benjii

Definitely improved this season. Hopefully Hojbjerg manages a similar step-up next season. Van Dijk Cedric Bertrand Romeu Boufal Tadic Redmond Gabbiadini Add in the improving JWP and reliable Yoshida and, if there aren't big departures, we're only a couple of decent signings away from being a very good team.

Agree. And he's been working with a few duff tools this season as well.

Most of our bad results have been due to players messing up. In virtually every match, except against the very top teams, we limit the opposition to a small number of chances and we create a fair few ourselves. That's the sign of good coaching and organisation.

In fairness, it's good for Everton if Man U win but I think the gist of your post is still correct!

There are 11. Your device is gash.

I think that's right. He's an unpredictable mixture of all-sorts of policies without any real coherent thread or direction and half the time he doesn't really know what he's talking about. In short, he is ill-suited for any sort of political office....... I think it's undeniable his supporting cast are pretty right-wing though.

I can't disagree with that.

I'm fairly certain that will be the 11 players that start. Just a question of shape but it's going to be something like that. As you say, it would be good to have some more height in the team as United are quite big and I do worry about that but he may take the view that the best form of defence is for us to be on our game in possession. Bench will presumably be: Hassan, Caceres, McQueen/Martina, Clasie, Hojbjerg, Boufal, Long. The only real other candidates are Gardos, Jay Rod and Sims but I expect Caceres will be ahead of Gardos and he would like to have two central midfielders on the bench so Sims and Jay Rod will miss out. If Caceres is deemed versatile enough you could have another forward instead of McQueen/Martina but that would be a bit of a gamble.

Yes, but he won't. He's got as much chance of winning the league as Tony Pulis or Fat Sam. He didn't do anything innovative or interesting. He set them up with two fairly rigid banks of 4, they sat deep, got away with murder in a lot of matches and whacked it up the pitch to two players having the best season of their career. It happened to work over the course of a season which, frankly, was a miracle. I don't want us appointing managers because they once had an unbelievably lucky season.

It's still going well then... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39064149

Ages. HTH.

Turkish is right. I wouldn't want him as Saints manager.

Two third of the Earth is covered by water. The rest by Ngolo Kante.

Irrelevant now we have Gabba. An average-sized gun, not a big one.

Is he Ron, Dave or Duncan? Ernie? Bert?

I looked up Blackbridge, and its accounts, on Companies House..... wasn't exactly bowled over!

Fair enough, it's not that clear! I was trying to say that the idea that a big profit is "bad" tends towards a lower selling price. A lower selling price means more likelihood of some chancer being able to scrape together the funds from somewhere.

Yes, that's fine. I was just wondering if you knew anything about the Americans!

Interesting. Any idea what sort of bidder (wealthy family / institutional investor / corporate etc?)?

You're having a laugh! Mine is more proud, more veiny, and has a greater angle of elevation. It's clearly bigger too. Edit: sorry, wrong forum section.

What are you talking about? They wrote off a bunch of loans initially (about £30m I think). Providing capital via loans provides various tax advantages so is sensible. They refinanced the Vibrac loan that Cortese took out with a better loan on softer terms secured against Kat's personal estate. There is no evidence that she is "desperate to claw back a few million". And I think a "few million" is a pretty disingenuous way to describe something like £30 - 50million. Pompey was running unsustainably and was owned by criminal families in hock themselves to all sorts of murky interests. They needed to get money out because they were in all sorts of personal predicaments and they didn't give a toss about the football club. Watch Arkadi Gaydamak speaking about Beitar Jerusalem then watch anything the Liebherrs have ever said about Sanits and you might see how stupid you sound. Your house point is utter dribble and drivel. What drives the increase in value, if not in part the renovations? And if you were spending money on renovations as in investment then of course you would factor the costs into the returns. You're making yourself sound quite simple. You seem to be suggesting that if the club is sold it should be sold for the smallest amount possible (based on your crack-pot theories of value etc.). Why? Why would that help anyone? That just opens up the pool of buyers to less wealthy / less well-backed outfits. I have absolutely no idea what point you are trying to make. Do you want to spend a bit of time thinking about it then try again?

If it's a good sporting poem you're after, I prefer "American Football" by Harold Pinter: Hallelullah! It works. We blew the **** out of them. We blew the **** right back up their own ass And out their ****ing ears. It works. We blew the **** out of them. They suffocated in their own ****! Hallelujah. Praise the Lord for all good things. We blew them into ****ing ****. They are eating it. Praise the Lord for all good things. We blew their balls into shards of dust, Into shards of ****ing dust. We did it. Now I want you to come over here and kiss me on the mouth.

It was always about you.

What's that got to do with rugby at Twickenham?