Chelsea can’t sack Poch because his pay off would potentially tip them over the threshold for FFP. Chelsea just keep delivering

Troyes in France make a record signing of Savio a Brazilian forward, he’s immediately loaned to Girona where he does well and is then sold to Man City for the start of next year. He never once played for Troyes. Troyes and Girona are both part of the City Group. They can place signings with these feeder clubs (without a cost to Man City in accounting terms) and just cherry pick the ones that do well. The next step for Fifa and uefa is to clamp down on these multi club ownership models

I am sorry to say but no one is beating City to the title.

Their big players are all fit again and their squad depth is insane.

De Bruyne is such a great player to have when attempting to overcome low blocks. His passing, shooting, crossing are all elite

One thing that someone remarked on is City's willingness to shoot from distance. It draws defenders and midfielders out to block and creates some space behind. We need to do more of that.

It’s funny how after he was so bitter on Sunday mocking the celebrations that Carragher has kind of doubled down in a way. He’s keeping it in the headlines by making jokes and kind of poking fun at himself. This is done because he realised the backlash he got and he realised he was totally wrong - so he makes light of it all as if to say ‘it was a throwaway jokey comment…’ and now hopes the tables turn on those giving him stick as if to say ‘you’re over reacting’ Neville has done this with Arsenal fans plenty of times - get called out for your poor analysis and bias analysis and then make it all jokey ‘oh Arsenal fans hate me’

You see it in the media in general. Arsenal are picked on, held to different standards and it gets a reaction from the fans - then they pile in on the fan base saying they can’t take criticism. They need to face up to their original comment and defend/argue it or admit they were wrong instead of deflecting it away

I think England do have a real chance of success as the generation now appearing are of the highest quality. Not sure about Kane fitting in with the young ones. He might be the Jimmy Greaves of his generation and like 1966 another player will be the fit to win a trophy.

I am with you on this issue. I would love us to rub Liverpool nose into the ground by seasons end. I can’t stand them and there sense of entitlement.

I would find it hilarious the next time we won a big game if our players and manager made a show of being over restrained post match - rigid handshakes all round, a tip of the cap to the fans and trotting off the pitch in unified formation. No over celebrating here officer!

This is entertaining:

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2024/feb/05/todd-boehlys-chelsea-are-a-1bn-mess

...."Say they sold Moisés Caicedo next summer for the £100m they paid for him: yes, they would reduce costs from his amortisation and wages, but his eight-year contract means the profit would only be £100m minus his book value which, with seven of the eight years of his contract remaining would be £87.5m: that is, £12.5m."

Mudryk is on about £100k per week and he has an 8.5 year contract, so as long as he keeps his nose clean, he is guaranteed £43m. How are you going to motivate him, Todd?

Yep, gotta hand it to the yanks and their blue sky thinking approach to the business of sport.

I’m loving it. Carragher and Neville were both mediocre who just happened to play alongside good players. Vidic was the better of the Ferdinand partnership. They’re just so sour at seeing someone do well while they reminisce about some bygone era when they didn’t celebrate anything apparently.

This was a huge match that we largely dominated and won against one of the best in the league. Enjoy.

The way they’ve gone about it is like trading Panini stickers in the playground while smugly saying “Got it” as the other kids try to trade cards.

Not me, I’d prefer they bring out a marching band and start letting off fireworks just to rub the pundits noses in it.

All well and good but if they can’t even prosecute Man City for over a 100 breaches of FFP while Everton get smacked instantly I have very little faith.

One would reach this conclusion if you were a 14 year old. Neville was very complimentary of us throughout and I thought very even handed. Neville hates Liverpool and always has.

This is patent nonsese. Both very solid pros who'd have got into any Premeirship team.

Yes, or there is the doubling down option!

Agreed, both top level players but they were outshone by better players within their respective very good sides, particularly Man U. Rio was absolutely top class when he played - but he's a bit of a moron at punditry. He talks like a 15 year old street kid and adds nothing of any value to the listener apart from tired cliches from his day and generally trying to make his time and himself generally feel superior to anyone else. Far too many ex players believe that because they were at the top of the game in their playing days it automatically makes them more qualified and better to speak about football in their non playing days.

At the moment you can go on line and find far better tactical analysis of any game during and after a game than anything Sky generally put out - I will admit to enjoying some of the more considered sky pieces when they haven't got a game to build up to.

The chat after the Liverpool game was ridiculous - not a word on the actual game and trying to tell us how Arsenal outfoxed Klopp with the 2 10's (exactly as we did in the FA Cup) instead just piling in to Arsenal again saying we don't have a 30 goal a season striker.

I woudl Love it, Love it if we win the thing - so many pundits will have nowhere left to hide.

In the opening 15 minutes Neville was complimentary, but thereafter there was a lot of moaning considering we were generally dominating the game.

