Jimmy_D

Not sure how Leeds' goal snuck in, but it's completely changed the game now.

Have to admit I thought it'd be a bit longer than this, and I guess it could just be an off day, but it's looking like a combination of the step up to the Premier League and Bielsa's tactics are starting to take a toll on Leeds' squad already. They look pretty much done in this game at least.

Top of any league would be the Championship promotion season. For top flight, it was before the Premier League era. Might have hit top in 1984 when we finished 2nd maybe?

Could be tricky, especially depending on the injuries, but beating Chelsea without Ings springs to mind. Newcastle don’t tend to travel to St Mary’s well, and we’ve got the incentive of top spot if we manage to win.

Feels a bit odd to be interested in Man Utd v Arsenal for league position but we’re almost a quarter of the way through the season and above both of them. At the moment at least, we’re competing at the top end of the table, I’m personally hoping for draw here.

https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/18838514.hasenhuttl-issues-injury-updates-bednarek-bertrand/ Hamstring issue for Bertrand, headache (so possible concussion) for Bednarek. Nothing on severity/timescale yet.

Indeed, that is a positive, but unfortunately ‘tis not a guarantee that it’s not serious.

https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/18838446.hasenhuttl-left-sweating-ings-knee-injury/ Hasenhuttl’s full quotes not quite as bleak, but obviously we’re going to be waiting on the scan to see how it is.

Everton currently 1-0 down, and we play before everyone else next Friday...

Newcastle 1-0 up. If Everton don’t win we can go top on Friday!

Oh no

Up to third! Obviously biggest worry right now is Ings, hope that was just a knock... Now if Everton could fail to win and we win next Friday we’ll go top!

Here’s hoping that wasn’t too bad

At least PPV games have made looking forward to MotD a thing again! As things stand, we’re actually in a title battle

500-1 is probably decent value, but you're looking at finding and making hundreds of bets of that sort of value before you start seeing a return. The time you need to invest to have a decent chance of making money usually means it's not worth it in the end. That said, imagine we actually go and win the bloody thing and you had £10 at those odds

Pretty close to a complete performance! Comfortable win and Everton restricted to a handful of half chances. Our ball retention and pressing was especially effective today. On top of that we looked dangerous every time we went forward.

The point is that teams that normally get shown on sky are paying far less to watch the same number of games for the exact same product. Yes, it’s a replacement for games that wouldn’t normally be shown, but going to games to watch them literally isn’t an option at the moment. Sky are taking advantage of a monopoly gifted to them by a global pandemic to charge far more than they would for any other game, prices comparable to going to the games themselves, and it fans of the less fashionable clubs that are being disproportionately affected.

See Crystal Palace have 5 games in a row on PPV, including today. Absolutely shafting fans of the teams that don’t get shown on TV almost every week.

With the players Everton have out, as long as we play anywhere near how we did in the second half against Chelsea, I'm expecting us to win this one fairly comfortably.

So looks like the 'founder' members of the league won't be relegated for 20 years. In effect, a closed shop for the next two decades... can't say that I'd be that interested in watching a league that stale.

Depends on whether it's a competition you have to qualify for. If it is, it's more or less replacing the Champions League. That's not a move I'd be a fan of, but it likely wouldn't change much beyond the music used at the start of the match.

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/12109174/european-premier-league-liverpool-and-manchester-united-in-talks-for-fifa-backed-tournament Looks more like FIFA are trying to replace the Champions League and have them in charge of a competition rather than UEFA. Doesn't look like it's about replacing domestic competitions, not yet anyway. Does feel like that much European club football would interfere with the domestic leagues though, I suspect that was the motivation behind the drive of Project Big Picture to reduce the number of teams to 18.

Out for the season is probably the best case scenario for Liverpool. Obviously he’ll have the best treatment available, but even so, it’s possibly career threatening.

Ouch. VvD needs surgery on his ACL, likely out for the season.