After quite rightly sacking Lee Mason over his unbelievable error forgetting to draw the lines in our game v Brentford the PGMOL has now rehired Mason as a referee coach

Looks like the Kane to Bayern deal has been done.

it’s going to be hysterical watching them play without him.

they must have a replacement lined up surely. i wonder who they will waste the money on.

it’s going to be hysterical watching them play without him.

they must have a replacement lined up surely. i wonder who they will waste the money on.

All kicking off....
Chelsea outbid Liverpool for Lavia
Liverpool look like they are interested in Caicedo.
Caicedo preference supposedly for Chelsea.
Id prefer him to go to Chelsea who are a s***show at the moment.
He goes to Liverpool and absolutely transforms their midfield and makes them more of a threat to us.

10/10 would require a new centre forward.

it’s going to be hysterical watching them play without him.

they must have a replacement lined up surely. i wonder who they will waste the money on.

I think my frustration with this is not just centred on Mason per se, more that the referees in this country are not really held to task. It is a closed shop with no incentive or desire to improve. Yes Mason lost his job, but after 6 mistakes on VAR - and he's the only one as far as I know who has lost his job through poor performance.

I do hold out hope for Howard Webb because when I hear him talk he does seem like a really good communicator and I think he cares about the standards of refereeing and making things generally better.

it is a thankless job and a really tough job and clearly the lot we have are the best we have, but when you compare it to the level of officiating in other sports it is so poor. Of course the players don't make it easy for them in a way that rugby has much more in built respect but some of the awful mistakes being made so regularly is not acceptable.

Some transparency... (just not in the moment yet)

"Webb confirmed that, following a successful trial in May, the Premier League will share the audio of VAR decisions on a monthly basis this season. It will begin in September, with the rationale behind decisions explained and mistakes discussed. Initially this will be on the 'Match Officials Mic'd Up' programme, aired via Premier League Productions."

https://www.espn.com.au/football/story/ ... days-weeks


And what's the bet that Arteta gets the first touchline ban.

Getting interesting....

Kane hesitating on Bayern move
Sky in Germany have backed up their English counterparts, with Bayern “aware” the striker is hesitating over the move.

The striker has previously verbally agreed to join Bayern but it is now “50/50” that he stays.

new ref directives this year (otherwise known as actually applying the laws of the game):
yellow card for any perceived time wasting, including kicking the ball away and gk to be carded much earlier in the game
yellow card for at least 1 player when there is any perceived crowding of the referee
yellow card for anyone who touches an official
yellow card for anyway waving an imaginary yellow card
injured players receiving treatment on the pitch will have to stay off the pitch for a minimum of 30 seconds after they leave the pitch
exact time for goal celebrations will be added on (ie: the moment the ball hits the net to when the game kicks off again)

In football, regardless of the game, almost all the refs are northerners and presumably speak with northern accents. Could that be one of the reasons they're not miked-up to the ground PA systems?

Low-key but persistent murmerings that Jorginho may not be entirely happy with us. Also, whilst I really like Partey, we all know he still carries some baggage.

I think there's still plenty of time for some fairly high profile comings and goings for us, particularly in mf.

Deals like Kane start a lot of balls rolling. That £90m needs to get spent. I expect a bit of a scramble in the next couple of weeks.

Liverpool are signing Caicedo for 110 million quid. British transfer record,

That’s nuts. Does someone want to moan about the Declan Rice fee now. Our early decisiveness on Rice was impressive and makes that look farcical.

This is before the €127m euro Caicedo deal for Liverpool which would put them top of this list.
City have been rejected for Pacqueta at £88m so they will top the £200m spent.
Spurs are almost there and will then spend the Kane money

And on top of all of this we have a wage bill which is in the region of £100m per season less than Chelsea, Man U, Man C and Liverpool….people completely ignore that when looking at how much a team spends

I am not sure that our current wage bill will not be at the same level if not exceeding other teams. Last season your statement is true but look at the new deals we have done(Saliba, Saka Martinelli, Eddie) plus the new players will be on big money.

Granted the wages will have gone up and may now be on a par with those other clubs, bridging the gap is still £2m per week on wages. Raises of let’s say £100-150k per week for Saliba, Saka, Martinelli, Eddie, rice at £200k, timber £100k, Havertz £200k brings us to about £1m a week added to the wage bill. Then you can take off the wages of Xhaka, Turner….and 5-6 others about to depart, I still can’t see the gap being bridged.

Also we’ve had 2-3 years of that wage bill being significantly lower than the others, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone that we have a bit of money to spend. In basic terms our cheaper wage bill pretty much equalised out the CL money for any team that went deep in the competition

Liverpool are signing Caicedo for 110 million quid. British transfer record,

That’s nuts. Does someone want to moan about the Declan Rice fee now. Our early decisiveness on Rice was impressive and makes that look farcical.

Rice was in the last year of his contract so in that context our fee was high.

I agree though. I think people have lost the plot somewhat when it comes to Caicedo. He's had one good season in the PL in a team with no pressure and now he's one of the most expensive midfielders in the world. Brighton have somehow managed to cultivate an image of themselves as a modern day Ajax. It was Bissouma 12 months ago.