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Gilmour doesn't look very good...

Thank God, I've been worried sick

Thought I would nip in but ‘ the website certificate has expired one day ago ‘ Must be another bill they haven’t paid

Impeachment by the Senate is not impartial. It isn't the equivalent of a trial in a court of law. A two-thirds majority is required for conviction. The makeup of the Senate was almost evenly split between Democrats and Republicans. A record number of Republicans did vote against their President, resulting in a simple majority of 57-43, but a two-thirds majority was never a remote possibility. Trump's acquittal by the Senate has no bearing on what a court decides.

Should have bussed in a load of Pompey fans

I don’t know what the legal arguments are, but going back decades and the Packer revolt, he won his case against the cricket authorities on the basis that they were restraining trade. That they were attempting to limit the right of workers to take whatever employment they chose. In this case I can see the clubs arguing not just that Uefa has no right to tell workers (the players) how they are employed but also no right to tell the companies involved (which is what these clubs are) how they do their business.

EDIT THE COURT HAS RULED THAT UEFA ACTED ILLEGALLY IN BANNING THE EUROPEAN SUPER LEAGUE Original post Judgement is due today on the legality of the UEFA stranglehold on European club football. There are rumours that the latest plans for a super league involve up to 80 clubs. Could this include us? A huge day for football. There are now over 30 football clubs in England under control of American owners. Perhaps we'll find out why quite soon. https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/european-super-league-new-a22sports-31687601 https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/european-super-league-verdict-live-news-uefa-b2467289.html

I'll raise you this one. 😉

He's trying to get in so he can pardon himself, buttressed by a Supreme Court apparently in his favour.

3rd highest goals scored 2nd highest goals conceded I think Hanley's return is the more needed of the two

No, offensive players include Kevin Muscat and Joey Barton, and neither of those was a striker.

I think you know what that means. Clean sheets if you prefer.

Sargent is the big one. We just have no attacking dimension on the bench at all, no way of really influencing a game. Need some options.

Perfect, I hope I speak to posters the same way I would if we met. Anonymity does sometimes tempt us to be blunter than we might otherwise be though.

My understanding is that EUFA can still refuse entry to clubs who have joined the super league. And I also believe that the 20 PL clubs are equal 'owners' of the PL, and any major decisions need 2/3rds (14) clubs to back any change. The thought has to be that national leagues would become of secondary importance, as with the FA Cup. You only need to look at the last 16 in the Championship over the years to see it is pretty much a closed shop. The thought behind the early stages being as leagues was to ensure none of the 'bigboys' were knocked out early. Nothing changes with this.

"We didnt want to win the derby anyway.."

I struggle with this ruling. I think I need a barrister to help me here, or some brighter legal minds on here? I thought all FIFA / EPL did was to say, sure go ahead and start your own league, but when you do you forfeit the right to play in our competitions. Is this court now saying the big clubs can have their cake and eat it? What would be the benefit of the big clubs staying in their respective domestic leagues? The only issue I think is that their players could no longer represent their countries in FIFA & UEFA competitions, which would lose them a degree of marketing of their players and thus their new competition. But as with golf and PGA v LIV, all that would happen is the big clubs would just introduce their own World and European Cup, if that is the way it goes. Eventually their financial might would drive FIFA and UEFA back to the negotiating table (as with golf), but at least our domestic competitions would be operating on a more level playing field, albeit with a less marketable product, but hopefully with more fun and challenge. Nope, totally confused by the ruling.

@PurpleCanary @king canary Honestly it’s a bit surprising isn’t it? At the moment I honestly don’t know what to make of it. There are a number of thoughts that come to mind (and in no particular order of importance or possible relevance): 1. Knapper said at the AGM we had to get our assets on the pitch and playing 2. Knapper said at the AGM we had to bring down the average age of the team squad 3. Knapper said at the AGM we needed to play players who would-could appreciate in value 4. Wagner is literally a school teacher. He likes to teach new things and skills to people. Put them in different, unfamiliar roles. There is good and bad in this. 5. Wagner will understand weapons. Nunez’s throw, set pieces, quarterback passes are all nice micro-weapons. So another bit of shoe-horning required. 6. The value of the assets of Sara and Nunez will likely be derived from a higher Prem level. Analysts have already seen their flaws. They are defensive positioning and spacing. Into the lion’s den then! Sink or swim! Learn! (Quietly: ‘make us some money that we need to change things around’) 7. Number 6 has been made possible because of our relatively poor form, (previously) weak momentum, hollowed out squad and lowered expectations. It is easier to try things when you are gambling against the odds anyway. It might work. You might appreciate an asset. Even Jonny Rowe had little exposure before now. 8. Look at our current squad. Who did we pay money for? Which of our assets ‘owe us’? What do we have to try to make work or write off? As we noted above, you probably wouldn’t do any of it if you were better…. Parma

Suspect I'm not alone in being blindsided by the next Prem round starting tonight - had just presumed it was Friday at the earliest. Epl Fantasy deadline for team selections is: Thu 21 Dec 18:30 The site will doubtless get slammed just before that and may be slow to respond, so best get in early if can.

