Football

Totally forgot Remi was at Chelsea good finish from him. Also catching up on highlights young Joe Cole not looking so young now. Happy to to see Rudiger back Chelsea need his presence and organisation.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2019/dec/12/anti-sports-personality-year-awards-2019

Congratulations to Derby on finally winning something.

Bayern looked super sharp for a team that was 7th in the league and lost two in a row.
Thiago and Kimmich bossed midfield and their attacking players, take your pick of Coman, gnabry, Coutinho, Perisic loved the amount of possession we gave them.
Dier and sissoko couldn't hold onto, or progress the ball, and it felt like Mourinho just wanted us to hit balls long over the top for Moura/Sessegnon to run onto.
Lo Celso was okay, but never had enough of the ball to shine, Sessegnon scored a cracker and Foyth looked decent enough.
But for a game Spurs fans, and Mourinho were talking about as if it would be a dead rubber of a training match, Bayern definitely didn't get the memo, tempo was high, passing was crisp, sharp in the press. Wouldn't want to face them in the next round, despite them looking a bit shaky at the back (we did have a couple of opportunities Son and Sissoko were culpable in not making the score more presentable) think offensively they'll make it a hard game for anyone..

Excellent

Did you see the soldado thing on guardian? Is good

Saw it but haven’t read it. Makes me sad he wasn’t Kane before Kane

oof another good day in the premiershit, managed to catch the end of the first half and the second half in hereford at lunchtime , tidy mo salah double, then only just caught the results when i got home this evening, excellent stuff

Got lucky with the win against wolves.
They had most of the play, looked and felt dangerous without forcing gazzaniga to make too many saves.
Dier with a better performance. Moura with an amazing lash of a goal into the roof of the net and lots of resolute defending from our back four.
Verts with the stoppage time goal, putting his head in where a foot could have flown. After spending most of the time trying to keep up with traore.

Glad we got out with a win. Just three points off Chelsea, who are going through their own dip on form, as we gain a bit of confidence.

Still really need a ball player in midfield. Don’t think we can give Chelsea as much possession as we gave Wolves/Utd/Bayern.. hoping ndombele makes a return from this groin injury, doubt mourinho is going to play Lo Celso in a pivot with dier..

Were Spurs as dirty as the MOTD highlights made them look? Rotational fouling on Traore was about the most cynical play I've seen since the last time I watched Sergio Ramos.

I kind of applaud rotational fouling.

I thought dier had a good game from the highlights and his intentional foul on traore shows JM is in full dressing room belongs to me now mode.

Nah, we had to stop traore at all costs, give verts some help as he was being stressed constantly by traore’s runs.

Wolves were as consistent in their fouling of moura (especially) and dele and Kane, when we were trying to hit them on the counter. They just spread theirs around rather than just concentrating on the one danger man.

Match stats below, wolves on the left..
Won the fouls 14 - 10

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Arsenal - frankly they're embarrassing.

I don’t think there is any shame in losing to City, especially as we annually gift them six points anyway.

But the club is a mess, with an owner unwilling to invest and a squad whose deficiencies are clear to all. I’m pessimistic, the club need a successful, experienced manager to come in and completely restructure things, but I can’t see who’d be daft enough to take it on.

Give it six months and you can have the Not So Special One...

klopp signs new contract till 2024
there were rumours he was going to take a break at the end of the season, a year out to recharge his batteries, glad that isn't the case

It just means Real are gonna have to pay really big money for him in the summer...

Watched the Wolves match and didn't get the impression it was rotational fouling - there wasn't time for that. He was totally ripping them a new one and the nearest guy had to take him down before he did it again.

He was getting a cross in every time and his goal was a peach - MOTM by a street, amazingly improved player.

Arteta is being mentioned again.

Last-16 draw in full
Borussia Dortmund v Paris St-Germain
Real Madrid v Manchester City
Atalanta v Valencia
Atletico Madrid v Liverpool
Chelsea v Bayern Munich
Lyon v Juventus
Tottenham v RB Leipzig
Napoli v Barcelona

*checks to see how a.madrid are doing in la liga

fewest goals scored in the top half, 5th lowest in the league ( goals for )
but best defence in the league

2nd leg back at anfield should help

maybe this is Spurs big year!

I'll pick Dortmund, City, Atalanta, Liverpool, Bayern, Juve, Spurs and Barca for the next round.

The other option is to bring someone young in who can build a team in his image. It’s high risk though, as failure is more likely.

Of the teams we could have had. Leipzig and Valencia were the ones I favoured, but now having got Leipzig, suddenly got a bit of the fear about facing them.
Seen a couple of highlights of their games this season and they look tasty, but if we’ve built some momentum in the league and mourinho’s has some time to work on defensive shape, it’ll be dangerous for them as well.

And hopefully we’ll have a functioning midfield that means we can hold onto the ball for longer than four passes, and turn defence into attack without launching it long..

This would be an awful move. Arteta was club captain during the barren Wenger years around the time the 'lack of leaders' argument started.

I don't doubt he is probably a well adjusted sensible, moderate chap (who likes a decent wine) in the mould of a manager i.e. he can wear a decent suit and change between gilet over shirt and tie suit affair. But to propelled into a complex mess where he has zero experience or at all, is just madness or very risky.

Nothing he has done so far (including the fa cup and charity shield medals he has) and his coaching experience under Pep can guide this Arsenal team. A proven, experienced manager with skills to sort out a defence and stamp authority is required.