It has turned out to be such a strange season, that even after we playing at our best, beating teams for fun, winning at shite hart lane, keeping clean sheets more than any other teams, scoring more than anyone else – we are going to end up second! Man City just can’t lose can they?
Fulham can do us a favor, they can restrict Pep to a draw or win against them. I have zero confidence in Tottenham beating City and West Ham can’t go through them on the last day at Etihad. If something can happen, it’s today. Lets hope the gods favors us and Fulham and we get to see for once the sad face of Pep Guardiola. We have one of ours play for Fulham, Bernd Leno, who has promised that he will give his 100% to stop our competition.
There has been some happenings while I was missing. Jorginho signed the contract for another year, Mikel was full of praise for him and it basically confirms it’s time for Thomas Partey to go. I don’t believe Mikel wants to keep two 35 year olds to fight for one place when Declan Rice is a starter. If I was you Mikel, I would sell Thomas for whatever money we can get, and go into the market for a DM understudy to Rice/Jorginho.
Bayern did us dirty in the quarters. Saka was denied a clear penalty. Harry Kane got away with an elbow on Gabriel which should have been red. They weren’t so furious then about refereeing, but when it happened to them against Madrid when the offside whistle was blown a bit too early, all hell broke loose. Mr Tuchel, Karma is a bitch.
Next year’s kit has been leaked, and I am disappointed to say the least. Last season was best of Adidas, both Red and White, and the black ones were great. This season, the third kit was a standout and home one was fine too. I think I might skip the next season’s if the leaks are true.
A belated Happy Birthday to Dennis Bergkamp, you happened when I was playing cricket as 10 year old but looking back, I would have loved to see you play live. A gentlemen, a magician, red through and through.
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Fabrizio reported that we are monitoring the young 18 year old Ajax centre back Jorrel Hato. He has a deal till 2028 and he will be an investment for the future. We most certainly need a third regular CB to rotate with Saliba and Gabriel without hampering our game play. White/Tomi are CB but we haven’t seen them play there, and we don’t know if they will turn out to be equally good. If it costs us 10 odd million, I would say go for it.
Sacking news have started about Pochettino. He talked about an interview, the content doesn’t really matter but if the manager comes out and talks about it, either he is fearful he will be sacked, or he knows he will. Chelsea has just moved from a billionaire russian who managed to win things to a billionaire american who can’t make things happen. Loving it.
Right, and Ten Hag just can’t stop talking about us can he?
Tony
My daughter is a big Michael Kiwanuku fan – she added some of his tracks onto one of my Spotify playlists without my knowledge. He is OK when I am cooking.
Norg
Fele Kuti was someone I loved in my early music days. It was my first intro into jazz and African rhythms.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i99w2T8nQB4
Fela*
Tony
Fela Kuti – fantastic – Zombie oh Zombie – what a track. Just before lockdown his son Seun was appearing in London )cant remember where. I was in London for a meeting which unfortunately overran by hours and I missed out.
KP when he worked in Nigeria has been to Fela’s bar / club – I bet the atmosphere was electric.
Try jazz pianist Hiromi Uehara. A friend of mine was Simon Philips accountant – Simon was her drummer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFeouD2IWSA
Norg,
Of the likely leavers only ESR and possibly Ramsdale have realistic value. The rest have obvious shortcomings be it price, injuries record, inexperience that put us in a weaker position sales wise. We’re not at the Liverpool, ManC even Chels level of flogging inexperienced youths for silly money. Partly because most have had little exposure. Our youths don’t have the profile they used to.
ManC are likely to ManC, I don’t see their FFP charges being dealt with. I see them as our only serious rivals.
The rest have too much to catch up looking at the points gaps between us and them over the last two years
Spurs is still too early for them. They need a lot of work on the actual team, Liverpool also need a rebuild despite spending a fair bit on make weights but their def looks solid going forwards. New boss is the unknown. Salah looks to be on the wane.
Chelsea is anyone’s guess. Some talent there but it’s whether Poch is allowed to stay and fix or they do another rip and start again. One thing’s likely, last season’s splurge is off the table.
Villa, Emery’s a good manger for that sort of team. If they make CL, like Newcs, they’ll find the adjustment hard. Still not enough quality in depth and not realistic to think they’ll be able to address that.
All guess work, a lot of unknowns but I’m sure Tets isn’t going to rest on his laurels and work to improve us again. I think we’re at the stage now to be an attractive destination for proven prem league talent and won’t need to pay premiums to bring that sort of player in. I prefer that to risking on randoms from lesser leagues and lots of clubs will need to be more rigorous on FFP.
If we stick in a bid of ÂŁ70m for Olise for example, he’ll want to come. Palace can play hardball all they want but will be like us post Wenger, find it hard to keep him interested. When Vardy knocked us back, it felt like a diss but probably correlated with the mess we were then.
Jack D. Riparian
Do not forget to thank Kroenke who have made it all possible by funding almost a full squad Sell/Write-off n Build twice over – but for which Arteta would be left with no ideas from star players gelling in a game.
Yes , let us be thankful
“ManC are likely to ManC, I don’t see their FFP charges being dealt with.”
The PL can’t sweep the charges under the carpet. Firstly I don’t think other clubs (Arsenal, Liverpool, ManU, Chelsea etc etc) will let them, secondly if they don’t Everton and Forest will sue the PL for being hit with points deductions.
Norg
Brilliant thanks for there link that’s new to me. Loved the six string bass – don’t see many now but 5 string bass guitars are popular.
Jeff Beck at Ronnie Scotts I’ve got the bluray of. Best I’ve seen of Jeff with Tal the 16 year old Aussie bass player who came to London with her bass on her back to play music. Now very accomplished. Brilliant with Becky.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIBNh5VyiVk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3OO7anVgUE
Marc
Only lesser clubs who can’t fight back get FFP’d. City is too big. Can you imagine the paperwork for so many charges? Would cost the FA millions to prove.
