Football 2024/25

[thetime]

What's that draw all about 

[lost]

12 hours ago, thetime said:

What's that draw all about 

 

It'll be champions league clubs enter the comp at the quarters next season. No #3454 in reasons why modern football is sh*t.

Edited August 29, 2024 by lost

[thetime]

6 hours ago, lost said:

 

It'll be champions league clubs enter the comp at the quarters next season. No #3454 in reasons why modern football is sh*t.

The champions league draw wasn't much better.

 

Just realised the europa league has expanded as well, 8 matches in the non knockout stage.

 

Admin people of football, destroying every last drop. 

 

 

Edited August 29, 2024 by thetime

[Neil]

20 hours ago, charlierc said:

#traditions

 

For once I'd like to just score a few easy early goals then coast to the end, especially as a difficult game against Spurs is incoming on Sunday and I suspect they won't be as awful as they have been on our last 2 trips to SJP. But it is what it is.

difficult game with spurs?? you're having a laugh, easiest game of the season.

[charlierc]

20 hours ago, thetime said:

What's that draw all about 

Feels like it would've saved a lot of time if they just dumped the lot out in one go like on a Premier League/EFL fixture release day.

[charlierc]

46 minutes ago, Neil said:

difficult game with spurs?? you're having a laugh, easiest game of the season.

Presumably if they were a difficult opponent I dread to think how badly they would've beaten Everton.

[thetime]

Decent window for United.

 

Got a few young players in, staying clear of the big name players coming to the end. 

 

Plus got rid of sancho, still need a striker though. 

[charlierc]

Think quite a few clubs might be disappointed with their windows. Liverpool still really need an extra holding midfielder, Arsenal still need a direct number 9 striker (although Sterling could be an inspired loan), Chelsea still seem to change plans every 10 minutes, Everton having to resort to an already injured Armando Broja up front after he failed his Ipswich medical is a bad sign and Wolves don't really seem like they've strengthened well.

 

At the risk of turning this into a Newcastle obsessed thread, or at least further, I can't say I'm happy with our business either. Feels like Crystal Palace just strung us along for Guehi and we got too distracted trying to sign him rather than going elsewhere and buying a decent CB and RW. Was already annoying to lose Minteh and Anderson due to PSR, and having 5 goalkeepers also feels like overindulgence. But it is what it is. Hopefully the return of Tonali and retaining the big 3 of Gordon, Isak & Bruno might get us somewhere.

[kaosmark2]

My season prediction now the window is over:

 

top 8:

Arsenal
City
Spurs
Liverpool
Man U
Newc
Brighton

Villa

 

bottom 4:

Southampton

Leicester

Everton

Ipswich

 

I'm gonna make the bold call that Arsenal can pip City. Looks even crazier after today's lunchtime result, but at some point you've got to believe in an end to City's dominance, and I think Arse had a good window. I think City have as well, but there's also the added thing that if City lose this season, it might bait Pep into trying to rebuild and reclaim, which I want from a "lets get to watch lots of good football" POV.

 

A week ago I wouldn't have had Liverpool top 4, but I think Chiesa is a very talented player, grabbed at an absolute bargain, and exactly the sort of player they need. They could do with another midfielder as well, and I do think they'll drop points with adjusting to life post-Klopp, but I don't think Man U or Newcastle have done enough to overtake them.

 

I rate Ange, and I think Spurs are only innate Spursiness from fairly safely taking top 4. 

 

There's a clear top 5 to me, and Newcastle might've been able to break into that without European football/injuries like last season, but we probably needed at least 1 if not 2 signings to stand a real chance. I think Villa will struggle to compete on all fronts and drop off, but I still fancy them to outdo a fragmented batshit Chelsea. Brighton made some excellent signings, were already a talented team, and I fancy them to keep getting good results and annoy the big money clubs. Probably not quite enough to actually claim a European place, but thereabouts.

 

I cba filling in spots for mid-table, but my main shout for relegation is that for all the fact I think Dyche is a decent manager, they're just a bit messy and I don't trust them to win instead of draw the key games they've got to do to secure staying up. I think Southampton look the best equipped of the promoted clubs to stay up - and Ramsdale will get them a good amount of points as a signing.

[Neil]

9 hours ago, charlierc said:

(although Sterling could be an inspired loan

i always thought sterling would be a good fit at arsenal.

[charlierc]

5 minutes ago, Neil said:

i always thought sterling would be a good fit at arsenal.

We'll see accordingly.

