Football

Alonso is a drunk driving murderer

Cue "he may be a drunk driving murderer, but he's our dunk driving murderer" a la John Terry

does one continue on with last seasons pre match ritual, seeing as how it worked so well, or does one start a new season new prematch ritual today ?
i guess i could use todays game as a trial run see if last seasons still works amd make some wholesale changes if it doesn't

New season. Start afresh. Does it count on a preseason friendly???

Almost weirder than not having a crowd at all.

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bad 1st half, good 2nd half, one wayward jonny
well done arsenal

how david luiz gets paid to play football i don't know, every mistake arsenal made was luiz

I thought he was excellent today!

Come on you... errrm what is that away kit?? Raspberry Ripple ice cream? Nothing comes close to the bruised banana

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Now you don't need to worry about getting blood stains out of your kit after those away day stabbings and kickings.

Needs potato shopping to Fly Belter.

#bantz

Kai Havertz transfer also completed, we’ll be fun to watch going forward, still a bit rickety at the back. €80m is a lot of cash if you ask me. Pressure will be on for Lampard this season.

The Spurs doc could be a laugh

https://mobile.twitter.com/ElliotHackney/status/1300212334737137664

jose doing blue steel there

@soul- sad times indeed. I hear ads on talksport for oxford Utd season tickets and I cant understand who is purchasing at a time like this.

thoughts on the transfer market activity Tim?

@jaw - The complete disinterest in defence approach would be alarming apart from the fact that every other club in Europe apart Liverpool seem to have taken the same approach as Frank.
Im starting to think the game has been Americanised through the back door. Whereas we used to worry that the actual goalposts were going to be made wider and penalty shoot outs if league games ended in a draw, we now have a series of rule changes that mean defenders cant touch attackers anywhere on the pitch. Prem league and to some extent CL as well (Barca 8-2 defeat to Bayern) is becoming an absolute goal fest which on the one hand looks appealing but is actually becoming a bit farcical. 5-1 used to be a rare scoreline but is now a regular occurence. This has turned football into a 5 a side league and fifa for kids.

What transfer activity? Apparently only £20m available which won’t be enough to keep us up. Shows where the owners goals are....

I’m now a Royston Town season ticket holder. £150 for 7th tier football but it’s a 4 minute walk from my front door and they’re green lit by the government for 300 a game.

Prem league and to some extent CL as well (Barca 8-2 defeat to Bayern) is becoming an absolute goal fest

Is this true though? The 18/19 season was narrowly the highest scoring PL season but was only 58th in the list of highest scoring first division seasons. If anything the trend is fewer goals per game.

You must have missed the Chelsea season with Ray Wilkins, we were regularly tiring of standing to cheer the goals :)

What about Berbatov netting 5 in a match. It's not like that's a regular event even now.

Kai Havertz transfer also completed, we’ll be fun to watch going forward, still a bit rickety at the back. €80m is a lot of cash if you ask me.

It's a lot of cash, but he's a serious prospect so I'm really looking forward to seeing him play in the prem. Not sure how he will link up with Werner though, in theory they should complement each other well but the trend isn't to play two-up top and I don't think Werner's strongest position is playing nominally off the left.

@Markyboy - Do you remember anything about cederic Kipre?

Just knocked about a quick spreadsheet of goals per game in the PL era. On closer inspection there has been a slight increase in goals per game. Something like 0.1 more goals per game since the start of the PL. The long term trend is downwards still though, if you include the First Division

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Dont mind the club being conservative considering the times but I often get the impression that the transfer window comes as a massive surprise to us. The club has to have a dossier of relevant targets for each position and for a few possible budget outcomes. We, like the vast majority of clubs seem to be very amateur in our recruitment.
Always thought we would get relegated anyway. Squad hasn't recovered from previous mismanagement and if we planned to get promoted with heavy reliance on good loans then you have to have a plan for how to replace them and build further in a better league.
At the moment its looking like a Derby

Sorry Stone, I dont deal in facts and spreadsheets

Ray as player or coach / caretaker manager?

Caretaker manager

Pls go read jwilson then come back.

There are more games featuring 4 + goals now , from his writing I've not fact checked, in the last couple of years.
There are also more games where one team had >50 % of the ball.

I'm not sure where Everton fit into thi model