ImpossiblyDaft

Rodgers is basically just a Pardew. During the rough patches last season he started blaming everybody else and the whole thing fell apart, but the injuries kind of were an inverse papering-the-cracks.

Tbf, he could hardly do the celebration he's most famous for without getting sent off.

"9 other lads"??? You're selling possibly the best gurner in world football short... The fact that none of Drinkwater, Noble, Antonio or Albrighton are going is absurd. That'd probably be a better midfield 4 than what you could make out of the squad.

The difference is that now there's a retail group getting shit-loads of positive free publicity from investing an order of magnitude less than the oil barons in their football team. And it's not his. So I'd imagine he'd try something, but it being the right something is... excessively optimistic.

Oh absolutely, there's double standards to hell and back on that front - I think a large part of it is they're too scared to take the flak for giving out cards for it, so it's only in cases where players are already sent off they get in trouble. Nobody's ever going to give a Rooney or a Terry a second yellow for dissent, and I can't remember the last time I saw anyone get a straight red for abusive behaviour. But after a second yellow, all the controversy is on whether it should have been a card or not, so they can get away with actually punishing people. If they give Vardy an extra game ban, that's fair enough though, didn't Costa get that a while back?

Rafa's not the instant impact type of manager though, is he? He's the sort with his way of doing things and it takes time to adapt a team to that (for instance, the 1 up front thing) - in the short term it might not pay off, but it absolutely would if given time.

Wins the main two counts, according to the BBC

He's probably said to the agent "hey, apply for that" but has a sneaking suspicion that after the agent said "sure thing, I'll get right on that, John!" and put the phone down, the agent started laughing and didn't do anything so as not to damage his reputation.

Why not? He's done rebuild jobs before, has a pretty strong track record in the Championship and is the sort of person who'll ditch all their lazy wasters. Seems like a decent enough fit.

Unlikely.

Probably written by some random media studies graduate who would have been about 3 years old at the time.

ego?

Bollocks. soft but fair pen, borderline on the second pen shout and soft but fair second yellow. Don't see how you can blame Wasilewski for going for that though. It was past 94, but the ref was clearly going to let them pump it back in.

It's a case of having to balance out underinvestment, sure, but £80m properly spent is a tonne of money. Spent in a mix of "this guy becomes worth £50m on Football Manager!" and "holy shit holy shit DO SOMETHING!", even £800m wouldn't help.

It's around the going rate these days though - McCormack, Rhodes, Ulloa, etc.

Maybe not the Southampton of this evening Short of a magical takeover by some billionaire in it purely for the ego, what would you suggest? Ashley suddenly deciding to spend huge sums of money consistently other than the odd panic splurge like the summer isn't going to happen. Leicester and Southampton are two examples of clubs where there are structures in place around recruitment, behind-the-scenes organisation, etc. that have allowed Southampton to challenge for Europe the last couple of years despite losing players, while Leicester's entire squad cost about what Ashley's summer panic buys cost, but is second on goal difference. He wants to have a team in the premier league on the cheap and sees transfer fees as a potential source of additional income. That's something that can't be changed unless someone kidnaps him and brainwashes him or something. Convincing him the cheapest way to do that isn't to fill the squad with random young potential without any balance, but to sign a couple of those sorts of players mixed in with experienced transfers, and more focus on the players' attitude rather than purely price-tags would allow greater chances of potential to become realised and that success of the team would impact the potential profit to be made by putting the club in a stronger negotiating position, that seems realistic if he's seen his current approach fail. Obviously he's been scared into spending this summer but what would it take to scare him into that kind of change to how the club is run? Going down and missing all the TV money? Staying up by narrow margins but having to spend £50m every summer because all the players turn to shit within a few months because of how depressing it must be to be a Newcastle player right now?

Manchester Utd reserves. The only Leicester players signed with significant (ruling out Nugent and Gary Taylor Fletcher, plus reserve team castoffs like DeLaet and Wood) PL experience were Konchesky, Simpson, Albrighton, Huth, Upson and Schwartzer and this season, loaning Nathan Dyer. Three past-its (of which only Konchesky made a significant contribution), a bang average player and three quality players who weren't wanted at Villa/Stoke/Swansea for whatever reason. Direct experience is useful but a focus on team fit and character (yeah Simpson is a scumbag) along with skills and being available at the right price (lots of free transfers and players near the end of their contracts) can do just as well. It's the focus on buying for resale rather than buying for building a team that's the thing and it's crazy.

What do you think it would take for them to change the strategy? I don't mean stopping them being cheapskates but to get them to be more sensible about it - taking inspiration from Southampton or Leicester rather than Sports tucking Direct.

How the fuck is Danny Simpson not doing time? The piece of shit.

Well, what else do you expect other than "nearly really good, but cheapens out at the last minute and everything turns shit" at this point?

To be fair, from a brand attraction perspective it's not quite terrible - they're playing a Mexican team in an area with a relatively small Mexican-American population afaik, which is a bit of a mis-step, but Milwakee doesn't have a proper team so they could sell a few tickets and shirts and Sacramento are the biggest team at that level by a mile. If it was a proper Timbers team they were playing it would be decent tour, just getting mugged off with an official B team like that makes them look stupid.

At least he didn't use the word "combatants" as a synonym for "footballers", though.

Derby County 1 Newcastle United 0 Being the only team to lose to Derby that season doesn't tell all of it - a mate of mine was there and reckons its the worst display of football he's ever seen (and bearing in mind we've seen a few other dismal games including Colchester 1 - Leicester 1 that season, featuring a 3-5-2 with midfield of left-back right-back right-back carl cort right-back, where everyone gave up watching the match and started watching the fireworks going on in the park behind the ground ) and could easily have been 4 - 0 instead of the bunkering in for a 0-0 that was intended.

Can I go with "The new Emile Heskey" as an option? Good initial burst of form, which after a year or so will die down to the point where people don't see a good-but-not-£35m player, only the £35m price-tag.

They've got plans for that though and the money to pull it off - they've got a team of coaches going around scouting out the 3rd world and offering promising kids and their families the chance to move to Qatar so by the time the world cup comes around they'll be able to play for them.