Saka has 11 assists so far this season. I think the Prem only counts it as 10 as I don't think they count winning a penalty as an assists - which is nonsense considering the likelihood of scoring a penalty is 80%, so its one of the best assists you can make.

Prem record shared by Henry and De Bruyne is 20. Saka has 25 games to get another 11 assists

Jarrod Gillett (well known Liverpool fan) on VAR for our midweek game v Man U. He's been ref or VAR in 5 of our games this season, more than 1/3rd.

Anyone else notice how pally Haaland seemed to be during the match with the Liverpool players?

I’d be fuming if I was Guardiola and a true fan of the 115.

Haaland is such a strange bloke. Even my wife who has little interest in football said there is something odd about him, robotic and kind of devoid of human personality. Maybe that is being hugely unkind but there is something.

His 'stay humble' to Arteta after they scraped that undeserved late draw at their place was weird. It was also the start of their downfall. We shocked them, they realised they were mortal and I believe they saw not only were we not afraid of them but that we felt/knew we were superior (they felt that), all combined with the loss of Rodri is was the catalyst

Interesting graph. Quality of chances conceded along the X axis and conversion rate of your opponents on the Y axis.
Bottom left is where you want to be, top right (City!) is where you don't want to be.
Also top left is the place where you may consider that you've either been unlucky conceding goals to high quality finishing (or poor goalkeeping) and bottom right is where your GK is bailing you out or opponents aren't taking their chances they create against you - so lucky.

There is a clear 5 good defences in the league. I read the graph as our defence being better than Liverpool's as we concede fewer high quality chances but teams have finished at a better rate against us than against Liverpool so far.....and much of the data will be skewed by those 3 games we were down to 10 men.

And he was the the VAR who sent Saliba off before our game vs Liverpool. That’s as close to the bent allegations being justified as I can recall.

While Liverpool draw Accrington Stanley and Chelsea draw Morecambe we bloody well draw Man U.
At least we're at home

Fantastic win on Saturday.
Don't care what anyone says that was a tricky game.
West ham have bloodied our noses a fair few times so to see us play superbly in the first half was a joy to behold.
It did get a bit scary at 4 2 so to get that 5th just before half time definitely settled us.
Question is who is going to stop Liverpool on this form. Yes they have had an easier start but they keep on winning games and have done Real Madrid and City in a week

City v Salford and Tamworth v Tottenham....talk about our rivals pulling easy games. So annoying

and Chelsea t home to Morecambe.

A tough FA Cup 3rd round draw for us but at least we're at home. I think we'll beat them, if we do it is a nice confidence booster. I'd much rather play non league sides all the way though. We can't exactly put out the kids v Man U. Arteta has to go hard at the cups this year, he has a deep squad and some slight rotation shouldn't be much of a drop off - we should go close to full strength in my view

Liverpool v Accrington Stanley will stir up thousands of plays of that famous milk advert from the 80's

The most annoying part about the draw is we play Man U on 11th Jan and 4 days later we play Spurs on the 15th in the league. Spurs against a non league side can put out their reserves and get a full weeks rest for the team to face us.

24/25 3rd round - Man U
23/24 3rd round - Liverpool
22/23 4th round - City

Utd are at Anfield before the cup match. You would think they will throw everything at that.

I think we knew this would happen but I think there is a huge difference generally to the reaction of Liverpool going for and leading the title race vs us in the last two seasons. Of course partisan fans/pundits etc will put whoever down, but the amount of goodwill for Liverpool vs people almost desperate for us to slip up is crazy.

Talksport this morning talked about the 3 contract situations and it was all about ‘I really hope they stay and it doesn’t throw them off their title bid’ you could absolutely take the more negative stance of ‘they’ve made a big problem for themselves and it can’t not be an issue later in the year’

Villa struggling now they have to contend with 2 high intensity games a week, just like Newcastle last season when they were in Europe. Spurs also continue to struggle to put back to back Thursday/Sunday performances in.
We’ve been able to do it for 3 seasons now, Liverpool and City as well. Chelsea looking like they’re managing but they’re only in the conference league so their first 11 is only playing 1 game a week.

It’s so hard for the nearly teams to really break in to the top tier because even when they have a surprise good season they will be over burdened the season after. They just don’t have the depth and the quality to go at 2 games a week for most of the season

Haaland still strikes me as a flat track bully, who detracts almost as much as he adds to the City team.

Mind you, the selection of Nunez and Lewis as wide players was so timid, its not really a surprise Haaland didn't get a look in. Not to mention playing an out-of-form Foden in midfield with Silva and Gundogan. Pep's impersonation of an invertebrate caught in the headlights during this bad city run is pretty shocking. I can't imagine a SAF or Maurinho putting up so little fight.

RIP Neale Fraser - Wimbledon champ of my youth, along with all those other memorable Aussie players - Lew Hoad, Ashley Cooper, Mal Anderson, Merv Rose, Ken Rosewall, Bob Howe, Roy Emerson, Bob Hewitt, Fred Stolle, Ken Fletcher, Tony Roche, The Newk and the best of all Rocket Rod Laver. And of course Margaret Smith, the time when Australia ruled the game.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/arti ... 4rx09y3qwo

Palace captain Marc Guehi could face a ban because I wrote ‘I love Jesus’ on his rainbow armband which captains wore last weekend in support for LGBTQ in football. Apparently prem laws forbid this kind of thing
Ipswich captain Morsey refused to wear the rainbow armband on religious grounds and was permitted to do so.

It's probably not quite as silly as it seems because there are (and rightly) very strict rules about what players can display on their kit while on the field.

