Thing is it shouldn’t really need David Deins plan if the refs were on top of it. It’s suggesting changing the rules because refs are shite

Kick the ball away or throw it away after a free kick? Booked ! Trust me they won’t do it again.

Keeper taking too long for a goal kick ? Booked

Add 2 minutes per sub for every sub and then it’s fixed as it’s all pointless.

I really enjoyed that aspect of the WC.

It should be that when the ref blows for a free you are given a yellow yard if you touch the ball after that. Also you must be moving away from the free or throw so standing in front of the ball is a straight yellow card.

I mean RVP got sent off for this

https://youtu.be/fWnsrTx9Y6E

If it was the same ref this week the match would have been abandoned

Absolutely

The player is never ever carded for preventing the free kick by standing in front

Chelsea have 1 win at home to big 6 sides in their last 13, I'm not expecting them to do anything v City tonight

Cranbrook BC - edge of The Rockies. Stunning views - and very cold this time of year.

Is that the bloke we are trying to get from Shaktar?

My hobby horse has been stabled too long so out she comes.

The D on the edge of the box looks nice but plays no useful part in the game itself. I have long thought that for certain fouls or gamesmanship (e.g. standing over the ball to delay a free kick; kicking or throwing ball away; deliberate time wasting; crowding officials; fouling to break up play as Fernandinho and countless other midfield disrupters have) a free kick should be awarded in the D. That would soon put a stop to the farting in church.

The excellent Media Watch take on out of control Arteta'

https://www.football365.com/news/arsena ... mediawatch

I do wonder if we should have just gone for Sterling this summer. At 50 million He will end up cheaper than this mudryk kid. No major cultural change required as he’s local and less risk.

Probably the most utterly boring transfer saga I can recall for some time this mudryk thing. If we weren’t so short in attacking options we probably would have told shakhtar to do one. Kind of shows that you need to sign these players when you don’t need them if you know what I mean. Our desperation must be evident in these types of negotiations

Take a breath guys.

It is standard coached practice to stand over a free kick until your teammates have organised their defence. Everyone here would pile into our players if our opponents scored, TH14 stylee, by taking advantage of an entirely unopposed free kick.

There was a short period when attackers launched their free kick straight at the ‘defending’ guardian and got that player booked, as per the refereeing edict at the time. That didn’t last long because it was daft.

On the time thing, I’m entirely in agreement with the approach taken in the WC but we should all be aware that TV schedules don’t cope well with 20 min overruns. Don’t be surprised if TV’s agendas carry the argument.

Seems Shaktat Donetsk directors and officials are guests tonight at Chelsea

So the fouled team are also penalised by having to wait for the other team to get ready ? How is that fair.

You sure this isn't one of you guys? lol

I should want city to lose this but for some reason the idea of them brutalising chelsea considering their recent transfer antics seems quite appealing

Draw best result then?

Chelsea, if you are waiting for my permission to push the game a bit and score, its given.

It is fair TG. It’s the game.

As my heroes would say: “It’s like that, and it’s the way it is”

But they also said “it’s tricky”

Playing with Aubameyang is playing with ten men these days.


Bloody chelsea

Kepa with some awful goalkeeping for the City goal. Chelsea are a mess. Potter really isn't doing a good job.

In fairness, Potter stuck him on the right wing, which is weird. He brought on a kid in the first half with Gallagher available.

City playing poorly, Pep makes 4 subs including £100m Grealish and £60m Mahrez and the two of them combine to put City in front. That is why City are favourites and should win the title this year.

It’s probably cartiledge formed under the skin around a bite or something. It’s quite common. Quick spray of numbing gel and cut it out two stitches job done.

EDIT: BY A DOCTOR, BY A DOCTOR!!

This thing with the US national team.

My goodness. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Honestly they will destroy a man’s reputation if they feel slightly wronged without any conscience

Chelsea have such a rag bag of a squad.
Recent high profile, high cost, high wage older players past their best (Koulibaly, Sterling, Aubameyang) - none of these signings made sense.
Lukaku for £100m then shipped off on loan after 1 year
2 very good full backs (James and Chilwell) who can’t stay fit
Expensive signings not living up to expectations (Cucurella, Havertz, Pulisic, Ziyech)
Youngsters they talk a lot about a desire as a club to bring through but either not trusting them or not good enough.
No reliable gk, azpilicueta as captain going backwards rapidly

It is a hugely bloated squad without a clear identity. In theory Chelsea should have to suffer this for 3 or so years as we did when we built a similar awful squad. But they seem like they’ll throw £500m at it and probably ship a load of expensive players out on loan.

10 points off top 4 and we aren't even half-way through the season. They have no striker and too many players who look like they are not bothered.

With all the players they have, there are 11 or 13 decent ones in there.
It seems like a giant stew with too many ingredients and needs a lot of time to reduce it down to something workable. If they give Potter time and stop spending on every shiny thing they see I think he’ll do that, reduce it down to a team with a style of play. The problem might be the 7 or 8 players deemed surplus to requirements on big wages. But maybe as you say, they’ll just go out on loan.