Neville ironically was very supportive of us in the later Wenger days, he didn't jump on the Arsenal bashing bandwagon - but since about Arteta's 3rd season he's consistently got most things wrong to do with us and hasn't ever admitted he was wrong. I think its fine to ay we need a 30 goal a season striker, everyone says that - but maybe offer some more objective analysis that we actually scored 88 goals last year and it was keeping them out with silly mistakes that actually cost us the title not the lack of a 30 goal a season striker.

Then look at the analysis after the game, virtually nothing on how we just dominated the most in form team in the land and second best team over the last 6 years, not just dominated but really didn't give them a sniff as the stats bore out. Surely that was far more worthy of discussion than the tired old 'yeah it was good but they still need a striker, more maturity blah blah'

The only thing than can slow (not stop) City is the penalty for violating FFP. City will dominate the league for years to come. The only club I think that will, in time, challenge them is Newcastle as crazy as that sounds. Newcastle have Saudi money and that is bottomless and they will spend and do whatever they feel they must to win the title. It may not come for a half dozen years but they will spend to that end.

City did the same originally. Remember the days when, first Hughes, then Mancini was the manager when they got their sugar daddy and they were buying the best player they could talk into coming? Robinho, and others, and there was no plan, just buy the best we can get.

The league as it stands is done. Best, we, Liverpool and perhaps a future resurgent Chelsea or Man Utd can do is challenge and every once in a blue moon (no pun intended), nip them ala Dortmund in the Bundesliga.

TV fixtures released until the end of march and we're heavily picked.
Sheff u (a)
Newcastle (h)
Brentford (h)
Chelsea (h)
City (a)

all picked for TV

Why didn't we buy anyone in the transfer window? Did we make any bids? I didn't follow closely enough. Or did we feel we didn't need strengthening? Who we really wanted wasn't available for whatever reason(s) and we didn't want to buy 'less'?

The question this summer for me is do we keep Havertz or not. Against Liverpool he did a few good things. He's still not confident scoring though. He should have done better one on one with the keeper for an attacking player. He's certainly not worth the 60 mil we paid for him or even close. But that doesn't mean he hasn't played decently just not good enough to warrant his fee.

End of the season, say thanks, good luck, cut our losses and get someone in or promote someone who can do better consistently.

From what I read there is money to spend but we're on the edge of not complying with FFP and P&S rules - as are a lot of teams. So effectively we need to wait for the next accounting year to spend again. Or we would have had to have sold to spend.

The trend now is that due to FFP academy players are seen has a great way of generating revenue in book keeping terms because they count as pure profit when sold. If you sell an academy product for £10m, you have £10m, but you have more than that to spend for FFP rules because you could in theory sign a £50m player on a 5 year deal because in accounting terms that new player only cost £10m per year of his deal so it balances out the £10m pure profit from your academy player. Now obviously if you do lots of deals this way you continually have to find that £10m academy sale (or other sale) to offset the accounting value of the player you bought for £50m for the next 4 years of his contract as well.

This is why Chelsea are looking at selling Gallagher even though he's turned in to an important player for them this year, and why if Man U sold Rashford it would ease all their current FFP worries. Ditto us for Nketiah, Nelson and Emile Smith Rowe.

In principle the same applies to a player who has been with the club a long time so their 5 year initial deal has passed so there is no more transfer fee on that player for accounting terms. You can sell them for 'pure pure profit as well'

Pochettino added: “When we lost to Liverpool, it was: massive fail, oh look at Chelsea, how bad it is. [When] Liverpool lost to Arsenal, I didn’t hear anything. But it was a similar result to when we played against Liverpool.

Doesn't take a genius to work this one out Poch. Liverpool sit top of the league and it was seen as a one off defeat whilst Chelsea sit 11th and are getting their pants pulled down every single week

https://twitter.com/EndWokeness/status/ ... 8639059994

If you still doubt that there are demonstrations in Dublin see the link.

Can't remeber who it was that was taking the piss because they claimed everything was hunky dory in Eire. This is just one example of the people marching against immigration.+

So I guess the big spenders, including ourselves, saw what happened to Everton and are now saying 'So, they are serious?'

It was somebody actually from Eire claiming everything was hunky dory there Chris, rather than a wind up extreme right wing Twitter page. As in one of the members of this forum.

Oh, and I’ve just spoken to my other half’s cousin who lives in Dublin, and says these folk are “small in number, and smaller in brainpower”. Her words.

Strange Nigel Farage just reported there were 10000 people there and Herman Kelly was amongst those speaking, leader of one of the Irish parties.

There was a pro Palestine march yesterday but who knows what to believe today. Disinformation or what?

That would have been my reaction to your claim that there was carnage in Ireland which was complete and utter b%*&s%*^.

There is a group of far right anti-immigration agitators here. About a hundred of them turned up at our government buildings last year and as well as shouting at politicians they were highly abusive to regular civil servants just turning up for work and robbed a young student's phone. Oh, they also staged a couple of protests outside Cork City Library because they don't like some of the books. So ya, an enlightened bunch. How many representatives do they have in our parliament? Zero.

Not believing anything Nigel Farage says would seem a sensible place to start.

