Szumi

Alan Curbishley is still available!

That was a classy classy goal. Fernandes' no look pass to Mainoo was just excellent.

Barcelona politics are unlike no other, it's crazy. Xavi has been treated absolutely horrendously by Laporta, parts of the press, and the Barca elite. This guy won them the league for the first time post Messi, completely overachieving to do so, and hasn't been bad this season - Real have just been amazing. Guy was being run out of his own club, twice now.

Obviously shouldn't surprise anyone that Laporta met with Hansi Flick and his agent days before firing Xavi too of course. 

Barca's squad is nowhere near as skilled or deep as Real Madrid, they have no money for new signings, and are likely going to need to sell at least one major star this summer. The club is an absolute mess, and joke.

6 hours ago, gunnar hendershow said:

Poch under a Lampard mask

Better than Lampard under a Lampard mask!

I'm very interested to see how Leverkusen get on next year. Obviously they're going to lose more next year - I'd wager a minimum of 10 matches in all competitions tbh - and there will be Champions League and presumably a more determined Bayern Munich. Even if they keep their core together and strengthen, the big thing that sticks out to me is just how ridiculously good they were at 1 goal games, and scoring late winners/equalizers. We've pretty much seen almost every time that things like that are incredibly unsustainable, and regression to the mean is inevitable. If that happens, or even worse something towards the opposite happens, Leverkusen are going to be in for a very hard fall down to Earth.

It's a shame that both Motta and McKenna are leaving for bigger clubs after the amazing seasons they've each had, but the Motta one especially has been something Juve have wanted to do for months. Allegri stupidly gave Juve the out they've needed - by all accounts they're using his actions from the Coppa Italia Final to have him terminated with cause to avoid the €20m payout they owe him, which has always been the real stumbling block to land Motta - so Motta was always in bound.

McKenna just feels so much like Chelsea repeating the exact same thing 18 months ago. He's clearly a very talented manager, but I fear for him it's going to end up just like it did for Graham Potter where it's just a completely different level of training and man management, on top of making a huge jump from Ipswich to a club with the expectations and quality of (admittedly, only some) Chelsea players.

Inter have been taken over by an American hedge fund company after their Chinese owners failed to make the loan repayments. I would imagine it's not going to be detrimental to Inter - AC Milan had the same thing happen a few years ago - as they'll run it until finding a buyer, but obviously the type of situation where it could impact the club potentially.

Shocked to see Ben Doak make the provisional squad. Unfortunately there's no way I see him making the final cut given he's been out for what feels like 6 months now with a meniscus tear, I believe. 

3 hours ago, Bobfoc said:

The BBC is saying that Vincent Kompany is on the shortlist for the Bayern Munich job.

This is absolutely wild to me. Kompany is getting all this praise because he had Burnley playing "the right way" in the Premier League, even though it meant they were absolutely terrible all season, and never in any serious chance of surviving this season. Just madness.

I also very much hope McKenna stays at Ipswich. I know that they're going to have a very, very slim chance of survival next season given both their squad, how many of their best players were loan signings, and everything else that comes with a promoted side (especially one playing League One 12 months ago), but man it would just be so terrible to see him use this amazing feat as a springboard to a bigger club like Brighton or Chelsea.

Fully agree both Solanke and Elliott have been snubbed. Solanke has been phenomenal this season while Toney has been pretty shit since coming back from his ban. Jones before his injury definitely deserved a place, but he's just been awful almost every match since coming back.

Reckon Trafford, Gomez, Quansah, Jones, Wharton, Toney, and Eze are the ones who get cut. Even though Wharton is absolutely a much better footballer than Mainoo for me, but doesn't have the ridiculous "Man United academy" tag to him. 

24 minutes ago, FLiam said:

Juventus job I reckon.

I'm curious to see if this is indeed what happens because Motta has been heavily linked to the Juve job for months now. I could easily see him ending up at Bayern too.

Arsenal 3-0 Everton (Sun 4pm)

Brighton 1-1 Man Utd (Sun 4pm)

Crystal Palace 1-1 Aston Villa (Sun 4pm)

Luton 1-0 Fulham (Sun 4pm)

Man City 3-1 West Ham (Sun 4pm)

On 16/05/2024 at 19:15, Adam said:

My point was that he was subbed after around 5 minutes, and it was noticeable already that he had a physical injury. Since that was the amount of time you said would be difficult to make a determination.

