Finnegan

You can tell my stream is slow can't you

I know we want to conserve energy given a game on Tuesday but expect a bit more urgency than this. These are shit, don't relax and give them confidence, push on and get a second and THEN we can go through the motions a bit.

What a surprise Tony Cottee horrified by the idea of a striker being anywhere but the box

Fatawu that needed a much more straight forward little tap to Daka

You watch an Erling Haaland highlight reel and it's ridiculous how many of them are just ugly tap ins or opportunist goals because - almost magically - the ball just seems to always land at his feet if its loose in the box. Once or twice is good fortune, consistently is just excellent instincts and positioning. Daka is like that. He scores a LOT of true poachers goals. His highlight reel for us looks like a lot of shithouse scruff if you take each goal individually out of context. When it's a pattern, though, its impressive.

I dont think he got anything wrong with Daka and I don't think he's had to admit that either. He's been really consistent with his view, he just repeated this afternoon what he said all Season, Daka wanted to leave at the start of the year so he wasn't playing and Kel and Vards were scoring so he didn't need to give him a chance. Right back after the window closed Maresca was full of praise for Daka saying his head hadn't dropped and he was still good to work with in training but Enzo was always going to reward the loyalty and the commitment of the first players to really nail it down and say they wanted to stay and fight. I don't have a problem with that. He also said something I've mentioned a few times on here really, people said a lot they didn't think Daka was the "type" of striker Maresca wanted but I didn't agree with that, think it's the opposite and that's exactly what he's just said. He likes Daka BECAUSE Daka can do both. He can drop in and link up AND he can get in behind and spearhead the attack. He's the best of our strikers at doing both imo. Yes Iheanacho is good in the 10 role and yes Cannon and Vards are both great breaking the lines but Daka is, perhaps surprisingly, maybe the most versatile of the lot and I'm not sure many would have thought that this time last year.

Like the bit he said the difficulty is in convincing the players that it's still difficult to win games. As soon as they stop believing that, "they stay out" (as in, get dropped.) Sharp. Like that.

This is absolutely, 100% peak Liverpool. Only Liverpool could think they're so special that they own celebrating

There's also a reason they fail to win those games they've drawn and we generally always find a way to get that winning goal.

Along with Sevilla for me.

Oi, don't qualify it. Brilliant player full stop.

Di Maria's was so satisfying to watch I even actually enjoyed it and clapped, I'm sorry. The whole motion was just so fluid and /chefskiss. Probably the only time I think I can remember actually enjoying any goal scored against us. Naturally I was fvcking thrilled when we turned it round and smashed them though. Bergkamp's would probably still get my vote though. Just obnoxiously good. Importantly, both absolutely amazing games too.

If United are genuinely willing to pay £70m for a 27 year old Ivan Toney then they aren't changing direction at all with Ratcliffe's involvement and that is good news.

It's like €18m IIRC for a kid that had barely played any senior football in Europe and if I understand it correctly, the reaction in Portugal was that he hadn't quite delivered on what was some crazy hype when they first signed him? Think he cost them near fvck all as well so this is the classic Portuguese buy dirt cheap and sell on quickly for a rapidly gained, significant profit. The big three in Portugal are masters at this. Don't get me wrong, if he carries on his current trajectory he'll be well worth the money from our side and we might end up making a sizable profit off him ourselves if he really does reach the heights. But make no mistake, it's a very good deal for Sporting for a lot of money that's almost certainly vastly more than his current market value. The fee for Yunus is a lot more on point.

It's only a loan in name though isn't it. We've loaned him to kick the fee down the road, still don't think people have quite clocked we virtually signed this lad on a permanent in the summer. Which is partly why the fee is quite large. Sporting have had our pants down a bit for the inconvenience of getting most of the money next year. We couldn't afford to buy him in the summer and they knew that.

He'll also probably have more clubs making bids which will drive up what he can ask for in a contract. We were paying to jump the queue.

Blaming one man for two football clubs full of professional lawyers as well as a very experienced agent in the middle for fvcking up a transfer is obviously moronic. But I do have to say, whilst I've largely stayed out of the Rudkin bashing over Sensi, there's no other way around this - having the guy here doing a medical on deadline day when you're still that far apart with his buying club is embarrassing. Are we the only club it's ever happened to? No. But it's not a good look and as I've said elsewhere, it might not be his fault but it is his responsibility.

Being desperate to raise your kids up the 'Sorrel. That's the life.

<3

Look, he absolutely might never come back to Europe and thrive. True. And he's never coming to Leicester in a million years. But he's a long, long way now from the kid that went to Inter with too big a reputation to live up to.

GABIGOL!!!!!!

To be clear, he didn't wrestle the defender out of the way, it wasn't a foul in its own right. I don't particularly mind what Toney did, it was extremely trivial obstruction at worst. But if he'd have touched the ball then Maupay would have been offside. I wasn't properly paying attention to the fact the punt forward was a goal kick when I watched it and probably should have watched it again before posting anything

Oh shit obviously, good spot. Idiot moment.