Could be wrong but that’s my take.
Norg
Do you favor any one specific style of cooking? I love food but can’t cook. Never really tried but I really have enjoyed Masterchef Australia for the last 11 or so years. Never missed an episode so watch some 600+. It’s not just the food but the amateur cooks who transform over about 60 episodes to the eventual winner. Their characters’ and camaraderie is endearing to watch.
People like us are solution finders in life. It’s that I love about the show and also meeting so many chefs I’d never get to hear of. My daughter went to Uni in Melbourne and she’s a foodie. Perfect for her as Melbourne has been cited and the food capital of the wold.
Tony
Its not the FA its the PL and the big clubs want City brought to heel – if they’re not Newcastle will start throwing money round like confetti. That would leave 2 CL places for Arsenal, ManU, Chelsea, Liverpool, Tottenham to contest etc – they won’t have it.
Oh the dilemma the spud’s fans must be feeling tonight.
They want CL that’s hanging by the thinnest of threads, but they won’t want us to win the league because they made it happen for us.
The banter of us thanking them very mutchly would be priceless. Obviously, their recourse would be we won it for you, but they would be hollow words drowned out by our hysterical laughing.
A chant from our faithful of we thank your spursy, we do……… when playing them would be pure gold for me. Little things and small minds and all that.
I wonder what the Spuds will be really wishing for tonight? Damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
If it were the other way round, I’d say fcuk the CL, we do not want them winning the league because of us. I’d rather the Europa league.
Marc
Fair comment when you look at it that way. I would love to see them relegated with a 5 year TW ban of can only sell. I would imagine most of their stars have release clauses if relegated.
One can dream…..
Guess this sums the mood up for some Spuds’ fans:
“Tottenham’s clash with Man City has tickets available in the MAJORITY of all blocks – as match-going fans offer theirs up due to worst-case scenario of helping Arsenal move towards the title
Tottenham host Manchester City in the Premier League on Tuesday night. A Spurs win or draw will see Arsenal in the box-seat to win the title on Sunday
Of course Spurs fans want their team to lose vs City if it stops Arsenal from winning the league! Listen to the It’s All Kicking Off! podcast”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-13416415/Tottenhams-clash-Man-City-tickets-available-MAJORITY-blocks-match-going-fans-offer-theirs-worst-case-scenario-helping-Arsenal-title.html
A bit of suggested new that Old Trafford could be moved to London. How could that ever work?
This is funny:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-13415839/Arsenal-FIREWORKS-Man-City-hotel-Tottenham-Pep-Guardiola.html
Norg “We need to shed quite a few players from the senior squad”
this is an all-too-familiar refrain during MA’s time here…some of the issues were obviously inherited, whereas others were self-inflicted, due in large part to our oftentimes questionable recruitment and wage practices, including those raises he gifted to everyone he mistakenly deemed re-up-worthy…these missteps have left us wanting in some positions, like up top, where we don’t have any real depth out wide or a clinical Striker, and wage bill bloated in others
for example, as of right now we have 3 LBs, none of whom are starter material, and a RB who, if he wasn’t injured, appeared destined to be shoehorned into the LB position for the foreseeable future…of course, the above numbers don’t even include Tierney and Nuno, who are both still functionally on the books, as we’re undoubtedly subsizing their wages while on loan, and actually LBs
it just makes me wonder why we didn’t do our due diligence from the off and target only those who aced the profile test, instead of leaning into this revolving door policy made up half-measures and/or stop-gaps, just like with the Keeper position…this nonsensical merry-go-round is especially baffling considering MA’s tactical desire to both play out from the back and deploy an inverted backer
now maybe just maybe Timber is the chosen one, but he lasted all but 1 match before his season was put on ice, which doesn’t fill me with the utmost of confidence (even though I do rate him as a “RB”)…which once again begs the question, why didn’t we actually spend the necessary funds on a readymade LB and stop all this fucking around…ironically, if we had done so, we would have spent considerably less
to further complicate such matters, MA doesn’t rotate with any regularity, so you end up with a bevy of players who don’t see the shop window enough to maintain, let alone boost, their respective values…as we’ve seen in the past, this can likewise effect one’s ability to bring in players in a timely fashion, as oftentimes incoming moves will be shelved until outgoing players have been sorted
all that said, this window should be a rather intriguing ride, as I’m very interested to see whom will be sold, and at what price, whom he will target and what positional upgrades he will prioritize…not to mention, this could be a rather tricky transfer period to navigate with the Euros and the Copa on the summertime docket…Cheers
Today I rang Ron – an old friend and Spurs supporter. What do you want? was his first question to me – not how are you. After the banter he said he would be going tonight with his son. Being realistic he said – we haven’t got a chance if we play like we have done since you lot whipped us. He is expecting a 0-4 score line.
He has high hopes for next season if big Ange is still there and Levy hasn’t sacked him. He also thinks a big chunk of the club will be sold to a US consortium.
TRVL
There are several players that were perhaps bought for the future but clearly are not of the right calibre. Because of the wage structure they will be hard to shift unless they are ‘written off’ the books. Stan doesn’t like that type of gamble.
I mentioned my friend Ron – we chatted about new players as well as tonight. ESR came up in the conversation – quite a hot topic at WHL apparently. Would he?
Norg-after all that has happened here, I would imagine that ESR’s chief concern will be getting some assurances about playing time…that said, I very much doubt he will find his way to the Spurs unless they’re offering above ask and based on the Ramsdale’s valuation, that should be somewhere in the region of 100M…being sarcastic of course, but I’m sure it will boggle the mind regardless