I’m not sure how involved potter is in the signings. His comments this week seem to lend itself to an owner running off and doing anything he wants

That’s the way I see it. I think they need virtually an entire new attack to be contenders. They’re 10th and we’re going at over a point a game better than them

Pretty sure they’re going to buy one! They’ll stutter this season to somewhere between 9th and 6th, but Potter’s had 10 games or so and lots of people saying the job is too big for him or whatever. Judge how they’re going this time next season I reckon, course they might not even be in Europe by then… I’m very interested to see what Potter can do on a similar time frame to Arteta with that club. I mean his target on that basis is 8th this year.

Thanks for that Dr Ash ...although my internet prognosis leans towards cellulitis

I was thinking maybe a quick pass with a flap disc in the grinder might activate a cure .

Big drama with the US men's team. Claudio Reyna is a bit of a legend. One of the first US players to play in Europe in the '90s and 00s, (Leverkusen as well as the EPL if some of you might recall the name) and his experience helped give some solidity to the US men's team early on. He is a long time friend of current US men's coach, Gregg Berhalter.

Claudio's son, Gio is a young player currently with Dortmund.



Well, Berhalter wasnt going to start young Gio (20 y.o.) in the World Cup and Reyna, proud father and obviously thinks he knows football and what's best, was incensed about it. Since he and Berhalter are long time friends, saw it as a betrayal of their long friendship, Claudio and his wife know a lot about the family including some domestic abuse stuff.

The Reynas, (they have gone out and met as couples) the father threatened Berhalter with it if he didn't start his son and then subsequently wanted him removed as coach so his son will have a better chance of playing in the national team. While i understand your love for your son, and as much as it pains you, this is too far obviously.


One huge mess.

https://sports.yahoo.com/gio-reynas-par ... 56786.html

If the facts are even close to those alleged, I don't know why Soccer US is investigating, case of blackmail or extortion isn't it? Police or FBI should be looking at it.

Man Utd have won 4 straight. I'm casting a wary eye at them. Throughout this season they have not won convincingly often and relied on late goals, possibly prejudicial refereeing and such but at the end of the day they are winning.

....and we are getting them while they are winning and after the NLD which is always mentally and physically draining. It also seems with very few exceptions, no matter how well we are playing and how bad their form is they seem to step it up for us or am I imagining things?

I'm not worried about them catching us more than us losing. We are home so in theory a draw at worse but its effen Man Utd and you really never know with them.

Chelsea actually gave City a decent game. City were not quite the dominant force we've seen in recent years and infact their goal came from an inexplicable piece of goalkeeping from Kapa and poor defending from Cucurella at the far post.

I rate Potter quite high. His teams have punched above their weight and played attacking technical football with a high degree of tactical nuance. The question is whether Chelsea will give him the length of time Arteta has had - and whether Potter is having much say in the recruitment.

It is interesting to see so many managers now using the loyalty Arteta has been shown as a message to the media and their bosses. Just in the last week I've seen Moyes and Lampard overly praise Arteta and Arsenal for their own agenda of trying to stay in a job when they're under pressure. There is obviously the small factor that you have to be a talented manager as well! (which to be fair I do have a lot of time for Moyes and West Ham should stick by him - Lampard not so much)

Mudryk is looking like a time-consuming wild goose chase. He may want to join us but is we are £20m+ apart on valuations its hard to see a compromise. They feel he's every bit as good as Anthony and deserves to be valued the same, we feel that's an absurd valuation for an unproven player from the Ukrainian league. I can see both points of view and Chelsea's supposed interest is probably not helping to bring down the price.

Joao Felix feels like a very expensive gamble but the Newcastle game showed our lack of attacking options. It makes no sense financially unless we win the league especially if there is no buy option.

This is the problem with clubs with virtually infinite resources rocking up and paying way over the odds for average players. It massively distorts the market and I don't blame Shaktar for wanting Anthony money if they think (as would be quite fair) than Mudryk is better than Anthony.

A player is only worth what a club are willing to buy him for, so really we have to set a limit and then walk away. If Chelsea meet the value then the player needs to decide whether he wants to go to Chelsea in 10th with little likelihood of CL football next year, or dig his heels in for Arsenal the club he's clearly set his heart on. Then Shaktar have to decide if they go with our lower bid, because they can't force the player to move to Chelsea, with the knowledge that might be the best they can do in this or another window.

We need to put some kind of timescale on it. I saw Ornstein mention we're still keen on Felix and getting him in may put the pressure back on Shaktar in the Mudryk deal, we've also got Emile Smith Rowe coming back who can cover every position Mudryk plays in.

Either way, it needs to be as full a reserve team as we can at Oxford - we play 2 days later than Spurs in the FA Cup - of course we've been given the Monday night in front of the cameras game as those with the power will be desperate for an upset.