Football

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/09/football-season-karl-marx-capitalism-premier-league

Prime Guardian there. Professional hand-wringing at it's finest. You'd have thought the tedious arse would at least have got his Marx quotes correct. It's Opiate not Opium.

Some (rather obvious) Premier League predictions

• Chelsea to be really shit and boring to watch. Having three class holding midfielders but no decent striker doesn't scream entertainment
  
• Spurs to push Liverpool and City quite close. No signings but no players leaving is a big plus for them
  
• Mourinho won't last the season
  
• Wolves will be bang average
  
• Guardiola to throw his toys out of the pram when three City players get injured against Cardiff
  
• Richardson will continue the tradition of expensive flops at Everton
  
• Struggle street for Newcastle. Benitez to go and get the job he deserves
  

.

Bit confused by the Danny Rose, loan to schalke with option to buy.
Seems a bit spurious, and since we haven’t brought anyone in, a bit of a head scratcher, because;
We’re already down one homegrown player so getting rid of Danny makes us even lighter in that department.
Rose gives us a more pacy attacking option than Ben Davies
Kyle walker peters isn’t ready for full time back up left back duties
If we haven’t improved the squad with new signings then we’ve got to keep the experienced players we have..

Time to see if continuity can trump spending again this season

" Struggle street for Newcastle. Benitez to go and get the job he deserves "

in at man utd when thrushy gets a bad case of gripe and has to quit
comes in and gets the best out of their players

nooooooooooooooooooo

So nice of Chelsea to take all the pressure off Allison . What a complete shambles they have made of their GK situation.

Looking to a few good games/ full season of commentators failing to pronounce the chap's name. Can anyone do it?

Pleased with this transfer window so far but remember that we can still sell to Europe (or Scotland or the Championship) until the end of the month and so cannot be sure that we will have Kante, Hazard, Willian, Azpilicueta, Cahill, Bakayoko, Fabregas, Alonso, Moses, Zapacosta, Giroud, Morata, Pedro, Barkley or Drinkwater after the first couple of games. If we sell all of them, as pundits have suggested, we will be pretty streched until January.

Keep them (which they probably will) and Chelsea will still be short of goals. All that creativity without someone to put it in the net.

I'll be honest, I don't think Europe's elite are likely to come knocking for Barkley in the next few weeks.

So nice of Chelsea to take all the pressure off Allison . What a complete shambles they have made of their GK situation.

Got rid of a dick who wasn’t as good as he thought he was and signed a real prospect. Happy with that.

Barkley, oh Christ I had forgotten all about him, is he still playing?

Kepa Da Keeper. Easy

Short term memory loss, Mike?

*cough* KIEV!!! *cough*

He seems to have started a lot of the games pre-season. Read into that what you will.

Nah, B-Rodge is the man to takeover from Jose IMO.

Football's moved on, Sarri is of the Guardiola school, where midfielders are expected to contribute most goals, the big lump up front is restricted to old school teams like Burnley and man united.

You'd have thought the tedious arse would at least have got his Marx quotes correct.
It's Opiate not Opium.

Depends on your translation. The original was "... ist das Opium des Volkes"

oof.
anyway didn't Burnley sign Vydra

Starting to look like Boateng and Godin are rejecting Man Utd. If true it says a lot about what some players think of Jose.

I agree to a point and it's been interesting to see Sterling and Silva scoring more under Guardiola, but who is going to get goals for Chelsea?

Of the regular starters, Hazard and Willian will get some, Morata is worth a few. Fabregas and Barkley can't be converted into getting goals. Kovacic, Kante and Jorginho aren't going to contribute much.

City have had Aguero score 20 for them in four consecutive seasons and Guardiola has bought or inherited midfielders who score goals.

I think it's gonna be a terrific season and I can't wait to start laying into every non-Chelsea fan on here... Bring it...

It's great to have all that uncertainty over and done with, excited to see what Sarri will bring to us...

Wheels on and off all season long.

agreed v excited to see what Sari can build the fact Chelsea have kept some of the young players is great.

It was a serious question though, not a snidey dig.

It made me realise, again, how long ago 1993 was and where I was in the world. (Salford. So marginally better than long Eaton)

I was 11 that season, so was in secondary school (they had, or maybe still have this wierd three-tier education system where I grew up).

But yes, it's a long time since we were good in any shape or form. We haven't played in the Premiership this century!