Manny

Genuinely reckon this second half is the worst I’ve ever seen us under Klopp. All over the place. Basically pissed.

He needs more time. They were the beneficiaries of a last minute winner at the weekend then on the wrong end of it last night. You can't have one with out the other. More time. More time.

Can't disagree with that at all. Stokes should never have been picked, Mott / Buttler / Key should have finished the phone call with a "appreciate the offer Ben but you're not ready for a World Cup." And beyond that, I reckon it sent out a really negative message to fringe players that a guy who retired suddenly changes his mind a few weeks before a major tournament - without having put the hard yards in for the (few) ODI games that have been played so with no 50 over form behind him whatsoever - and the management just drop everything and clear the decks to give him a slot. He can't bowl so his role in the side is ultimately to be the guy who can adjust the tempo, play the 50 over game if need be but play a Test game if everything's going to shit. But that's Root's job, isn't it? One of the major themes of this England failure has been a sense that it was a tournament too far for the old guard - well the jobs for the boys attitude towards the stalwarts has amplified that enormously. I like Stokes a lot and I think his Test captaincy has been superb - but the only players who should've been available for selection should have been lads who've done it during ODI matches. That rules Stokes out 100%, but also quite a few others. All not helped by the ECB's attitude towards the 50 over game, mind, the useless cunts.

Anyone catch what happened in the Sri Lanka / Bangladesh game? Angelo Mathews the first batsman to be timed out in an international match. He came onto the field well within his two minutes, but then noticed his chin strap wasn't working properly. While he was faffing around with it and asking for a replacement, he went over his two minutes so the opposition captain (Shakib) appealed to the umpire for timed out and the umpire had to dismiss him. As per the Bairstow stuff in the summer, I reckon this is pretty rank form. Another dismissal where the batsman isn't attempting to play the game in any way but the fielding side ultimately decide to unilaterally play on and get him out - and Mathews is a dangerous batsman. Sneaky, underhand shit - and this is probably worse as the rules are a mess; if he'd simply taken guard and then put his hand up before the ball was bowled he would be immune from the dismissal. For a safety equipment failure it sends out completely the wrong fucking message as well. A fucking pox on them.

Yeah that's true. Ferdinand is still their 16th most expensive signing for them, and he was bought over 20 years ago; you have to go back to Heskey in 40th place on our list to find a signing from a comparable era. Taking inflation into account they've spent ridiculous money for decades - with a pretty hit and miss record. I reckon it's because for most of those 20 years they had a few positions boxed off because of the *shudders to even use the terminology* "Class of 92." Because for years they had a right mid, left mid, attacking mid and right back boxed off (plus half decent options in centre mid in Butt and the other Neville), they had massive commercial cash to spend on fewer positions. They could afford to just take punts, spend big on certain positions, and buy players off rivals to primarily weaken them rather than improve themselves. I don't think it's a massive coincidence that a lot of their problems started tailspinning when they all started retiring, as well as with their master fucking off as well. There's no institutional knowledge of recruitment strategy within the club, it all has to be brought in from outside - and as Section says, there's no real instinctive feel and understanding of it, and the patience it requires, amongst the fanbase. During the Premier League era, they've never had to build teams (again, it's a myth that Ferguson did it loads). They had a core for ages and they farted around the margins of it whilst chucking big money at established players every now and then to complement it. The years of being a corporate entity masquerading as a football club are coming back to haunt them, basically.

Haha - yeah they're loose definitions, and I'm trying to be as objective as possible! I reckon Hojlund will be OK for them, although they've probably overspent (shock horror) - and I almost rated Mac Allister as a good signing already but I thought I'd hold off to be a bit more on the fence. I don't think it undermines the overall point though!