Does he suggest a whinger quota? I assume he would be in it .

He attempted a coup on the American Republic. He shouldn't even be allowed to stand again. Blimey. How hard is it to understand for these people!!

This - coupled with what I wrote above - is exactly why Farke and Hughton did not have Plan B. The odds are against it. Change feels good, but if it’s worse mathematically it is counter-productive* Fans will pour out powerful memories and hundreds of examples where this is wrong. But of course it isn’t. But then again Lambert kept throwing sixes. And gambling. And winning….so? But then he didn’t. And he had Holt. And Wes. Together. Weapons. Goals and assists. Perfect. And the rest ran hard. More than good enough. Farke of course was massively against the odds at the top level. We were worse in every sense. He chose 4 out of 10 instead of 2 out of 10. He was right. And neither worked. So what was being judged? Farke, the club, the finances or the odds? Ironically at the top level you keep occasional weapons and play against the odds to achieve the 10 wins as you won’t win 28 games anyway. That goes against processes and means you MUST keep Buendia and Pukki (Holt and Wes). The rest don’t have to be good. Just make them run and stay in position. You’ll mostly lose anyway. Confused? I haven’t even started yet….red pill or the blue pill? 💊 Parma

‘Some people are right and everyone else isn’t’….….is one of my wise Father’s sayings. As with many things in life - and tessellating neatly with the analysis of coaching plusvalenza - it is not what it appears to be on paper. It is understood as one thing, though means something else. ‘Coaching is a series of imperfect trade-offs. What you gain with one move, you lose somewhere else’ is an increasingly understood concept and some of you are starting to point out and understand that no decision exists in isolation. I am conscious that I am going to descend into Alice’s rabbit hole here, so definitely stop reading now if you don’t want a bit of the coaching mad hatter… Fans focus very strongly on results. Coaches focus very strongly on processes. Fans win a game and go home happy. Coaches can win a game and go home unhappy. Fans lose a game and go home unhappy. Coaches can lose a game and go home happy. It is not just an ego-driven desire to see your coaching ‘fingerprints’ all over the pitch, in the patterns of play, the movements, the fixed point structures, the in-game tendencies, the questions you pose to the opposition coach, the on-the-fly solutions you find to the tactical questions you get asked. Who wins the chess match of likelihood? Who does best with the resources, advantages and limitations they have? And this where we are going somewhere. Maybe somewhere new for some of you. Some of you won’t like it. Some of you won’t get it. Some will, but can’t handle it on a losing Saturday night. Others maybe can, or will… It also highlights many of the - sometimes cryptic or elliptical - questions that have been posed of the board, manager, sporting director, head coach, players on this thread. The question of why Farke was sacked, why Buendia was sold, why we failed at the top level, how we set up tactically now, whether Wagner should be kept on, why he might be, why he won’t be, why MacClean plays Centre back, why Nunez is being trained into a different role, why our strikers play in a way that makes it harder for them to score as often as one might expect… As a coach you must make the best of what you have. You must identify what your weapons are. What does or could hurt the opposition. This does not necessarily mean scoring goals, or even creating chances. It means creating repeating patterns of play on the field that the opposition coach is forced to address and adjust his or her own preferred methodology for. Barnes coming down into the midfield area and linking play with his back to goal, feeding inverted wingers coming off the line repeatedly is hard to deal with. Barnes is good at it (pace Ipswich’s second goal). He’s awkward. He’s a ‘structural player’. He’s creating a particular repeatable pattern on the field that can be built around. It can be built around because as a coach we can be sure 8 or 9 times out of ten that he can and will do it. This is also why managers often take certain players to new clubs with them. It is not that they are necessarily brilliant, but that they are structural (in some way). We are very limited within our squad at the moment where weapons are concerned. The ones we have - like Barnes above - are worthy, though not game changing. They are small factors in our favour in a huge menu of two-directional examples - from both teams never forget!! - in every game. If we have 3 mini-weapons and the other team has 6, we are already likely to lose more than we win if we play 100 times. This is what sporting directors should be fixated on and report upwards to Board. Has your head coach set up in such a way as to maximize the outcome? Now careful here. This is absolutely not what fans often mistake this for: it does NOT mean ‘has he set us up in the best way to win?’ I’m going to repeat that. It does not mean setting us up in the best way to win. Confused? You shouldn’t be. Why did Lambert do so incredibly well at Norwich and then never come close to repeating it anywhere else? Why do bookmakers fear me creating an algorithm for PUPs picks that returns a small amount year-after-year and not someone who makes a huge return one season? (nota bene: it is a long way from merely choosing the shortest odds). Why did I get thrown out of an American casino playing multiple tables of a kind of 3 card brag for relatively low stakes, repeatedly turning minimum stakes into $500 returns? (I’m not a gambler by the way, it was for demonstration purposes to clients) Why did sacking Farke because he failed to get results in the 2021 Premier League prove almost absolutely nothing about his suitability for the Norwich job? Think of results as a spectrum. Think of a binary graph with 0 at one end and 100 at the other. Easy. I want to win! I’ll choose 100! Ok, but 51 is still a win isn’t it? And 49 is a loss! There is 2% difference between those and yet one makes everything perfect and the other is a disaster. Now what if your tactical on field plusvalenza - your lack of weapons and rather hollowed out, much-of-a-muchness squad - can only be configured to achieve 40%? You are going to lose 60% of the time. Though you have actually optimized everything that you have. 4 out of 10 is pretty poor the fans bay!…we are losing! ….….yes but 4 out of 10 is markedly better than 2 out of 10…that was the choice in front of you. Perfection was not on offer. Now we are getting somewhere. This is what coaches are constantly evaluating, monitoring and judging each other on. What did you do with what you had? What cute ideas did you come up with to hide your deficiencies and maximize your odds? Winning one year - as Lambert did for a while - because you go on a Glasgow gambler’s hot streak, is loved, enjoyed and patted-on-the- back, but it is not respected in the way that constantly beating the bookmakers odds through calculation, analysis, marshalling, planning and algorithmic deviousness is viewed as professional alchemist’s gold and hugely admired and respected. Though of course it can also lead to a rather mad scientist’s tinkering and a fool’s gold cauldron of coaching trying-too-hard. Is this Wagner? Football is a maddeningly incoherent, fluid game of small margins. ‘Both boxes’ the old boys say. Control the middle bit, have brilliant processes, beautifully-constructed patterns……then Michael Owen - who has done nothing much all game and not troubled anyone - just gambles that a defender might lose concentration and misjudge a fairly nothing ball (and he does it 109 times, for the 1 time it actually happens), and he does. And he scores. And you lose. So. Weapons. Things you can’t ignore. Someone who just loves scoring and is prepared to waste 98% of their effort for one moment. Someone who can score direct from free kicks. Win penalties. Confidently score penalties . Win free kicks. Take good corners. Long awkward throws (Nunez?). Wagner had no real weapons so he had to make patterns that were mini strategic pattern-of-play weapons. Barnes and Sargent coming into midfield as a double-false-9-box-lay-off team that couldn’t be ignored, but had to involve complicated handing on of players into certain unusual areas. I deliberately left that unpunctuated as it is breathless, though not in itself very damaging to the opposition yet. You need to get Sara into places he can shoot from. Nunez into places he can shoot from. Use their set pieces, free kicks, long throws. Though they don’t know how to defend. Where to position themselves defensively in a fluid game. The opposition has excellent teams of analaysts too of course. They spent all week finding out our plans and countering them. Setting up problems for us too. Counter-punching. So now think differently. Completely differently. Think how you’d set up against Norwich. Think what you’d do to undermine Sara, to exploit Nunez, to calculate that Norwich might play 2 strikers plus a midfield with Rowe, Sainz, Sara and Nunez in???? Spend an hour calculating how you’d cut holes in the way we operate, then come back to me and tell me how good we are again… ..then tell me how important it is to get Sara, Nunez, Rowe, Sainz on the pitch together …all focused on scoring more goals!!…..or?……. Almost nobody plays with 2 strikers anymore. It exposes the midfield too much. You might do it with 352 of course, though most Italian sides would think of 4411 with a Holt and a Wes and then a pretty prosaic 8 block behind. So next time you draw a team on paper, draw another team to play against it and beat it. Then go back and re-draw your first team. Parma

