shurlock

A case of being right for all the wrong reasons.

Agree. Cant rewrite the past but Morgan will leave on good terms and get a decent reception from me if we come up against him again. Will be more indifferent towards Clyne - that said, he never lied about his reasons for joining us -game-time at a higher level- and its an arrangement that has suited both parties. We really did get him for a snip off palace. Like you, not sure whether Vic will extend his contract; but we do need him to stay another season, if only to ease the transition from Morgan.

Think most people accept losing NC and MS. The key is how we deal with the next tier of players like Victor and Jrod. Unless we've truly discovered the footballing Grail, expect to see some mean reversion in the effectiveness and efficiency of our transfer dealings - something which will be easier to absorb if we have fewer rather than more players to replace.

Got sand in your vagina again? Stop fretting over what is a piece of good news after months of setbacks and radio silence.

Yeh that was my follow-up question.

To clarify, is it irrelevant whether the FA cup winners finish in a CL place or a Europa League place - another league spot will be freed up? (my understanding is that last season, Arsenal, having won the FA cup cup, had to finish outside the top 4 for the 7th place team to get the Europa spot at the expense of Hull).

A deflected cross for punch (chelsea away) and one for fonte (arsenal home); but think that's about it.

Martin Keown: "he has to dive to get out of the way, definite pen" .

Martin Keown is f**king clueless. "He didn't touch the ball, he can't be offside".

Any Dutch or German side; also fancy Portugal as well as the likes of Shakhter Donetsk, Hadjuk Split, Marseille, Qarabag and PAOK. Out of the Turkish clubs, Trabzonspor has an appeal - looks a lovely place.

There are other factors that might have contributed to the decision of an OGSO being overturned, including the presence of a defender, the distance to goal and the fact that Mané was off balance, though Adrian arguably threw him off balance through the handball. No, my larger point is that the rule, as formulated, is a discretionary, not a mandatory one (say like the decision to award a corner or throw-in). That is to say, there is nothing in the rulebook stating that every case in which the player is not moving towards goal, it cannot be a OGSO. That fact will obviously count against the player (balanced against other factors), but it won't automatically rule out an OGSO, as you were originally and wrongly implying. In reality, there will be a broad and rich spectrum of cases where the player is running away from goal -from a player rounding the keeper to Manė's situation, from moving 1 degree away from goal to 180 degrees - some will be deemed an OGSO, others won't -and that flexibility is deliberately provided for by the rules. The hope is that there will be enough precedents, enough Mané-type situations on record to help refs flesh out these ambiguities to the point where they begin to look like a codified, mandatory rule; but ultimately every situation is unique and will depend on discretion of the ref.

So your intial post was technically incorrect and misleading - there is no hard and fast or automatic rule saying that there is no goal scoring opportunity for a player running away from goal. It simply says that direction of play is one factor that the referee should consider, though weigh alongside a whole host of other factors when making a decision.

That was near on 15 years ago and arguably the rewards for CL football -financial and reputational- have increased significantly since that time. Leeds is a poor analogy as it repeatedly bet the house on making the CL, a back-to-front approach which is nothing like we've done. Would one CL campaign make us perennial top four challengers? Of course, not. But it is arguable that it could help establish our place in the top seven, possibly displacing the likes of Everton for a few years.

Why? Have no great love for scousers but don't feel we've been stitched by them. We sold Lovren and Lallana for very good money and they've largely disappointed. We typically do well against them and their fans, harking back to a golden age that's long gone, engender mirth more than anything. They have plenty of plastics, though push come to shove, they know their place and won't try their luck. On the whole, their fanbase has been very complimentary about the football we've played -indeed, Anfield is one of the few grounds I've been to where fans don't begrude a result. Going to WHL is a completely different experience - their essexboy support is mouthy, fickle and pigs**t ignorant (I had a cabbie moaning to me the other week how Arsenal always scored at the death). They've nicked results against us in recent years, despite us playing the better football. Add the crass opportunism of Levy who thought it would be clever to put in a lowball offer for Schneiderlin, hoping to exploit the summer turmoil -and above all, a manager who led us up the garden path for months, even though recent interviews would lead you to believe that our current position is all down to him. And yeh I would say it is a topic for discussion.

Mongboard is the only slang word that will last the test of time - hell, people will be disappearing down academic wormholes, devoting entire PhDs to the term. Can imagine it now - "A philosophical, sociolinguistic interpretation of the mongboard: A critical reappraisal of John Stuart Mill's marketplace of ideas".

Not really. Medicine is the only real example -and perhaps to a lesser extent, modern languages. More importantly, fees for demanding subjects from good universities are capped far, far below what they would be if universities were free to charge what they wanted or, in some cases, needed. That is, they are the most aggressively subsidised degrees while remaining the monopoly of the richest, most able-to-pay students and families.

Forget establishing a new order, we're becoming more like the gang of four.

Very good.

Guess the gay sway won't be making a comeback.

How about since Pelle stopped scoring?

No, that's the house style for many papers where a quote extends several paragraphs. Quotation marks are necessary to open every paragraph, but to close only the last.

Really? Without any journos prompting him by mentioning Clasie's name?

Has Koeman explicitly said before, without prompting, that we're interested in Clasie?

What about the player who attempts to round the keeper and shifts to the side? Isn't he technically running away from goal, both in terms of distance and direction?

Not thinking as far ahead as the OP. Missed out on 2003; just want some away days in deepest, darkest Europe.