Idling about during a wait to go into a call with work and found myself looking at their transfer record. To be honest it's a myth that they've recruited badly since Ferguson left - he recruited pretty badly himself. After he signed Carrick for big money in 2006, I'd say only Tevez (2007), Berbatov (2008), De Gea (2011) and van Persie (2012) were genuinely very good signings - and let's face it, other than De Gea none of them really required much scouting. They were some of the best players in the league, and well-established ones at that. They're fucking shit at transfers, properly shit at them. Here's their most expensive 12 signings of all time: Pogba (€105m) - poor signing Antony (€95m) - poor signing Maguire (€87m) - poor signing Sancho (€85m) - poor signing Lukaku (€85m) - poor signing Di Maria (€75m) - poor signing Hojlund (€75m) - jury out but early signs are good Casemiro (€71m) - good signing but short term Bruno Fernandes (€65m) - transformative signing Mount (€64m) - jury out but early signs are poor Martial (€60m) - poor signing Fred (€59m) - average signing One transformative signing and a couple of decent to good ones in amongst almost a billion euros spread over 12 players and almost a decade. Insane. I mean I thought we were poor (and we probably used to be until a recent improvement) but really we're geniuses compared with them: van Dijk (€85m) - transformative signing Nunez (€80m) - good signing Szoboszlai (€70m) - calling it already, transformative signing Alisson (€63m) - transformative signing Keita (€60m) - poor signing Diaz (€47m) - good signing Benteke (€47m) - poor signing Fabinho (€45m) - transformative signing Jota (€45m) - good signing Mac Allister (€42m) - jury out but early signs are good Gakpo (€42m) - good signing Salah (€42m) - transformative signing Five transformative signings and just two duds in amongst 600m euros spread over 12 players and almost a decade. We spend big money and there's a 5 in 6 chance we get a good player at least and about a 1 in 5 chance he transforms our first team. They spend even bigger money and there's at least a half chance he's a dud. They need to stop spending money, never mind asking for more. Useless cunts.

I read a tweet - not sure how reliable the cunt is as I've got no interest in working out who's reliable for LFC info never mind that mob - saying they're looking to bring in an experienced striker to help their new young striker (Hojlund). Why have one player not good enough for a position when you can have two players not good enough!? And they say satire is dead.

Maddison is tailor-made for the run of kind fixtures Spurs have had. I can't remember him doing a fucking bean against us but there he is, padding his stats and indulging himself against Sheffield United and Crystal Palace and showing off his fucking wanky little celebrations, the cheeky-chappie, preening little fucking spends-more-time-washing-his-face-than-his-hair cunt. Weren't showing such chops when you disappeared for Leicester at the end of last season were you, apart from when you saw your chance to be the hero and fucked up your chance to take 3 easy points and relegate Everton? Easily in my top 3 most hated footballers in the league and he's got stiff competition. Midlands faced cunt.

Resolutely not a fan of Dominic Cummings, but this exchange is pretty fucking funny: Q: You called cabinet ministers “useless fuckpigs”, “morons” and “cunts”. Were these views shared by others? Cummings says his appalling language was his own. But those judgments were widespread, he says. Q: Did you express your views too trenchantly? Cummings says, if anything, he understated the problem.

They’ll get docked 12 points and stay up and it’ll be like their Istanbul; their great success against all the odds. ”The powers that be tried to relegate us lad but we don’t know the meaning of losing, UTFT” There’ll be murals on the walls of taffs taverns everywhere and a victory parade along scotty road that us kopites could only dream of.

Infuriating. Imagine if that was Salah? It’s like these cheating, sportswashing, human rights abusing cunts are referred by a completely different set of rules to what we are.

It's been said for years but what this forum really lacks is a vomit react button. Not enough fucking cringes in the world for these supine arse cheek spreaders.

Who'd have fucking thought that not letting all your ODI players play any 50 over cricket of any type would lead to them all being woefully out of form? And that there'd be no opportunity for other, younger players to put themselves forward for selection as they're not getting games to nurture and showcase their talent? Still, at least we all got a chance to watch the London Wankbanks beat the Eastern Eaglefiddlers in a format no other cunts on the planet are even remotely interested in, never mind fucking play. Nice one, ECB.

There's been some talk of Ruben Neves going there, dunno if it's just 2+2 clickbait but it wouldn't surprise me. It'd be an utter pisstake, but that's the Sportswashing Way.

Nah, don't worry yourself. Who gives a fuck if they qualify. They needed a set piece goal and a late penalty save to beat Copenhagen, fucking Copenhagen at home. They'll get webbed all over Europe by the first decent team they'll play - likely in the last 16 as they'll finish no higher than second. I'd rather they didn't drop into the Europa as I fucking hate playing them and therefore don't want them anywhere near the competition we're in, but beyond that, it's only a matter of time before a humiliation.

