Consigliere

40 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Not sure what the guys at the Guardian are smoking. Transfer window in Germany is closed. So Frankfurt really couldn't sign Ekitike (or any other replacement) now, no matter how much they'd like to. And there's no way Frankfurt will sell Kolo Muani without a replacement coming in.

There are French reporters saying that Kolo Muani is headed to PSG. Apparently Kolo Muani said that he will not play for Frankfurt again so the club was basically forced into accepting a transfer without getting in a replacement.

31 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

It hasn't worked so far and I'm not convinced it's going to, but to be fair, Mount has played that role before. In a completely different setup, with different players around him and more support in the ball-winning, but Lampard had him playing the Lampard role and iirc Tuchel did a bit too. I don't think it's where he's best which is why I didn't get it the transfer then and think Amrabat could well take his spot but it's not like Arsenal trying to turn Havertz into Modric. 

The bolded pretty much says that he has not played the same role before. For the vast majority of his Chelsea career, he's had two of Jorginho, Kante and Kovacic alongside him so he had the freedom to push forward, take risks and with little defensive responsibility. Now he's being asked to be both a second creator through the middle and to do a Kante/Kovacic like job in ball winning, recycling of possession, interceptions and general defensive work. He's never had to do that before and has been pretty dismal at it all through preseason and the two league games.

4 hours ago, polishgenius said:

Amrabat could potentially make Mount redundant pretty much immediately but let's see how things go.

Mount alongside Case was always stupid - Mount is not a ball winner and neither does he have the measured and controlled passing of Eriksen so it's very unlikely that he's going to be effective playing a deeper role. We've been playing with two 10s and not two 8s. Mount is quite similar to Bruno (but not as good) - neither of them are effective ball winners/interceptors (which is a big reason why the first line of our press was being so easily bypassed and Case left isolated) and neither really look after possession well, preferring to play quick risky passes instead. EtH made the club waste £55m to carry out a doomed experiment trying to shoehorn Mount into a position and role that he's never ever played in before. Mount's best position is at #10 so we paid a lot for Bruno's backup.

Kerry Hau reporting that the Palhinha deal has collapsed.

Eta. And Plettenberg reporting that deal for Bella-Kotchap is also off.

49 minutes ago, ljkeane said:

Centre back isn't England's strongest position but, come on, Maguire both hasn't been playing and he's been terrible when he has had a rare chance to play. Basically any English centre back who's getting regular game time in the Premier League should be ahead of him at this point.

Colwill and Stones should probably be the longterm partnership, Guehi and Tomori are good options, White's been playing really well for a while (and is oddly on the outs for some reason), Dunk's big and slow but is actually in good form if Southgate really likes that sort of thing, Dan Burn too for that matter. Ezra Konsa might be worth a look. Even Joe Gomez has just had one good game which is more that Maguire has racked up over the last two seasons.

Maguire has been a solid performer for England though. There's really no reason to drop him from the squad unless his performances for England go the way of his performances for United over the past couple of seasons.

Hardly a surprise that Phillips and Maguire got picked. CB and DM are England's weakest positions. Phillips is basically England's only other option at DM after Rice. 

I could see Maguire being in danger of losing his starting spot (to Colwill) but not his place in the squad - the competition isn't that good+Maguire has always been a solid performer for England and NT managers tend to stick with players they've worked extensively with (Southgate is not alone in this). The only CB who should be considered an undisputed starter is Stones and he's currently injured.

Sterling's omission is hardly surprising either. England are stacked in the wide areas so competition is fierce and Sterling's resurgence has been for all of three games after an extended period of being rubbish. Bowen's omission is more egregious than Sterling's.

1 hour ago, Veltigar said:

One thing I didn't get so far

  Reveal hidden contents

Ma'elKoth seems to have changed names for some reason. Not sure that's on purpose or whether this has something to do with this being a different edition from my Heroes Die copy.

Anyways, don't answer it just yet. I'd like to find out myself.

 

Won't spoil anything for you. Just to say that it's on purpose.

I see that Kolo Muani has downed tools in order to force Frankfurt into accepting PSG's bid. Not a fan of players doing that. Incredibly unprofessional.

Relevo has been reporting a few developments to this:

1) The caretaker president of the RFEF has called an emergency meeting with all regional presidents where they apparently intend to distance themselves from Rubiales.

2) UEFA received the letter from Rubiales's ally, Andreu Camps, but have no intention of intervening so there's no danger of Spanish teams being kicked out of UEFA competitions.

3) Reports that the Prosecutor's Office of Spain's National Court has opened criminal proceedings against Rubiales for sexual assault.

Liverpool looked better with 10 men. Still a top class transition team.

Game over. 

TAA has been rather shit so far.

24 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Started Watching Killing Eve and I am really enjoying it. I enjoy Villanelle's (Jodie Comer) humour than I probably should.She's absolutely killing it.

Season 1 was the peak. It's all downhill after that.

The RFEF is a disgusting organisation that is rotten to the core. The majority of the assembly gave Rubiales's unhinged rant a standing ovation while most of the women in the assembly sat there looking disgusted. They released a statement on the day of the incident using a "quote" falsely attributed to Hermoso saying that the kiss was consensual. Hermoso's statement on the matter says that she never said that and goes on to say that the RFEF have been harassing her, her friends, her family members and colleagues in an attempt to pressure her into recanting. Now they are threatening legal action against the players who said they will not represent the NT until Rubiales is removed. The Spanish FA have been treating the women's teams like shit for years and have been getting away with it.

Moyes-ball in full effect - 16% possession and 32 passes completed in the first half but West Ham created the better chances of the half and are a goal up.

24 minutes ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

Hopefully I can find another decent old show

Cheers and MASH have aged well imo. Blackadder, NewsRadio and Father Ted are also good. I rewatched Scrubs (minus season 9), Malcolm in the Middle, Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Sanford and Son and 3rd Rock from the Sun over the past couple of years and enjoyed the lot.

United's forwards can't hit the broadside of a barn though. We couldn't even exert any sort of control against two sides (at home) that are very likely going to be in the bottom 8 of the table and our ball retention under even a modicum of pressure has been diabolical. It's going to be a bloodbath against Arsenal.

Relieved we got the win but that performance was utter rubbish yet again. The only player who can hold his head up after that shit show is Bruno. One would have been forgiven for thinking that it was United down to 10 men in the last 15 minutes + added time. We've got no control of a game at all. Arsenal are going to embarrass us.