I don’t think anyone really judges players based on their nationalities any more.

“at least we don’t keep rapists in our squad” is an interesting stand to take, considering that Pep kept playing Mendy after his accusations and only stopped after he was literally arrested and imprisoned after being charged and awaiting trial.

Interestingly enough, there is a precedent for this.

After Sheffield United were relegated below West Ham in the 06/07 season, they sued The Hammers since West Ham’s “signing” of Javier Mascherano and more importantly Carlos Tevez was in clear breach of third party ownership rules in the Premier League. West Ham finished 3 points above Sheffield United with an inferior goal difference. Tevez literally scored the winning goal in a 1-0 victory on the final day of the season to keep West Ham up.

Sheffield United originally sued to try and have West Ham relegated instead of them, but failed. So instead they sued West Ham for monies lost by no longer being in the Premier League, and West Ham settled out of court for £20m. One can only surmise that the reason they settled out of court was because they expected they would probably lose if it went to court.

Thus, Burnley, Leeds and Leicester have a reason to think they might be able to financially benefit from suing Everton. However, realistically only 1 club could have avoided relegation had Everton had their points deduction sooner, and Burnley were relegated a season before Leeds and Leicester. Last season Leicester finished above Leeds, so really only Leicester should be the one suing Everton. As for Burnley, if they want to claim that Everton should have faced their points deduction in the 21/22 season then that’ll be interesting.

I’m curious as to the scenario where my only 2 bench options are right backs.

This post is hilarious.

OP is a Liverpool fan. Liverpool were the first team in the Premier League to hire a throw-in coach (Thomas Gronnemark) and he worked at Anfield for 5 seasons until being let go over the summer.

But now throw ins are pointless?

It boggles the mind.

Haaland hauls Cucurella back which leads to him being ahead of the defender. Then the defender pulls him back and the ref gives a penalty.

Yesterday, for Burnley’s goal Koleosho (i think) and Tomiyasu were both pulling each other’s shirts. Rather than give a foul one way or the other, the ref didn’t give either player a foul and Burnley ended up scoring. I said it at the time and I’ll sa it again now: you CANNOT give a foul there.

However, today one player commits a foul. The other player commits the same foul back and the ref punishes the 2nd player and ignores the initial foul.

It’s absolutely shocking and disgusting. However, it’s EXACTLY what we expect when Antony Taylor is refereeing. He is an absolute joke of an official.

Also, the VAR should be overruling the ref there. But i’m sure it’s more financially rewarding not to do so.

Son looked absolutely lost today. Went missing for nearly the whole game, just popping up every now and then to win the occasional free kick and put in 1 solid tackle right before the winner. really poor game from the captain, and a lot of the other players matched his impact.

I can’t imagine anyone will really complain about this one. Sure, there’s no intent and he is just trying to protect the ball. But he has very clearly caught the guy half way up his lower leg and buckled the guy’s ankle. It’s a red card every day of the week with a competent VAR.

Nobody following the back post runner. Pinnock with all the space of West London there.

When you’re a club like Betis, it baffles me that decision-making could be so short-sighted that you end up going after a 35 year old free agent.

I mean, Bayern are also looking to sign a free agent. Sometimes you can’t predict an injury crisis and the free transfer market is all that’s available until the window opens again.

As a fan, I say that “proper England players don’t warm benches for their clubs, or go to play in retirement leagues for the pay day if they still want to paly for England”.

But that’s just my opinion.

Almunia was a good keeper for a bad team, but a bad keeper for a good team.

When it comes to being a keeper for a good team, a lot of it is mental concentration. There a times where you’re doing nothing for ages, so you need to stay mentally switched on at all times so that when you are suddenly called upon to do something, you make the right choice. Almunia was capable of making the type of saves we expect from a good Arsenal keeper, but the major problem with him was when he wasn’t doing anything.

This is why Almunia struggled at Arsenal. After standing in goal for 10 minutes with the ball nowhere near him, when a pass was clipped over the top that anyone could see he should leave to the defenders, he comes flying out of goal because he is desperate to do something.

Same with Ben Foster at Man U. Playing for Birmingham he looked superb. After Man U when he went to Watford, he looked great (aside from his final season when he was past it). But at Man U he didn’t have the concentration levels to get through the vast periods of the game when he wasn’t doing anything, so he would make poor decisions when he was called upon.

Almunia looked good for Watford when he was required to do something every couple of minutes.

This is one of the reasons that keepers like Seaman were so good. Massive concentration levels for the whole game, knowing that they might only been required to actually make a decision once of twice but being able to consistently make the right one.