Naitch

Norwich coming in with a beautiful away kit. They've really hit the sweet spot on kits this year.

Lukaku surely has to be the new benchmark for all-time worst-ever signing. Winston Bogarde, Pierluigi Casiraghi and Robert Fleck can also be added to the pre-Abramovich list. In fact, Sutton, Fleck, and Casiraghi show that Chelsea's striker problem is much more of a long-term issue. Hasselbaink, Drogba, and Costa seem to be more the exceptions than the standard.

I know we're supposedly due to announce Sterling this week, and apparently he's literally already en route to join the team for pre-season in the States, but I'd find it hilarious if Koulibaly somehow becomes our first major signing after all the other names Chelsea have been linked to this summer.

It feels like it's written in the stars that we'll activate Tammy Abraham's £80m buyback clause next summer. Are you ready for it? Ake is technically "PL proven", so I'd personally consider him an upgrade. Not sure if he's good enough on the left to double up as the 1st backup choice, should Alonso and Emerson both leave, but he can't be a worse 3rd/4th choice compared to Saul last season. I think he had an extension clause activated through playing so many games last season. I imagine (hope?) he'll serve as a utility sub this year, especially with the extra subs being available. Not so keen on the idea of him being a starter...

I'd be ok with it if that awkward-looking arch of stitching wasn't there. Not too keen on the collar either, but it's more bearable. Shame we haven't had a good home kit in years at this point.

I started on Smackdown vs Raw 2007 and continued buying the series annually until WWE '12. Since then, I've only played '13 and 2k14, the latter of which I only bought in 2020. I consider the franchise to have peaked, gameplay-wise with SvR 2011, and feature-wise with SvR 2008. EWR was fun when I first discovered it in ~2009, it lead me here and indisputably changed my life so I'm very grateful for that! I think I've played every version of TEW except the latest one (2020?), to varying degrees of commitment. TEW10 is probably the one I sunk the most hours into as it was the latest one while I was at uni. 13 and 16 are definitely technical improvements on that game engine, however.

Euro 2008 was brilliant. I can't imagine it'd have been as fun to watch if England qualified. Yanks and Canucks and... I'm struggling to think of a slang term for Mexicans that isn't a racist pejorative.

Isn't it 5 subs allowed permanently from this season too? Having more squad depth is only going to be more beneficial, especially in a season where Liverpool and Man City have key players getting a month off during the World Cup break.

They only went with Lotus because people kicked off about them being sponsored by (another) Asian betting company. In this case it was specifically because the new sponsor (BK8) had virtually no online presence and adverts featuring half-naked women to advertise their company.

And then loan/sell Colwill.

Same as it ever was.

Just about the only difference going back that far in the game series is your assistant manager suggesting a squad, which I believe must have been introduced in FM10, 11 or 12. I imagine tweaks have been made regarding eligibility since then but that's also been the case IRL, so of course it should have.

I'm hearing closer to £50m today, which makes it sound less appealing. Sure, he's a proven PL goalscorer, but that's in a team that creates about a billion chances every game. Chelsea play differently and I can't see him offering much more than the current attacking options. £30-35m, on the other hand, seems like a good deal if we can offload CHO and perhaps Ziyech to avoid having too many wingers on the books.

It's the ITV curse with a little more oomph. Imagine if Channel 5 aired a game, they'd be losing to San Marino and Gibraltar!

Went to Slam Dunk South last week, was my first live music since 2019 as I didn't go last year on account of half the bands I wanted to see pulling out. Meet Me at the Altar were pretty disappointing, though this could've been down to the poor sound mixing more than anything else. Also a lot of people were annoyed at this time of day as the bars were still struggling to get their payment systems set up. Hot Milk sounded great considering they immediately followed MM@TA on the same stage, I was queuing for a drink at the time but was still in good earshot of their performance. I have a feeling they'll be one of the next "big" alternative acts in the UK. Punk Rock Factory were fine. A lot of people turned out for them but I wasn't too bothered by their gimmick of doing (mostly) Disney covers as a live act. MC Lars was solid, a very professional performance that was short and sweet, arguably too short but that's better than dragging it out. I'd originally planned to see Electric Callboy here but schedule changes due to a late drop out made me change things up a bit. Hoping they do a proper UK tour (ideally including Norwich) at some point, they have a few dates booked for later in the year, but I can't afford to justify spending more on a single gig than I did for this entire festival. Mod Sun really impressed me. My friend had a medical emergency during his set, so I didn't get to see all of it, but I loved the energy he brought to the stage. Like Hot Milk, I think he'll be one of the next mainstream-ish breakthroughs, especially due to his connections to the likes of Avril Lavigne and MGK, and experiences as a music producer. He's basically John Feldmann for late Milennials/Gen Z, in terms of knowing the sound/vibes that young alternative music fans want. The Wonder Years were the band I was most looking forward to. They ended up playing two albums in full, back to back, due to Motion City Soundtrack pulling out at the last minute. I lost my glasses to the mosh pit towards the end of The Upsides, but it was worth it. The Interrupters were supposed to be opening for the Hella Mega Tour when it was originally scheduled for 2020, which I was looking forward to as much as the headline acts. Unfortunately they don't seem to be doing it now, so I was glad to catch them again after loving their Slam Dunk set back in 2019. They'd moved from being an early afternoon act on the 2nd stage to early evening on the main stage, so clearly their stock has risen in that time. Alexisonfire was a great last minute call. I'd originally planned my day a little differently and not even considered them at all. I'm glad I did though as, although I didn't stay for the full set, the mosh pit was a fun experience. Neck Deep drew a huge crowd that I didn't delve too deeply into, as they were already half way through their set by the time I arrived at their stage. I have a feeling they've found their limit as the 2nd stage headliners/headliner's warm up act as far as Slam Dunk is concerned though. Deaf Havana used to be my favourite band, so it was a huge hit of nostalgia to watch their entire set up close. Glad I made the effort. Sum 41 were the main stage headliners and naturally drew a huge crowd with their setlist of classics and high production performance. I managed to catch the final song and a half, which was good enough for me having seen them live in about 2016/17. Slam Dunk easily remains the most appealing festival for me, Download is three times longer but has less than half the bands I'd actually want to see. The only band I'm jealous of people who have gone to Download this year, are A Day to Remember. They were supposed to play a show the day before Slam Dunk South in 2020, so I'm hoping that they finally make an appearance at some point. Looking forward to the Hella Mega Tour later this month as it means I can add Green Day, Fall Out Boy, and Weezer to my list!

