Mcfaggen

I hope the fella who got stabbed recovers fully. I hope the scumbag who knifed him is caught & serves an appropriate duration in gaol.

I'd quite like us to win this by several goals. Sorry, seven goals.

That's the thing though, isn't it. Klopp & his team will be looking for certain aspects of the player's game which fit and then look to bring through the other bits in time. He likes to ease the players in too, so if we do pick up a player or two from one of these teams, it's part of a plan & we'll be unlikely to see much of them in the first team before Christmas.

When the camera panned on to our bench, one guy was patting the head of a bald chap... so calm they could have been having tea & cake.

£720k a week savings woudn't be a stretch.

Magmetism? He comes across as a right dour sod.

This was the corresponding home kit:

That's a bold choice there!

That's where the nations league malarkey should help. Fewer friendlies and teams of relative strength playing against each other more often instead. The WC & Euro Qualifiers (though impacted by the Nations League) will remain largely unchanged. Unpopular opinion alert, but I love International Football. Been going home & away for 15 years now and there's been some horrific moments (Luxembourg Away sticks out) but some great ones too (v Ukraine at the 2016 Euros; beating Spain at home). Could it be handled better in the footballing calendar, probably, but so many competiting interests, I don't see that problem fixing itself any time soon.

Northern Ireland have had some shockers to be fair, but we've had some nice ones too... 1958 World Cup: 1982 World Cup: 1986 World Cup:

Tackle happened in the 92nd minute too!

Possibly. Though I noticed a few referees in our games recently make a thing about it... moving the ball a fraction of an inch for some inexplicable reason. So it's been in view, so to speak.

Not sure it is to be honest. The rule has been written in the same way for decades. I remember players doing it in the Irish League in the 1980s.

It was a rather bizarre game I thought. First half, I thought both teams were actually playing quite well, but cancelling each other out. Our goal was frankly, world class. Mane is superb. Their goal was avoidble from out point of view, but I'd give a bit of credit to their winger for making the most of it & putting a dangerous ball across the goal, which would have gone to their striker if Matip hadn't got there first. The second half was a different beast altogether. I thought he quality dropped massively for both teams. Passes going astray all over the place, from seemingly everyone. Then VVD popped up on a corner, and then we settled a bit before adding a super third. I can see why people thought we didn't play well, but the three goals we scored were excellent, the defending was in the round, pretty great, but the fluidity wasn't quite there. If it had, I think we'd have battered them 4 or 5.

Agree with this, particularly if there is a youth prospect about who can play centre back. Is Hoever a CB or a Full Back? Possibly too early for him next season, but year after? As for Matip's dribbles, I quite like them to be honest. Good to see a CB bring the ball forward & draw in opposition players. He's going to lose it some times, sure, but I think the positive outweighs the risk.

He's beginning to make me believe in my 12/1 bet on him being the league's top scorer this season... carry on Sadio!

I wouldn't want them to be docked points this season in order for us to win it. I just don't think that is right. That said, there's zero point in fining them. The only sensible punishment is pretty much blocking them from competitions and players... depending on the severity of what they're doing (I haven't read into it) and how long they've been doing it, anything from docking them points at the start of next season to demotion entirely. Put them to Division Four and tell them to work their way back up, with a signing ban for four years... see how patient the owners are then...

According to TransferMarkt, their Starting XI was worth Eu394m, whilst ours was Eu365. A slap of injuries & subs later, and with Neville going on about how there were five "home grown" players in their team, at the end of the game their team had a value of Eu347 and our Eu306. Market is fucked like, so not sure it actually has much of a bearing as heavily weighted towards more recent buys, but the idea they were scraping the barrell, seems a bit of a reach.

Never understood the origin of that one. Do you know why it’s used? Just seen the above posts ta.

The otiginal “Fenians” were an organisation that wanted Home Rule or maybe outright independence (can’t remember). I think the name comes from some sort of Celtic (the culture not the football club) mythology. You didn’t have to be a Roman Catholic to support the politics or the methods. Its usually today seen as an anti-Roman Catholic term.

There have, but you have to go a long way back. It's a degroatory term nowadays regardless of how you look at it. It's petty stuff. It's underlined because it's a hyperlink?

A year or so younger, but similar background. We couldn't afford SKY when it came out, so would get occasional games at a mates house if it was a biggie, but that was that. We went & watched Irish League football every Saturday, so Five Live was more important in picking up what was going on. Transistor radio at the games, in the car and even in the house on the evenings something was on. European Cup games and FA Cup games were the extent of TV football, perhaps occasional Interntional Matches. Funny enough, was watching an Irish League game with my Da at the weekend and we were talking about football on TV & how, basically, neither of us could be bothered watching much of it (though he admitted to watching some of the Dundalk game on TV the night before!) any more. He raised a comparison with Snooker in the 70's/80's which was hugely popular so ended up with a tournament every weekend, TV every weekend, and ended up saturating itself to the point of near obscurity. Maybe a bit of it is growing up - I'd have watched anything on TV with the mention of sport in it (Tennis, Rugby, Snooker, Darts (is Darts a sport?), motorsports, that mad thing on Channel Four each saturday with wacky sports from around the world... now, I go to the occasional Irish League match (would like to go to more to be honest) & watch Liverpool games on TV. Wouldn't bother to watch a Man City game even this season when they're the main challengers. I haven't watched any sport outside of football on the box probably since the 2012 Olympics. I have no doubt the bubble will burst, and probably soon. I'll probably quite enjoy watching it in a perverse way, but quite a bit of that writing is odd, fantasy stuff, which has probably been said a million times down the pub in the last ten years.

I think one out, one in is the most likely outcome. If we upgrade on either Lovren / Matip (quality & injury wise) then VVD // Gomez // Newbie // Lovren/Matip // Kid for Back Up would be a great step forward.

It'll never happen, but he'd have been better off buying a League of Wales, or Irish League team for half a million quid. Spending <£10m on getting a stadium in order, and having a wage bill of <£1m a year and getting a team into the Europa League Group Stages (maybe even occasional Champions League for bonanza cash) that way. League win year in, year out with a fully professional team in a Semi-Pro league for small cash, possibly a tricky last round of qualification but decent enough chance of getting into the EL in likelihood. European Money rising all the time, payback possibly inside two seasons. Buying a team in the Championship and the Premier League just seems like far too much of a risk given the huge resources at the top end.