dmayne7

Think you missed the point though. A bit morbid but the likelihood that he might die soon and hand over it to an incompetent child is pretty likely. Back to square 1

An 82 year old who'd probably be leaving it to his children. Sounds great...

You stated retained lists aren't released until around contract expiry dates. The inference was that you were talking about all clubs, not just us. So yes, what I said was true. And those dates are also not not that close to contracts expiring are they? Closer than now, yes but not very close. And when we talk about releasing the list, I think the general issue, and what we're talking about here, is that the club does not communicate to the fans. To be fair, they have actually been better the past few years (still not good) but you shouldn't have to go trawling through the PL/FL to find that information (often long after the fact). And I'll keep my eyes peeled for 28th May since you know that's when it's being released this year

Assuming the fixation thing was just a general comment and not aimed at me given I've just said there's no point in getting overly emotional about it. The whole point is that all the radio silence does, is create more uncertainty for fans, display that there is yet more inability to act decisively and arrogance that they don't need to communicate. And to the point that we know which players are put of contract, I'm not sure we actually do. Winks for example, we believe had his contract extended but that was never confirmed officially. Even Ayew, there was an element of doubt as to whether it was 2 or 3 years depending on the option in the contract, so it's possible that's been triggered if taking into account the Winks deal. With Rowett, it just reinforces the above point. They don't know what they're doing (which we all know). He's managed the club for enough time so you either know whether you want him or not. Keeping him as a back up option makes no sense on that basis as if he's not quite good enough to be first choice when he's a known quantity, aren't there going to be hundreds of managers across world football that are exactly the same, yet they might actually be better than you thought? Sadly, your reasoning is probably right but I'm just pointing out it's utterly illogical. And hasn't every managerial appointment been critical for the past 3 years? Most of those have been dire and even in the case of the 1 that did work, it wasn't like it was so successful that it relaid really strong foundations that would take years to undo, rather than months. Unless we're getting Pep, with the amount of work that needs doing, getting anyone in later than mid/late June will likely be disastrous. Bottom line is, the most basic communication from KP would have cost them absolutely nothing and probably would have done a lot of good with a chunk of fans. Personally, I'm not at all surprised and don't really understand why anyone expected anything else.

Well that's just not true. Basically every L1/L2 club has down their retained list which is understandable as the decision to keep players is a bit more straightforward, but something like 18 championship clubs have done theirs. We've famously not even done retained lists in the past. No point getting wound up about it but yet another organisational failure. Any statement now would probably incite more angst but that's only because they've said nothing as per usual. The only scenario where the silence is justified is that they offered Rowett the job in the first week or so and they're waiting on him to make a decision. No other reason makes sense. Personally I'd rather they just focused on getting a manager/team in place that can deliver success, regardless of the financial implications. You're right in that they won't have planned for it, but do you really think 2 months is going to be enough for these clowns to devise a robust plan to manage things financially? They couldn't do it if they were given 2 years. Ultimately, these issues are just repeated failures so at this stage, little point getting overly emotional about it. But to almost suggest that it shouldn't cause some frustration because it's how it's always been/currently is, is wrong.

Yes, but that was also under the old qualification rules, so we wouldn't have even been in the ECL. Would have just been the joint favourites for the EL who got knocked out at the group stage...

Win it in that way? They were ahead for 10 mins. Wasn't like they won it with the very last kick. And by the same logic, if we win League 1 next year, I assume you'll expect a pitch invasion? Not saying Celtic fans aren't going to be pleased, but not a single one could say they are genuinely delirious

Pitch invasion every game there is the slightest thing on the line these days. You think those Celtic fans will be feeling anything like how Hearts fans are? If Celtic don't win it's no biggie as they probably will win next year. A bit like having an open top bus parade to celebrate the correction of the biggest failure in PL history...