Any forum will eventually attract a few posters who don't play by the rules. The mods job is to kick them off, as quickly as possible. If you don't have mods then sometimes it degenerates, as it has on here on occasion. But surely, you can also moderate your own experience. I just don't look at those threads which fall into arguments. I have also blocked some posters who gave me what I considered to be unreasonable abuse for holding a different view ( this includes some supposedly "respected" regular posters) because I have no interest in their opinions any longer, and I have no respect for them. Unlike LDC, I have had no mental health issues but I can understand why you would because some people have no concept of the impact of what they are saying. Personally my rule has always been - would I say this to the person's face in the pub? I think I agree with most posters on here much of the time, but not always; just like that chat over a pint. Some people don't rate Kenny Maclean as a footballer - I think they're wrong. I have the same arguments every week! That's the way of the world; people see different things and when you introduce passion and commitment they say things they shouldn't when they are protected by distance on a keyboard. A first step to a fairer, friendlier forum would be to ban "in match" threads - some of the comments then are just outrageous.

Released from hospital today, great news 👍

Nigella on BBC1 was a far better watch.

Of course it's good news. More options for Wagner.

Man Utd would have to get a lot less sh¡t for them to play a competitive game.

Had that with some Jehovah's Witnesses, who wished me that I'd go to hell. To which I said "we'll meet again then". They didn't really get that my idea of hell is being in a room with religious peddlers of any Abrahamic stripe.

My sister used to work for a major global recruitment company in London. People would swap companies every five minutes and take their client roster with them. Might there have been some logic to the Ferris wheel of appointments for the likes of Harry Redkapp back in the day? Might the modern equivalent be a Sporting Director with a good contact book? You only need a Pukki and a Buendia and your career is made. You can fail at a couple of name jobs afterwards and be set for life… …what about a self-sustaining club with limited resources? How about an exec linked to the Arsenal Academy with an analytical knowledge of up-and-coming (who said cheap?!) Arsenal and London U21s? Plus ça change… Parma

Wrong. Anyways is a middle English word from the 13th century. Definitely not a typo. We love etymology down our pub. All the best, Big Keith Nott

Treating other posters as if they were strangers you were talking to in the pub should probably be pinned to the top of the message board in capital letters. I don't agree with banning match threads. Have a look at TWTD. It is a shambles with numerous match day threads, several of which produce quite rude responses.

This could be a very tough match depending on if Moore's lost the dressing room or not. You could see from the scenes of Idah's last-minute winner against Bristol that the team were squarely behind Wagner even if the performances were a bit patchy. That tweet from the Huddersfield owner had a whiff of "show us what you have" to current staff. I think it'll galvanise them. Moore did a super job to get Wednesday back into the top-flight and no doubt his own pride is stung, so I expect he'll have his side as organised as possible. I expect a very bitty clash, Huddersfield probably sitting very deep and trying to spring a counter or get a set-piece to stick. I also think this is one of those games where who scores first doesn't lose. If we get a first-half lead I think it'll open the game up and it'll be a 3-1 sort of game. If they score first then it'll be everyone behind the ball and wait for counters and set-pieces whilst we try to break them down. Gut instinct's telling me this is a late winner sort of stodgy affair. I'll go 1-0 with a winner from 70 minutes onwards.

Fans watching football at the ground is so 2019 my dude. It’s all about ransoms in India watching on TV nowadays.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/67787981 Well that didn't take long.... How does a 16 team league co-exist with domestic leagues considering the fixture congestion the top clubs already complain about? Let alone a 32 team league!

ooops, stand correct, mistakenly thought payments reduced after 2 years 😒

Imagine having been around the world only to end up at Portman Road...

Thanks Nutty - a lovely intro as always! Thanks for all the suggestions so far. I’ll be making my final decision on Friday evening so plenty of time.

Whilst that is true the governing bodies do not have to let anyone join their competitions, otherwise things like stadium requirements wouldn't work. All competitions have rules and eligibility criteria, if they break them or don't meet them then they the competition organisers should be within their rights to exclude and/or sanction. The problem is uefa and the pl want the bug teams to leave less than the big clubs want to, this is heading the same way as the LIV/PGA conflict...

And the creator of the democratic voting system rests happily in their grave.

She’s certainly part of the charm that is the Rose

He has summarised today by saying the sum of the team for ITFC exceeds the individual skill level whereas opposite for us. https://x.com/ncfc_analysis1/status/1737450359180624170?s=46&t=U-aOGGVI9O-Dy7RzwC_hmA

Well, that's knocked the wind out of my sails this yuletide, but thanks for the great analysis @repman

They had a League Cup SF against at Arsenal in 2011(ish?), the season that Birms beat Arsenal when Kosielny (or however you spell it en francais!) dropped that howler in the final. A cup which we have won twice, but if this is ever mentioned, then its disregarded as a 'mickey mouse' cup. But once your team is in the semis of it, then its a different story...