I work with a fellow Chelsea fan who tried to pull this on me. It didn't work though as I'd seen it myself about 5 minutes earlier.

True. I'd like to see Gallagher eased into the first team but Gilmour needs to get the stink of being here in Norwich off himself before I'd want to see him added into the mix. If that isn't good enough for him, and he'd rather leave permanently than go out on loan somewhere for another season, so be it.

No loss imo. Even with improved performances from the CWC onwards, he never really seemed like he was good enough to be in the squad. Even with multiple players leaving, returning loanees (primarily Gallagher, maybe Gilmour and Emerson if they don't leave over the summer) and potential new signings should be able to fulfill the same rotation/cover commitments.

Happy with a Madrid win as it means Chelsea get more money from the Hazard deal. Every little (of the now more than £200m ) will help when it comes to replacing Rudiger and Christensen. While I'm usually all for Liverpool fans not getting what they want, that only covers what happens on the pitch... Questions definitely need to be raised about UEFA and local authorities' handling of crowd management, fans in general clearly aren't to blame for the situation they found themselves in in Paris last night. The Richarlison stuff is also very scummy. While I'm sure the man himself had nothing to do with the con, the fact that someone who likely earns more in a week than those who have lost out will earn in an entire year has twisted the knife is unacceptable. The right thing for him to do would be to personally reimburse anyone affected.

Managers actually staying in the same job for more than three years is impressive these days, to be honest. Apparently only 16% of managers in the top four divisions have lasted more than three years, and the same page makes a point to say that one of those was non-league for 11 of his 13 years at the club. In contrast, over half of them have been in the job for less than a year and more than a third only began their tenure in 2022.

Happy to see Tomori (and Guehi) back in the side. I can understand Chilwell not getting picked for fitness reasons but I'm surprised not to see Tyrick Mitchell get called up again, at least to have a natural left back in the team. I'm definitely getting 3ATB and wing backs vibes.

Agreed. I won't pretend I'm familiar with any of the other games but Stanley Parable is a fantastic game that doesn't require too much effort or time, but will entertain.

Do people who live within 10km of multiple stadiums (Liverpool, Nottingham, London, etc) get to choose their team or are they forced to support the nearest team in this scenario? I feel sorry for people whose biggest club in that catchment area play at the 11th level of the football pyramid, which is certainly the case in some areas of Norfolk. Yes, this is a good point. The PSG shirts only popped up at Goals when Neymar moved there and Juventus shirts started appearing when Ronaldo signed for them.

To be fair, when I worked at a Goals Soccer Centre there were kids wearing Man City (and the European teams @Hobo mentions) shirts as often as you'd see them wearing Man Utd and Arsenal shirts in the early 00s. Liverpool have maintained a fairly consistent presence, as well as Spurs for being the nearest consistently Premier League team. I knew one pre-money Man City fan while I was at high school, not sure why he supported them though.

For the last few years, I've found the scramble of several teams falling over each other trying to finish 3rd/4th has been much more interesting. Chelsea being consistently involved in that certainly helps, which is probably also why I've been much more invested in the FA Cup than the Premier League for the last 2 seasons. 100% agree with this. I have absolutely no emotions towards Man City other than apathy whereas I can't stand Liverpool. Pep's statement that everyone wants Liverpool to win the league was astoundingly oblivious to the fact that Everton and Chelsea fans exist. I'm sure there are even Man Utd fans who are divided in a situation like this where, perhaps, they're more emotionally invested in their rivalry with Liverpool than Man City for historical reasons. This poll on BBC Football shows that Pep was talking out of his ass (spoilered for size):