I hadn't heard of Hermann Kelly before so I looked him up. Apparently he got less than 1% of the vote when he stood for election in Dublin. With that level of support it's surprising he even has a Wikipedia page, though with bubblychris among his supporters it's less surprising that he too is rather obsessed with "women with penises".

fyi I had never heard of the guy before tonight.

Your last paragh is an obcene misinterpretation of my comments about women with penises.

If you are woke and a leftie I can understand your cheap jibes. If you're not then you are extremely stupid imo. There is an unhealthy obsession amongst the transgender activists that I find absolutely disgusting and that you can make snide comments leaves no doubt in my mind that you are either ignorant or brainwashed.

My other obsession, as you'd call it, is with the grooming gangs and I feel obliged to raise this too when something comes up about them in the news. I presume in your filthy mind you think I am also a peadophile which is far from the truth but if you do ever make such a comment you better look over your shouder when you go walkabout because I will have another obsession in righting another wrong.

Be careful with your personal comments and heed my warning as I don't give up easily when i have something in mind.

Blessed are the peacemakers… so here goes
Guys …in the spirit of Steve let’s keep it civil
We are all gooners albeit from different walks of life different upbringings different ages different socio economic groups …… as the French would say let’s vive la difference
Vigorous debate yes veiled threats no
Disagreee yes disrespect no
All you need is love

I started to look at the run ins of us, city and Liverpool and was struck by how straight forward City’s looks…..again. I get that everyone plays everyone twice so an easy run in means you had it harder somewhere else, but there are good and bad times to have your fixtures, and easier fixtures when the pressure is on and you’re likely cramming those fixtures in due to cup games and postponements is definitely favourable!

Anyway, I had a perception that City always get an easy run in but needed to test that in case it was just my perception because they always steamroller wins in the home straight.

If you take the toughest 5 games of the season as away to the fellow big 6 sides then in the last 7 seasons City have had to go away to a big 6 side only 4 times in their final 10 games. So 4 in 70 games. By contrast Arsenal have had to go away to a big 6 side 14 times, including 3 times this season.

We have a tough run in again so we need to make the most of our next 6 before we play City, if we want to win the title it feels like we need to win all 6. No slip ups at all

Don't do it to yourself, Rich. I made that mistake last season.

City are a machine with incredible strength in depth and somehow seem to have all their big players fit when it comes to the business end of the season. Even Haaland and De Bruyne being out made little difference and now they are both back look out. No one is stopping them bar some sort of unprecedented injury crisis.

We beat Liverpool, which was fantastic, but we still had to rely on two massive Liverpool errors to get us the goals to win it.

Somehow we need to become more ruthless and more clinical, and rotate more where we can, otherwise every game in the run-in becomes a slog, physically and emotionally draining.

Killing teams off when on top allows for better energy conservation and better use of substitutes but we don't have that killer instinct. It cost us last season and it will likely do so again this season. We lost the Liverpool cup tie because we couldn't finish our chances.

As an example, the Havertz attempted finish when put through on goal was actually very poor but we got lucky with the rebound that fell to Saka. We have to be more clinical in those kinds of situations because you can't expect to get lots of big chances in every game, especially against the top sides.

Just rewinding to last season, one other factor was we came apart when Saliba was injured. What have we done this season to cover such eventuality. Frankly I don't believe we have a plan. Maybe I have missed our plan B .

Fair points Gaz and Soc. I remember looking at the run in around Christmas and though similar to Rich, it’s tough. Probably shouldn’t forget either that in the period of City dominance there has been the best Liverpool side in the last 30 years that have won the league once?

The petrodoppers are akin to a Russian sports academy and the only thing that’s likely to even the field a b it is if they’re smacked with some serious FFP damages.

The only part I disagree on is there have been signs of 1 touch passes and quicker play, like the Ødegaard chip that coincidentally put Havertz through. And Havertz had a pretty good game up front when he’s being played all over the joint. I still want sharper finishing but I can see glimmers that would make me believe this is being worked on.

Man City will fold of course when Arsenal win it.

P.s. isn’t it such a nice change to go into big games and know that we’ve got a chance and not just resigned to getting killed.

How’s things up your way Gaz? Doesn’t make good reading in the news so hope you’re staying dry.

Yeah had cyclone thru about 2 weeks ago. It was a cat 2 and really strange. Global warming is even making them even more unpredictable. Minimal damage: trees, branches down and back fence blown down but little rain. Just propped fence up again but it needs replacing. But otherwise week after week of heatwaves. The aircon is working 24/7. But we are still in with a chance of the EPL so life is okay. What about you.

Timber has been added to our CL squad list. Still hopeful of seeing him for the run in, but we should be wary of any big impact because the rate of minor niggles after coming back from an ACL are very high. And should they happen fans should stop short of labelling him injury prone.

Tomiyasu is back which is very helpful for a bit of depth in defence as it feels like we've only had 5 defenders for some time now. I can't see anywhere now where Saliba and Gabriel get a break which is why I'd have a CB at their level on the summer shopping list