Football

I know football fans have superstitions, but you watching, or not, would have had no impact on the outcome.

.

Why did you turn over for TM? Were you hoping she’d have a soporific effect and send you to sleep?

Anyway, you watching or not has no influence on a football match 70 miles away. Fact.

When a leader speaks, one listens to their words. And then bangs ones head on the floor.

Also.
If that's the case why is it, whenever I go/watch derby on the telly disaster / we lose?
I mean. It's not like weve been shit whenever I went to watch them.

Chaos theory. When a fan shouts at the TV in London, Richard Keogh falls over in Derby.

If Richard Keogh wasn't shouted at, would he fall over?

Probably to be honest. I was expecting him to fall over when he took the penalty.

johnathon wilson's take on the bielsa spying furore.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/jan/17/marceo-bielsa-spygate-powerpoint-leeds-united

Can't wait for Bielsa to be in the Premier League, look forward to him pitting his wits against his protege's Guardiola and Pochettino..

Just another hack who is enjoying suckling on Bielsa's teet.

I can't wait for the FA/EFL to finish looking into it and draw a line underneath the whole thing. One way or another.

he's been suckling for a long time since Bielsa was in charge of Bilbao in 2011, none of this new fangled suckling since he's been in charge of Leeds..

I agree that press about Bielsa is a little much but you've got to see the irony of that statement given the frenzy regarding Frank Lampard's Derby's famous manager; Frank Lampard.

Frank Lampard.

Can't wait for Bielsa to be in the Premier League

You're assuming he'd stay if they got promotion. That sounds a very un-Bielsa thing to do.

Or that they want him after march.

Yeah I know I’m jumping the gun, “championship, most competitive league in the world, with the most at stake”, but it would be fun to see him attempt to out manage those who have learnt from him.
And also to see how MOTD try to explain his tactics/motivations..

I can see some irony there, but Frank Lampard isn’t pushing the agenda of the team being called Frank Lampard’s Derby County. Bielsa knows exactly what he’s doing here and has people around his little finger.

This is the first real mental test for Lampard. Bielsa is trolling him and trying to get in his head. He was successful at this before the match last week and you could tell Lampard was rattled during his interviews either side of the match.

The win over Southampton will hopefully have calmed him down and it was good to see him smiling after a match as we’d been on a difficult run of form with tough fixtures and he looked like he was beginning to show signs of struggling through december.

No doubt this thing will rumble on until the football league figure out what they really want to do.

In other news. It looks increasingly likely that we're going to witness how well a 38 year old, 107 cap left back can still play at Championship level. I guess this could be a stepping stone into coaching for Ashley Cole, but he's apparently had a decent season at LA Galaxy and his wages shouldn't be too much these days.

espn article from Honingstein on Dortmund

http://www.espn.co.uk/soccer/german-bundesliga/10/blog/post/3753198/borussia-dortmund-stopped-spending-and-started-scouting-now-theyre-top-of-the-bundesliga

This quote caught my eye especially as Bayern still want to splurge money on Hudson-Odoi

Increasingly, Zorc and his men look for unpolished gems in elite-level youth teams, where highly-gifted youngsters can sometimes feel undervalued by their clubs. England, in particular, has become an important hunting ground. Zorc has noticed that "youth development in Premier League academies has improved over the last 10 years, to the point of overtaking us in Germany to an extent." He reveals that Bundesliga coaches are regulars at England youth internationals and many Championship sides stocked with loanees from the top flight.

"They can't get into their first teams because the squads are so big. But they understand that we can provide a platform for them to play, that our coaches have the courage to play them," Zorc says. "Not just in the first round of the DFB Pokal against [fifth-division] Eintracht Trier, but in the big games against Bayern and such like."

https://twitter.com/Domfinnigan/status/1085876465420455937

This is absolutely incredible. A piece of art.

Fucking hell.....

Wow. Any idea what game that is?

yeah, like what sport?

Scunthorpe v Coventry

Sarri turning into Mourinho?

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/jan/19/maurizio-sarri-chelsea-players-extremely-difficult-to-motivate-arsenal

Get the man a packet of fags.