Weak . Going to Celtic Park when everything is stacked against you, trying to undo 40 years of dominance. Hardly weak

Pitch invasion when you win every year is absolutely embarrassing

Absolutely bollocks

Think you're going to get a shock re quality next season if you think this is close to League 2 quality. This will be miles better than whatever we see next year sadly

That run was unbelievable

He's absolutely miles better than the rest. The most curious player I've ever seen. At his worst, he made Daka's ball control look like Mahrez's. At his best, he made Mahrez's control look like Daka's

Good morning apart from letting Jamie Porter get a career best

We'd have been even more likely to lose that game and sink further, quicker. As for the CL or FA Cup debate, impossible to answer in hindsight as it's hard to disassociate where we are now with the idea that it could be better in anyway. At the time I was always heart chooses the FA Cup, head chooses the CL. But it would only have made a difference if there had been changes at board level, they'd been quicker to sack Rodgers when he started to underperform, had a clearer vision on staff and player recruitment etc.

Objectively it's pretty good. Absolutely nowhere near being a brilliant watch for anyone who's not bothered about Vardy/Leicester but is still better than I thought it would be to be fair. And as has been said, way too much Becky. She's got such an off vibe and that really comes across here. Don't doubt her influence but it kind of comes across as though nothing would have happened without her. Their relationship is exactly as I would expect. Morris actually came across surprisingly well. Some strange choices. For example the racism part doesn't mention that his strike partner was a Japanese International. Nothing really of his career after that (winning the golden boot, FA Cup) didn't include Bocelli, mention he was player of the year, England etc. Rob Tanner is bloody annoying too. He does the classic thing of talking about us as though we were always languishing at the bottom of the football league. Then refers to Kane as Tottenham's captain. All in all in though, it was well done especially for a single documentary on a player's career, as opposed to a series.

Absolutely not. That time is long gone now. All he'd do is be another excuse for people to cut KP more slack as they'd fixate on how he's back at the club rather than the failings of the club. And another reason for us to stop planning for the future

Only team in the country without a win now

Puts them under so much pressure to win lots of the remaining matches and this team simply doesn't have the players to force the game or chase it. I'm sure the Glamorgan game would have been a draw but that was very negative once we'd got in touch of their lead, and that's the kind of thing where we needed to take a risk

Holland batting at 3/4 is absolutely grim. Obviously were going to struggle to attract any top quality players at this level but it starting to show already

It's not even close. Despite his tantrums, I actually don't dislike Riyad and think he was arguably the best right winger in the world for a time. But Kante was an absolute freak of a player. Had he hit the mainstream a bit sooner and not suffered with lots of injuries in his last few PL, he'd go straight into the conversation for greatest midfielder of all time. He completely transformed 3 teams; Leicester, Chelsea and France. Only Messi/Ronaldo could compare in terms of impact in recent years, and those 2 are fairly decent players I guess.

Pet hate of mine when people describe him as a holding player/defensive midfielder. When he was at his ridiculous best, he was never playing as that screening player. It completely negated his dynamism and ability to win the ball higher up. Played further forwards that Drinkwater a lot of the time and the same with Matic at Chelsea. Compare him to Ndidi who was (until the last couple of years), very much a defensive midfielder/holding player. On Mahrez, Messi and Bale aside, not really sure anyone was a better RW for a consistent period of time.

Impossible to answer because it depends how you define world class. Personally, I think the idea that being world class means you'd instantly get into any team in the world/are the best in your position falls flat. That means you can only have 11 world class players at a time. Imagine you're the best left back in the world, and you actually improve your game over the next year. But another left improves massively and now overtakes you to be considered the best in the world, does that suddenly mean you're not world even though you've actually improved yourself and your team? Of course not. I'm on the more lenient side, so I'd personally view it as any player who has the capability to play for the best teams in the world and not look out of place. So Vardy definitely world class even if he wasn't the best striker in the world. Mahrez in there, Kante 100%, Ricardo at his peak and I'd even argue Kasper (but keeper's are impossible to compare). Maybe it needs to be over a sustained period of time but the shout of Fofana is an interesting one as could throw in people like Soyuncu, Tielemans, Maddison though think they all needed longer periods/that little extra.

I'm not even particularly anti gold, but the good has to go on that one. And something every off about those kits