S-Clarke

It was all fake anyway, so no real loss.

I didn't ever know where they were getting their money from anyway. They probably knew their entire sham was unsustainable, there was probably some very corrupt reason behind this deal. My hunch is involving some sort of money flowing between countries, hidden inside a sponsorship deal. They did what they needed in year 1, faked it all, and now they can 'break clause'. Gao probably knew every single thing about it, It was probably in his benefit. Lots of guesses and assumptions there for sure, but it always stunk of a corrupt relationship for reasons not benefiting our club.

Apart from the fact he's got 131 goals in 394 games as a winger! He missed a sitter, but he is a pretty lethal finisher from the wide areas in pretty much 9/10 games. They lost this due to Pep's total tactical overthinking in the first half. I don't know why some coaches worry so much about the oppo, just play to your own strengths and believe in your own philosophy. Yes, plan for their strengths, but don't abandon your entire identity to try and nullify them. They abandoned everything in the first half. So weird.

This was an absolute disaster from the word go. It wasn't a valid company from the off, they tried to create content on their website which was a direct copy of our OS. I have no idea what their purpose as a company was, what they do, what they offer. There were lots of lies and made up bullshit in their pages as well. The must suss and horrific sponsorship deal we've ever had. We'll probably lose out financially due to this as well, but good riddens to dodgy as hell crap. Hopefully Gao follows, as i'm sure he was involved heavily in getting this deal over the line in the first place.

Looked at the options a bit more myself earlier, including the instalment plan. Wouldn't be able to afford the two initial payments atm (they'd both come out in August now too, so double whammy in one month). I think that counts me out for this year unfortunately. Certainly not adding to a credit card in this current climate.

Anyway, yeah, we shouldn't buy Butland.

Given that they spent £30m on former Middlesbrough Championship player, Martin Braithwaite, I'm sure we have a chance.

And he's only gone and scored. Barca need to sort their shit out, that club is run like a circus.

Coutinho is playing against his parent club? Who the hell is on the Barca board negotiating that sort of deal...? That's bizarre. Didn't a similar thing happen at Monaco a few years ago with Morientes? Vaguely remember similar.

Stoke fans will be happy to see the back of him if their forums are anything to go by, happy to take 3m. There has been talk of him going to Leeds for 8m and some fans are ready to drive him there. He's certainly lost his way, looks very similar to Hart and Forster to me. That's why we'd be daft to go near given the situation we have with Forster.

What the hell was up with Pique there, has he been told not to defend?

Really isn't any tactical thinking there! Just give it to Messi and let him run seems to be the approach. They have some great players in De Jong, Griezmann etc and they just struggle because there's seemingly no tactical shape or manager philosophy for them to adapt.

Why do Barca have a habit of appointing these random coaches these days? You'd think a club of their fame and standing could attract any manager in the entire world. This isn't the first time they've had someone not really known who failed - Martino was another, a few years ago. They had Valverde too, not massively high profile and he failed too.

I'm of the same view to be honest, probably a controversial view but never mind, world is about opinions! What is the reasoning behind the forth official wearing a mask, the subs wearing a mask, but the players and rest of the staff mask free? What is that achieving exactly? Same as all this social distancing in the changing rooms, both teams not entering the pitch at the same time - they share the same frigging pitch for 90 mins and are on top of each other? I don't get it, honestly I don't. I doubt we'll see any return to normality for high profile sports such as football until everyone has had a vaccine, which I'm sure will be compulsory. Digital NHS passport anyone... anyway, not the topic for that!

Proper game this is!

I wouldn't touch him with a barge pole. McCarthy is better than him, so is Gunn probably. Lost his way in a similar way to Hart and dare i say it, even Forster. Probably won't even regain the level he was once at. He wasn't even a regular for Stoke at the back end of last season as they'd had enough of his mistakes. Think it was the Leeds game where Stoke were thrashed 5 or 6, he didn't get a look in after that.

I have a feeling Wesley may be the only one we could get a 'potential' fee for, something in the region of 5m would be fine I think. Club need to lose their pride and accept the loss.

There were some little links to him as well, I remember reading some articles where his odds were discussed, even after Claude went iirc. He was doing a great job at Hoffenhiem at that point too. It's ok, we got the up and coming Pellegrino instead.

If Ralph was now at City, Utd, Chelsea etc they'd all be chatting about his involvements with RBL, no doubts. Keep him under the radar here, no problems with that!

Great to see Leipzig through to the Semi's! Exciting team really, and a lot of credit has to go to Ralph for what he built there. Julian Nagglsman has taken it on to another level, but Ralph put down some great foundations there.

Agreed, should be accepting something like 9 or 8m for him. Something is better than nothing. I know we probably want our money back, but that is simply never, ever going to happen.

Rebranded friendly's 😉

Yuck, another loan. Not going to help us!

What they could do to ease congestion is remove those pointless international friendly breaks...

Thanks for the update - can't fault our club, it seems like they are actively trying to address this. But like you said, it's all driven by outside regulations and rules as well. (and it's not a static picture either). It's tricky. There will be winners and losers with any method to be honest, fairest way to me seems to be an open ballot to all ST Holders, weighted so that people who didn't get chosen first time have a better chance next time etc, attendance from previous seasons etc. Makes the most sense, but they've also got to consider bubbles of families being together. I know I wouldn't be able to go with friends like before as none of my usual crowd are renewing, so I'll probably be standing on my own socially distancing if I did renew!