 

Quite the way to be thrown in given Arsenal's next two league games are the North London Derby and then Man City. The former of which might now be even more complex given that Declan Rice will be banned after his red today for... reasons.

[charlierc]

6 hours ago, kaosmark2 said:

My season prediction now the window is over:

 

top 8:

Arsenal
City
Spurs
Liverpool
Man U
Newc
Brighton

Villa

 

bottom 4:

Southampton

Leicester

Everton

Ipswich

 

I'm gonna make the bold call that Arsenal can pip City. Looks even crazier after today's lunchtime result, but at some point you've got to believe in an end to City's dominance, and I think Arse had a good window. I think City have as well, but there's also the added thing that if City lose this season, it might bait Pep into trying to rebuild and reclaim, which I want from a "lets get to watch lots of good football" POV.

 

A week ago I wouldn't have had Liverpool top 4, but I think Chiesa is a very talented player, grabbed at an absolute bargain, and exactly the sort of player they need. They could do with another midfielder as well, and I do think they'll drop points with adjusting to life post-Klopp, but I don't think Man U or Newcastle have done enough to overtake them.

 

I rate Ange, and I think Spurs are only innate Spursiness from fairly safely taking top 4. 

 

There's a clear top 5 to me, and Newcastle might've been able to break into that without European football/injuries like last season, but we probably needed at least 1 if not 2 signings to stand a real chance. I think Villa will struggle to compete on all fronts and drop off, but I still fancy them to outdo a fragmented batshit Chelsea. Brighton made some excellent signings, were already a talented team, and I fancy them to keep getting good results and annoy the big money clubs. Probably not quite enough to actually claim a European place, but thereabouts.

 

I cba filling in spots for mid-table, but my main shout for relegation is that for all the fact I think Dyche is a decent manager, they're just a bit messy and I don't trust them to win instead of draw the key games they've got to do to secure staying up. I think Southampton look the best equipped of the promoted clubs to stay up - and Ramsdale will get them a good amount of points as a signing.

6th for Newcastle is bold imo as I think our depth issues are a problem. Chelsea actually look like they might be better than expected, but the sample size is based on them playing a defensively deficient Wolves and they still lost to Servette in the Conference in midweek.

 

Brighton and West Ham feel like they have the talent to break into the European places tbf. But it's about the consistency as much as anything.

[Neil]

3 minutes ago, charlierc said:

We'll see accordingly.

 

Quite the way to be thrown in given Arsenal's next two league games are the North London Derby and then Man City. The former of which might now be even more complex given that Declan Rice will be banned after his red today for... reasons.

fair red, i reckon.arsenal were fried rice.

[kaosmark2]

4 minutes ago, charlierc said:

6th for Newcastle is bold imo as I think our depth issues are a problem. Chelsea actually look like they might be better than expected, but the sample size is based on them playing a defensively deficient Wolves and they still lost to Servette in the Conference in midweek.

 

Brighton and West Ham feel like they have the talent to break into the European places tbf. But it's about the consistency as much as anything.

We've not got European football to force us into using that much depth though. I think our first 16-18 is pretty good, the issue is past that.

[charlierc]

19 minutes ago, kaosmark2 said:

We've not got European football to force us into using that much depth though. I think our first 16-18 is pretty good, the issue is past that.

We're already at that point imo given Krafth and Burn really isn't that stable a centre-back pairing. It's why I was disappointed we didn't do more to source a CB given Botman & Lascelles are still out for ages.

 

If nothing else at least Solanke is injured but Spurs still have an array of options to cause us bother and we're not quite at the point of the season where they're falling apart as they were on their last 2 trips north to St James'.

 

But then again I'm not making predictions. It's usually a surefire way to make you question everything you know about football. Though I will say that having incorrectly thought Wolves would struggle last season, I think this version looks vulnerable.

[Neil]

25 minutes ago, charlierc said:

We're already at that point imo given Krafth and Burn really isn't that stable a centre-back pairing. It's why I was disappointed we didn't do more to source a CB given Botman & Lascelles are still out for ages.

 

If nothing else at least Solanke is injured but Spurs still have an array of options to cause us bother and we're not quite at the point of the season where they're falling apart as they were on their last 2 trips north to St James'.

 

But then again I'm not making predictions. It's usually a surefire way to make you question everything you know about football. Though I will say that having incorrectly thought Wolves would struggle last season, I think this version looks vulnerable.

it'll be a spursy team that turns up to play you!