Pissing me off as well. They couldn’t have picked a better round of fixtures - they’ve played all the promoted shite, plus Bournemouth. Add in Brentford and the only decent teams they’ve played are the mancs (they’re shite and for added measure they had them at home) and ourselves (VAR-assisted, 9 vs 17 and last minute og to win). Their point at Arsenal is the only result I’d give them some serious “oh wow spurs have improved” points for. See how “Madders” is playing when he hasn’t got a flat track to bully on and the pressure is showing. Like, oh I don’t know, scoring a penalty to relegate an opponent and save his own team, maybe?

Shame. Hate those game ruining cunts.

Actually just catching up on the UAE stuff and this needs proper - and by proper I mean independent, public and transparent, not just the PGMOL marking their own fucking homework a little bit more harshly to avoid suspicion - investigation. How did they get there (what class of flight)? Where did they stay (how many stars was the hotel)? What basis were they employed on and what was the fee? What kind of expenses were racked up? And most crucially of all, who fucking paid for it!? This wasn’t some showpiece final. It was a cunting exhibition, a meaningless game which quite frankly would be easy to set up for no other reason than to have a justification to lavish fees and expenses on otherwise untouchable marks. Why did they need foreign referees, if not just to buy some favour with a mid-season jolly? Can you imagine if John Henry flew Stuart Attwell out to the US, business class both ways, five star accommodation, top restaurants all expenses paid and full corporate hospitality at Fenway park for a Red Sox game? The furore would be off the scale - and rightly so. But basically doing all that under the auspices of raising profile and doing ‘work’ makes it ok? Fuck off.

Maybe it is corruption - as in envelopes, bank transfers, that kind of thing. I dunno, it’s not impossible. It’s definitely cronyism though, with a lot of subconscious bias thrown in for good measure. 100 percent. And that’s not really any fucking better, is it?

Looking forward to the spurs wankathon. “We’re not spursy anymore” says bottle job Maddison after they need an og in the 96tg minute playing with 14 against 9. What a cunt match.

I think there is a bit of an agenda around Nunez. It stems from a few things: There was a lot of narrative energy about the two titans of English football over the past 6 years in City and Liverpool both going out and signing fairly traditional number 9s at the same time (having never really used them previously), and therefore that drew comparisons, for better or worse. The mancs were in for Nunez for a long time seemingly, and we beat them to him. So there was a big stink kicked up by their knobhead social media fanbase, a sort of “didn’t fancy her anyway” kind of bollocks. He’s seen as a traditional number 9, as Haaland is. Players like Jesus are viewed more like Bobby is/was, as more workhorse forwards for whom goals and conversion are slightly diminished in importance. Haaland and Nunez are just viewed as tools for getting the ball in the net and every time they fail to do so, there’s an element of “you’ve got one job.” He cost a lot of money for such a young player. Most rival and non-rival fans are bitter dickheads waiting for us to fail. He then gets sent off on his full debut and misses a couple of chances when he comes back over-eager to make amends, and the whole thing snowballs a bit. This year he’s got three league goals from about 2.75xG, if you’re into that sort of thing - which is pretty good. Last season was worse with 9 from 12xG, which isn’t amazing but it’s really not that terrible.

Saw that article in the Athletic this morning. Apparently he's had things he wanted to say about his tenure but just couldn't quite find the right time. Now his successor is under real pressure for the first time and he's suddenly found the right time and he's out to correct the record. Said it loads of times - they all think he's got this smiling, nice guy vibe going on, but he's a snivelling little shithouse who can politick with the best of them.

From the senior club in the city to senior debt packages. We don't know the meaning of losing.

He's talking shit there, in fairness the Glazers didn't inherit "the best in all areas." They inherited an excellent manager (who's now in his 80s and retired) and a massive budget (which they still have). The way Neville is talking you'd think they had the best off-field operation that was the envy of the league. They didn't, they had an adequate off-field setup that suited slur, and he did the rest. Once he left it was doomed to failure - that was a side of the club the Glazers have actually had to build from scratch, not just put batteries in and let it keep going. Agenda driving little twat.