The right not to participate is also well-established (e.g. with taking the knee, or Ronaldo refusing to endorse Coca-Cola, I also recall Hashim Amla refusing to wear beer logos on his kit).

But is it a difficult one to police and can verge on the absurd. For example, if Guehi had worn a "I love Jesus" tee-shirt under his kit and displayed it during a goal celebration (not a likely contingency in his case), would that be OK?

If ever there was an example of keeping politics, sexuality and religion the hell away from football.

Can’t people just watch a football match without having to think about this stuff for a moment. It’s people’s weekly escape.

This isn’t about LBGTQ rights anymore that arrived in 1967 it’s promoting a sexual preference let’s be honest. (Nothing against anyone live your life folks)

I strictly bang brunettes only. I want an armband for that and will be writing to the club.

But football has played a big role in combatting racism, for example. A good thing, surely.

It is hard to know where to draw the line and the LTGBT seems to have crossed that one a long time back.

On the other hand, not liking blondes is just deviant and surely regular intercourse with them should be enforced?

Someone else will have to do a separate armband for the blondes. I shouldn’t be banded in with other groups. I want my diversity to be acknowledged individually. If anyone has a problem with it they should be cancelled or killed or something.

You haven't even mentioned redheads. You must be a member of a far centre party.

and of course there is probably only one other geriatric ret=ard on this forum who has any idea what you are talking about . Spent a few moments rattling the brain cells to see if you'd missed anyone ; came up with Bob Mark and Martin Mulligan .

Vaguely remember around that time the Aussie Federation had some dispute with their players [ no idea what over ] but Hewitt took off to South Africa got a fruitful partnership going with Frew McMillan . Mulligan went to Italy ; Mark I think went to Hong Kong .
Stolle might have gone somewhere .

Aaaaah those good old days ........when players had enough energy to compete in both singles and doubles , hold two balls to serve and didn't feel the burning desire to run back and touch hands at the conclusion of every ***&^$### point

.
When you think about it life ; to some extent is all about timing ; like someone might have secured that elusive No 1 song if Elvis , the Beatles whoever hadn't released a tune at the same time .

After watching the highlights where Liverpool seemingly destroyed Man City coupled with the latter's disastrous form of late ;

I got to thinking if Guardiola's Mob had had this meltdown last season we would have been champions

Bob Hewitt experienced other burning desires and ended up in jail for it.

True Kiwi - we older ones need to draw the memories from the thickness of the past while we still can! Remember wooden rackets and their clamps? Francois Durr's serve, slower than David Lammy's brain? Pancho Gonzalez v Charlie Pasarell?

The good old Dunlop Maxply, strung with catgut I tried a Donnay when I was about 15 and it didn't make me play like Borg.

Annoying isn't it. It wouldn't have even needed this level of meltdown, just 1 goal conceded could have done it

The worlds gone mad chapter 600

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/ar ... jd92z22yno

Waking up middle of the night for our match against United. Hope we dominate and beat them convincingly

Our set piece reputation has opponents having kittens at the moment. We're good at them, everyone knows we're good at them, opponents know, our fans know, opposition fans know. So every corner as a tension to it that only benefits us.

It is almost akin to those days when opponents lined up in that narrow Highbury tunnel and sized up all our 6ft+ players who were also ridiculously skillful and quick and were beaten before they stepped on the pitch.

Us very deliberately taking our time to actually take the corner only adds to the tension. We do need to watch it on the time we take for throw ins though, as whilst I can't imagine getting booked for taking a corner slowly (the ref has bigger things to concentrate on in the box), they will get fussy over throw ins, and more importantly it often gives a home crowd something to get unnecessarily angry about and we can bring a home crowd in to a game that they were otherwise silent in.

What I wouldn't give for not only a win but a thorough trouncing, a 6-0, something to get them back for the 6-1 and 8-2, we've beaten them plenty of times but never really put a hatful past them. I'd absolutely take a 1-0 but I feel if we're on it and get a fast start, swarm all over them and get the early goal we could take them apart. They have pace up top but central midfield and central defence is woefully one pacey and immobile for them.

It is certainly a difficult one. Football has huge influence so in many ways it is right to tackle various issues and has made some big leaps forward in many areas. But perhaps the promotion of any cause should be 'forced' on the clubs rather than individuals. I find with these sorts of things that any good intentions can end up causing so much bother because you can't plan for or foresee how various people will react, and then you have to make a decision which will lead to you having to make more decisions and somehow by your actions and decisions will fall in to being the judge of what is right or wrong and what people must say or think, even if that was never your role or intention. My making it a club thing rather than an individual you won't have to face these political hot potato decisions.

Yeah ... just checked him out ; a fairly unsavoury character ; the bloke is 6'3" and he is lining up 13 year olds !!!!!! .... along with the prison term someone should have made a few modifications to his set up with a rusty hacksaw blade .

Just watched the chess Gukesh chucked away another winning position . Not fazed who wins ; they both of them seem a bit wimpy lacking colour ; just not thrilled with a draw .

Bobby Fischer would have demolished either of them .

Try living in a civilised country ; not some wickyup in the middle of the Malaysian jungle ....9.15 am here

Would it be too much to ask for football kits to only carry the names of the sponsor, but most prominently the club or country in question?

I have been watching football since the 1950s, and unbelievable as it may sound, for the vast majority of that time was entranced by the game, almost certainly because the governing body, clubs and their employees rarely took up social or political causes.

Yes, but the who wouldn't Bobby have demolished! Tal, Spassky and Petrosian all did well against him; and you'd have to think Kasparov and Magnus would have made him think a lot.