to the batsman here, I feel.

Fuck me til I fart and follow through.

Fucking Purslow. Aston Villa might have to tighten their belts? Well, to be honest, they spent £99m net in 2020/21, £3m in 2021/22 (Grealish sale), £46m in 2022/23 and £80m in 2023/24. So they average around ~£60m net per season over a period where they've had virtually no European football to augment their revenue. If they don't have the income to support that kind of spending, why is it so awful that they don't get to keep going, mortgaging the future of the club by loaning against future income? They're not exactly operating on a shoestring, or have millions of club revenue sitting around uninvested. They've got a good squad and they're in rude health on the pitch at the moment. Maybe they can't sign big this year but do they need to? Bit of squad work to cover European football absolutely, but in effect they've done their major work already - hence the fact that they're right at the PSR limit but succeeding on the pitch, and they'll be able to up their spending consistently if the last 4 years' work yields Champions League football. If anything they're an advert for PSR working well - even more so as there's no way they'd be sitting nicely in 4th if Beheddie's boys were allowed to unleash the full force of the state wealth behind them. Instead they'd have all this debt from chasing the barcodes with no CL football to potentially pay for it, whilst the playthings of some despot rack up all sorts of debts with no consequence. Genuinely makes no sense to me why anyone within football (outside of the usual goons working for states) would think this is such an awful idea - although I suspect it's largely like Everton's board: you get to project all of your fanbase's frustrations onto a third party, which gets you off the hook. "Ooh we'd love to spend, love to spend, but those pesky administrators, eh?"

This is an outrageously contrived controversy. Yeah should have been a bounce ball - and if we’d have scored direct from it then fair enough, that’s gonna hurt. But they defended pretty well from that - and for the next 2 minutes - before we scored so where’s the causal link? Were they really going to knock it about amongst themselves Barcelona-style for 2 minutes denying us any possession? And if they were going to do that then why didn’t they do that on the 2(?) occasions they subsequently gained possession in? And I’m afraid if 2 of your players time waste to the point the referee books them then don’t be cryarsing when he adds that time on either. Deflecting cunts.

The rolling three year period is a good idea, to be fair. Otherwise you'd just get crooked cunts like Everton snowballing all of their losses into a single year, getting a big points deduction and just writing that season off. For a rolling three year period, they've either got to balance their books or take three years of being handicapped. No doubt it sucks that they'll potentially get hit for two years in a single season, but would they rather have taken a 6-10 point deduction last year when they stayed up by a gnat's pube?

I was a bit worried that he'd possibly stayed as a no2 a season too long based on some displays earlier in the season, but harboured some hope that it's tough to just drop into the team when you've not played a game in weeks being the reason for his form being a bit ropey. Really glad it's the latter - in a way, Alisson's injury has worked in his favour as he's started half a dozen games or so back to back and he looks settled and confident. That was a great display yesterday - and there was, as there have been in the games he's had since he's gone into the team, shades of Alisson in his 1v1 goalkeeping. And I shit myself less when the ball is passed back to him.

The fuck is Conor getting a booking for you fucking blind cunt!?