Football

Is that a backhanded compliment?

I was watching giro highlights....

Looking forward to the "alt football facts" viewpoint of your appearance in the FA Cup Final this coming weekend..

To get to Wembley, we had to overcome both the Treble winning Man United and the undisputed best footballing side in the country (and winners of the two season league as well as the most in form league side this year). Now we face a team who are desperate for a win and who, themselves, knocked out the giants from Citeh as well as tough opposition such as Lincoln and Sutton.

Arsenal have also won the Cup in two out of the past three years.

We are all going to have a nice day out in the sun without any expectations.

You chose well

I refer you to these comments

https://www.lfgss.com/comments/13654286/

more Premier League teams should be taking it seriously, and it's only because of the back door entry to the UCL that Mourinho did, as it was his last way of salvaging something from this season, apologies to the Community Shield and League Cup.

Europa League success should be valued in and of itself, but we (Prem teams) don't view it as anything more than a disturbance to doing well in the league and top 4 qualification to big cup. We should have been getting teams into the quarters and semi's, if not the final, regularly, for the last decade.

One thing that Pochettino needs to progress in, is managing in European competition, and the fact that we got shoved out of both the UCL and EL when we had a great opportunity to challenge for the Europa League and didn't take it. Hoping next season Pochettino improves as the team has done...

top 4 qualification to big cup

Shame UEFA gave the 4th highest rank country (currently Italy) a 4th CL place from 18/19. It would have been fun to be leapfrogged by Italy (will probably happen next year if Italy outperform the English clubs in Europe) and dropped to only 3 teams in the CL.

Little chance of France catching us: http://kassiesa.home.xs4all.nl/bert/uefa/data/method4/crank2018.html (Italy will be on 59.249 if Juve beat Real if my calculations are correct. England above them on 59.534 but England due to lose 2.619 points over Italy when the 13/14 season drops off the end of the 5 year average.)

I've got tickets for Singapore in July. Chelsea vs Bayer and Inter over the same weekend.

Nice one, sods law I may be back in UK in July ! How much were the tickets ? Roughly 4o quid for mine which I thought was steep for a friendly, but they can charge it because of the pull of a premiere team.

Would increase the importance of doing well in the Europa League, if we do drop to 3 places. But how does our co-efficient work now Utd have won the Europa?

Paid S$40 for mine. Just over £20 these days.

Would increase the importance of doing well in the Europa League, if we do drop to 3 places.

We won't drop to 3 places (unless UEFA changes the rules again or France pull something out of the bag in the next 3 years).

For 17/18 we've already got our places (5 in CL, 2 in EL).

18/19 and onwards the top 4 countries (Spain, Germany, England and Italy) will get 4 CL group stage places straight away (no qualifying round for Arsenal 4th place, straight to the group stage).

Very little chance of France catching us in the UEFA country rankings to push us down to 5th (and therefore only 3 CL places - two group and one qualifying). No chance with their dire 13/14 european season's points in the mix (England got 16.785 and France got 8.5 that year). They'd need to make up 7 points on us once the 13/14 points drop off. The 5 years contributing to the points would then be 14/15, 15/16, 16/17, 17/18, 18/19 so even if they did manage to make up those 7 points in 17/18 and 18/19 it wouldn't take effect until the 20/21 season at the earliest. If that looked likely to happen then I'm sure UEFA would rejig the format/scoring/etc to keep 4 English clubs in (as they have done already in case Italy overtake us in the next year or so as they look likely to do).

But, if the Premiership does ignore the EL then it could make France's job easier.

But how does our co-efficient work now Utd have won the Europa?

Man U's Europa League win is already part of the numbers for the 16/17 season. The only thing that can change with the 16/17 season figures is that Italy will go up 2/6 points if Juve win the CL, or Spain will go up 2/7 points if Real win.

Having 5 clubs in the CL and only 2 in the EL doesn't really affect the number of points England are likely to get, it's mostly affected by the clubs performance which varies a huge amount. The extra effort that teams put in when part of the CL is offset by the fact that the competition is harder so they may win fewer games or not progress as far.

Whoppers are out and about today

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I see what you mean, Barbour jacket, in this heat. Whopper.

Job centres have changed.

Probably just lost a bet.

Did Rooney play yesterday?

If it is, he's lost weight.

http://www.msn.com/en-gb/sport/premier-league/liverpool-supporters-start-petition-to-have-michael-owen-removed-as-club-ambassador-after-man-united-slip/ar-BBBvU2n?li=AAnZ9Ug&ocid=mailsignout

...and the fact he's an Evertonian

The rumours are getting stronger that Rooney is coming back

🙄😩

I think, and hope, it's just noise. I can't see koeman welcoming him into the fold. Can you?

Fuck knows but I know all the younger bellwhiff fans want him back but it will send completely the wrong message to the younger players like Davies and Dowell

Please let it be so

Now saying he prefers a big money move to China than rejoining Everton

*crosses fingers

Pretty sure Koeman wants nothing to do with him, aging star returning to his first professional club, and wanting big money to do so, when you've got a host of young 'uns coming through.. Don't see it. And as much as Rooney may say he loves Everton (does he??) he loves the money more...

On a Tottenham note, have seen several versions of the "we should have brought Jermain Defoe back as he'd be the clinical finisher who could have spelled Kane, and been willing to come off the bench in tight matches to change things up, and possibly helped us to win those games we drew, meaning we could have, maybe, won the league", recently and I'm thrown back to the points @Chalfie made about Defoe not being good enough/too streaky/only scoring against the bottom feeders. Also he's too old, doesn't in any way replicate what Kane does in terms of hold up play, work rate, interchanging with Alli or Son, and wouldn't have been content sitting on the bench at all...

Just seen janssen score.