The fact he was knocked out is another matter, and far more of a concern for football with how they're dealing with concussions, certainly.

...but it's really easy to just think it was from the contact, and that's all. Someone can get punched in the face, not have a concussion, or a broken orbital bone, but there still might be the marks from the contact itself.

Anyways, I am not at all surprised Phil Foden won the Player of the Year even though he was 2nd on his own team for goals and 4th in assists. There's such a ridiculous bias for Man City for pretty much everything. Ollie Watkins was the clear runaway winner in my eyes.

2 hours ago, Adam said:

The thing is, by the time he came off his face already looked warped. You could tell he wasn't right.

Which is probably why they subbed him off? Any initial coloring or swelling would be from the contact, not from obvious signs of a break. Even asked my GF about it since she's a nurse and knows way more than me. Even she said unless the socket is shattered, you're not going to be seeing any signs of a break that quickly.

Now on the concussion side of things, THAT should have been very clear and noticed. He should have been subbed off immediately. Very different topic, of course.

22 minutes ago, Colly said:

I'm semi impressed that a medical team can do a concussion check that fundamentally involves looking at a players eyes and fail to spot a fractured eye socket. Surely it would be swelling up at very least?

I think it's incredibly possible that you can have broken your eye socket, and not immediately be showing swelling or discoloration. Trying to make that determination within maybe 5 minutes of the incident, I can easily see it being missed. After like 30 minutes though? Yeah you'll probably notice it.

Ortega's been massive for City. He was excellent at Anfield when he came on, and has saved the title again tonight. That was excellent to deny Son on the breakaway.

21 minutes ago, Chris2K said:

Oh no. How unfortunate. I hope we get back in the game.

 

Utter insanity that Ederson didn't get taken off straight away, I wish I knew what it would take for concussions to be taken seriously, but I'm also worried about what that would be.

The crazy thing is that they didn't even say the substitution was because of a concussion! Although I now immediately wonder if City said that to not gift another sub to Spurs, as little difference it could've made given the Spurs bench.

Naw, Martinez is an absolute cunt. I understand a teenager finding him hilarious, and that's pretty much it.

Slot is going to need a lot of time planning on how to fix the Liverpool defense. It's horrendous as a unit. Leak goals, give away way too many high quality chances every match. Alisson and Kelleher have saved a lot of points this season.

And it couldn't have happened to a cuntier cunt!!*

*With the exception of Sol 'Cunt' Campbell, of course 

Fulham 0-2 Man City (Sat 12.30pm, TNT)

Bournemouth 2-1 Brentford (Sat 3pm)

Newcastle 3-1 Brighton (Sat 3pm)

Wolves 1-2 Crystal Palace (Sat 3pm)

Man Utd 0-3 Arsenal (Sun 4.30pm, Sky)

Insert "the bands back together again" "the boys are back" lines here! 

The best part too is that Dortmund's been pretty awful (by their standards) the vast majority of the league season. They're only qualifying for Champions League next season because of Germany getting the 5th spot (or if they win the damn thing). 

4 hours ago, DavidMarrio said:

Gutted we didn't get a chance to go to Bologna when me and Heather went on our honeymoon to do a tour of Italy. Was thinking to go their after Verona (beautiful city in its own right) but money constraints meant we couldn't.

Thiago Motta has done a fantastic job with the club. Always got a soft spot for Italian football cause of Football Italia and early Championship Managers

Luckily fo Bologna, Juve are the club that want Motta the most. However, Max Allegri is on way too high of a salary for Juve to be able to afford sacking him, and Allegri is way too arrogant to step down on his own. 

6 hours ago, gunnar hendershow said:

If your goal is to be what West Ham have basically been the last few years then you can stick with Moyes for awhile longer. If you want to try taking a leap into more consistent European contention you have to try something else.

Lopetegui is probably not that something else. 

They just won the Conference League last season, and the Europa League Semifinals the year before that, and eliminated in the QF this season to the team that is one match away from beating Benfica's record unbeaten streak. Plus he almost took the team to Champions League qualification in 20-21.

I won't be surprised at all when this blows up in West Ham's face.

Brentford 1 vs. 1 Fulham (Sat 3pm)

Burnley 1 vs. 2 Newcastle (Sat 3pm)

Sheff Utd 0 vs. 1 Nottm Forest (Sat 3pm)

Chelsea 2 vs. 1 West Ham (Sun 2pm)

Liverpool 3 vs. 2 Tottenham (Sun 4.30pm, Sky)