Stadt

Tete on the face of it should have been a good signing, pretty good numbers everywhere he'd been but he was just inexplicably shit. Never really started more than about 15 games in a season so maybe he's just a dosser.

Exactly. Rudkin is threatened by anybody with an ounce of knowledge - it's not surprising the well regarded types who have joined McGuinness, Sormaz, Macia etc all left sharpish. We have a clueless owner and an inept DoF without any systems in place so it's recipe for disaster. We appointed Martyn Glover via a recruitment firm - that should be a straightforward hire ffs. They have so little knowledge as witnessed by the depth of our managerial searches being out of work managers or recommendations from elsewhere.

When it's underpinned by good people and processes though they'll continue to prosper. Most other clubs have gotten smarter with their analytics but Bloom has a data background himself - so his backroom hires and how the data is used is leagues ahead of clubs without data-minded higher ups. They might make some poorer (relatively) recruitment choices but institutionally they'll learn from it in a way Man United won't, or we didn't. If the big 6 cut back on spending it'd arguably benefit Brighton because those above them in the table would be weaker, they'd keep their better players and be able to mount a better challenge as they're not replacing ~2 or 3 players every year. My criticism would be the sell-to-reinvest-model doesn't ever really culminate in success because you're always a rolling 2 seasons away from it. Dortmund, Frankfurt, Lille (maybe less so) et al never really convert big sales into success.

It's easy for players that played much longer ago to be lionised. We didn't see much of them play besides the biggest games and highlights played over and over again. Lots of sub elite players these days are probably as good as some feted names from previous but we're just used to say, De Bruyne.

Coming back from 2-0 down against Brighton despite being the worst side felt like we’d turned a corner. We followed it up with a 4-0 loss at Newcastle (Ward) and the Wolves 3-0 loss (Ward). I apportion so much of last season’s failure to Cooper but RVN had a bounce and the players on board initially

I thought Iheanacho would set records in the Championship. Thought we’d probably be fine after appointing RVN too.

How did he get on for Spain

Sold off a lot as I’ve been spooked around tariff and correction chat. T212 very helpfully sending me lots of upward around push notifications

Really good, nice unit and a maybe a tiny bit cosier than expected for a taproom. Bit warmer than say Round Corner's. Beer as to be expected was excellent, their Festbier could be lethal with how easy it went down. Food was high standard too. Went to the Swan in Braybrooke after and expected slightly more actually but still enjoyable.

Going for the second time, other time was the first away of the season in 22/23 (or was it 21/22?). Bought a copious amount of Eastern European danger beer from Maxi Grosik in Woodgate for the train. Had a skinful including some high abv Belgian beers in Norwich too is it's no wonder I was spewing up into a tesco bag at Ely station. Hoping for a slightly more sedate trip this time, lovely place.

Sing it with 75% of this effort all the time and it’d be one of the more famous anthems in the country

This will be our worst season (by league position) in about 12 years and we’re still at 95% - with expensive matchday pricing too. Expand the ground

European Bar Guide’s Antwerp reccs are all top notch, feels like Amsterdam’s little brother which is high praise indeed. I never made it to Cafe De Klock but a friend raved about it. As for me, had loads of halves with @SemperEademin Sheffield tonight. The best drinking suburbs in the world, started in Walkley and finished in Heeley which is a good old distance.

I liked him, pretty versatile, his attitude was always good unlike some, just a competent but unflashy player. We overpaid massively though given he had a year left.

Whelan going should be a good thing for a normal club but it's not; it represents Top and Rudkin clawing more control with their grubby, stubby fingers. If we actually appoint a new CEO (sceptical) they'll be even more pliant than Whelan.

The Cov one wasn’t a great chance - 0.17 xG. The Swansea one was crap though, has all the time he needed and could have done various things.

It's pretty close to Tipperary, about 25 miles

Good to see fresh perspectives on the under discussed podcasts. I just wish we could get some insight into Manchester United under Fergie too

Nigeria winning 2 out of 8 given their talent is scandalous especially given SA and Benin aren't particularly good. The coaching or their attitude must be miles off

He'll have a bad 23 minutes against Port Vale in the cup August 2026 and this will be used to justify 32 year old John Lundstram's continued inclusion instead

I just watched the extended highlights back, watching with a clear head does change your perspective a bit. A few thoughts: - Jordan James is great. Shades of a young Gerrard about him - We pressed pretty well (and higher than on first watch) but Swansea were terrible at playing out - had they gone longer to bypass the press and forced Vestergaard to try and deal with Vipotnik (sp) they might have had more joy through fouls/second balls and then isolating him. - Our set piece deliveries were poor but Swansea just failed to adequately clear the first contact and were abysmal at the second. Both James and vestergaard's goals came from set piece deliveries that broke down via the left. - Ramsey added more movement and fluency to our attack when he was on, with him and James there's more forward runs which stretched the defence. I'm not overly enamoured with Cifuentes but we've yet to see 90 minutes with 11 players playing in their best position - Encouraging the wingers to shoot so often breaks down our promising attacks down too often, it's worked out with Fatawu scoring some belters but it's not sustainable. We have the hint worst xG per shot in the league because we're letting fly from stupid positions and we're not creating any high value tap ins, cut backs, rebounds.

Going on Saturday, will report back

Fiorentina were completely undercooked as they were about 2 weeks behind - I don’t think that can be used as a barometer really.

I meant to get to the Cumberland but didn’t quite make it, looks proper. The views from the pubs are some of the very best in the country though.

Wind River never seems to get much fanfare but it’s an outstanding (and bleak) film.