[thetime]

Did Newcastle really bid 50m for elanga?

[charlierc]

11 hours ago, thetime said:

Did Newcastle really bid 50m for elanga?

I'd heard about a £35M first offer being turned down because we didn't include a player going to Nottingham. This second rumour only came through yesterday. More surprised Forest turned that down tbh.

 

Can see the appeal given Elanga was great in the Newcastle-Forest games last season and we'd apparently tried for him during the "You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" mini-window before the 30 June FFP deadline before instead buying their third choice goalkeeper for a massively inflated sum.

 

But this is football now. For the saga that went on far too long before deadline day, Marc Guehi is a great player but Palace wanted a van Dijk/Maguire-level fee for him which I'm not 100% sure if it was worth it. I think we should've tried for Trevor Chalobah as a Plan B - someone that ironically actually joined Palace on deadline day.

[thetime]

3 hours ago, charlierc said:

I'd heard about a £35M first offer being turned down because we didn't include a player going to Nottingham. This second rumour only came through yesterday. More surprised Forest turned that down tbh.

 

Can see the appeal given Elanga was great in the Newcastle-Forest games last season and we'd apparently tried for him during the "You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" mini-window before the 30 June FFP deadline before instead buying their third choice goalkeeper for a massively inflated sum.

 

But this is football now. For the saga that went on far too long before deadline day, Marc Guehi is a great player but Palace wanted a van Dijk/Maguire-level fee for him which I'm not 100% sure if it was worth it. I think we should've tried for Trevor Chalobah as a Plan B - someone that ironically actually joined Palace on deadline day.

FFP seems to be biting Newcastle. I think we discussed on here when the takeover happened, how much harder it would be for newcastle to do a chelsea/city. 10 years to late, perhaps impossible with the current rules. 

[kaosmark2]

4 minutes ago, thetime said:

FFP seems to be biting Newcastle. I think we discussed on here when the takeover happened, how much harder it would be for newcastle to do a chelsea/city. 10 years to late, perhaps impossible with the current rules. 

FFP is a little, but it's the PSR on top of that that's really brutal. We have £65m to spend between a RW and CB supposedly, yet sold Minteh, a really promising RW, for ~£30m because he counts as an academy player. He's exactly the sort of player we would be wanting to sign/play, yet the idiocy of this policy meant we sold him to fulfil various accounting rules.

 

That's not even about being able to spend money, it's about doing it in the right windows at the right time to fulfil bullshit. "amortisation" and whatever the bullshit is.

[thetime]

Glad i was working today, same old united. 

[pink_triangle]

Chelsea sign Jackson to an extended contract, he was down to the last 7 years so you can understand the urgency!

[charlierc]

1 hour ago, thetime said:

Glad i was working today, same old united. 

Genuinely think Liverpool should've scored more than three as well. Which, not a great look for ol' Ten Hag, especially given he was lucky not to be told to bugger off in the summer to begin with.

[charlierc]

21 hours ago, Neil said:

it'll be a spursy team that turns up to play you!

Apparently so. They were really good for a while but missed a load of chances, needed us to score an equaliser for them and didn't really have any answers after we retook the lead.

 

Newcastle are still arguably yet to play that convincingly well in a game this season and the question on our suspect recruitment could well bite us in the arse just yet, but 2 wins and 3 unbeaten and through in the Carabao to play a favourable-looking Third Round draw isn't a terrible start.

[charlierc]

5 hours ago, kaosmark2 said:

FFP is a little, but it's the PSR on top of that that's really brutal. We have £65m to spend between a RW and CB supposedly, yet sold Minteh, a really promising RW, for ~£30m because he counts as an academy player. He's exactly the sort of player we would be wanting to sign/play, yet the idiocy of this policy meant we sold him to fulfil various accounting rules.

 

That's not even about being able to spend money, it's about doing it in the right windows at the right time to fulfil bullshit. "amortisation" and whatever the bullshit is.

Apparently if we hadn't sold Minteh and Anderson we might have been heading for a 10 points deduction. Same with Aston Villa having to sell Douglas Luiz and 2/3 kids they rated very well, and with both of us, it was for the crime of daring to believe we could make the Champions League. Minteh was particularly deflating given he's looked good at Brighton so far.

 

I think last season, we kinda saw PSR/FFP tie itself up in knots a little bit, which is perhaps why this window ended up being quiet until a fairly manic final week and the threat that there's still a few PSR points deductions lurking potentially for a couple of clubs hasn't helped.