KingsX

Dyche 3/1 for us, 6/1 for Everton, 12/1 for Hammers. Coleman 10/3 for us, 12/1 for Everton, 16/1 for Hammers.

Talked to a bud who was at the game, who said all the air was sucked out of a pretty loud house which was enjoying itself booing Kyrie. Cavs fans DO NOT like the Celts, so that took something pretty nasty.

Veteran soccer player in Indonesia dies following horrific in-game head collision Indonesian goalkeeper Choirul Huda has died after a mid-game collision playing for Persela Lamongan. The freakish incident occurred just prior to the halftime whistle. The Persela goalkeeper left his line to clear away a ball but collapsed after colliding with team-mate Ramon Rodrigues and Pedang forward Marcel Sacramento. He collapsed on the field shortly after the head-to-knee collision and was transported to a local hospital before the team announced his death after the match. Huda had played over 500 matches for Persela dating back to 1999. The collision is bad, but not far beyond what a keeper is exposed to on many a 50-50 ball vs a reckless striker.

More pinball than football, but entertaining, and it counts.

Chelsea midfielder N'Golo Kante a £90million target for big-spending Paris Saint-Germain French giants ready to splurge again to bring the midfielder back to his hometown — three years after he cost just £5.6m Paris Saint-Germain have targeted a £90million move for Chelsea star N’Golo Kante. Qatari-owned French giants PSG want to make the midfielder their latest Gaulactico at the end of the season — 12 months after bringing in attacking duo Neymar and Kylian Mbappe for a total outlay of more than £300m. And a deal of that size would make France international Kante the most expensive Premier League export of all time, topping the £86m Real Madrid paid Tottenham for Gareth Bale in 2013. The 26-year-old, who is from Paris, was nominated for the prestigious Ballon d’Or award this week, after helping Chelsea to clinch their second title in three seasons. Widely-admired Kante joined a select band of players to win the Premier League in successive seasons after his success last year with Leicester. Kante is currently injured, after limping out of France’s World Cup qualifier against Bulgaria last weekend with a hamstring problem. It is understood the issue will keep him out for three weeks, meaning he has a slim chance of making the Blues' Champions League trip to Italians Roma on October 31. http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/chelsea-midfielder-ngolo-kante-90million-11321201

Relegated from CONCACAF? More like Leyton Orient than a drop to the Championship. I hope the Grouper has his resignation letter handy.

Panama have done it.

And Panama and Honduras have both equalized. Fine, the US should have to earn a point to get in ! Apparently in Trinidad & Tobago they teach them to kick the ball, not the achilles tendons in the opposite colored socks. So we do have a chance.

Get 'r done Christian! And Vamos los Ticos ! Jesus we are desperate. And I am desperate to be watching this in Spanish, standard def on Universo.

Apparently not posted here yet? Brighton forward Anthony Knockaert on struggling to deal with his father's death: 'I am trying to cope... but it's time to get some help' Anthony Knockaert has found it difficult to cope since the death of his father Knockaert was very close to his father, who passed away aged 63 due to cancer He admits he will undergo counselling ahead of the anniversary of the death The striker was the Championship Player of the Year as Brighton won promotion Knockaert was unplayable in second tier but has found Premier League tough Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-4934686/Brighton-s-Anthony-Knockaert-talks-dad-s-death.html#ixzz4uwrCiG7F

We saw Panama spank Martinique here back in July. Granted, that's a minnow eating a dwarf brine shrimp. But they play competent CONCACAF crapball, and are good enough to get a result against the US.

Looks a nice perch to recuperate after getting your ribs kicked in by a mob of paramilitary thugs outside the ground. If you're top row you could turn around, lean over and launch a loogy on them.

The job of a PL manager is not only inward facing. It does not provide the luxury to excel at the other parts and crap the bed with media or fans. By creating incidents, NP did not show the emotional maturity required. To many supporters, that was irrelevant -- but owners do not hire managers to make needless distractions that land in their laps. Blame the media and you miss the point. Success brings more latitude, but Pearson overstepped. If he has learned further lessons about self-control, dealing with stress, and tactics, he may be a hell of a top-level manager. If not, he has hit his ceiling. A year at OHL may help clarify that for the owners. (It suggests great flexibility and smarts that they took a long view and rehired him.) But it can’t compare to the stress or glare of a PL job. And that would be a tricky bridge for all parties to cross.

I doubt the owners would ever panic over the club, given their successful navigation of Thai politics, where wrong steps can mean stripping of assets or even imprisonment. I would guess they are considering alternatives. Perhaps including the levels above CS -- they cannot be happy about spending 100M on unused players, nor the prospect of paying a second manager to go away in less than a year.

Underachievers Club

I’m not pessimistic enough to see our Everton matches as relegation six pointers. But definitely “most disappointing side” six pointers. “Best of the rest” is wide open, but so far short of the top clubs as to be irrelevant. Which is very unhealthy.

That is quite a definitive statement about other peoples’ motivations and intentions, to make based purely on assumption. Unless of course you are tight with the family. Excuse me, “the Thai’s”.

London Brings Out The Best In The NFL’s Dregs It’s no secret that the teams that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has sent have been overwhelmingly bad — and we aren’t just talking about the Jaguars. According to FiveThirtyEight’s pre-game Elo ratings, the harmonic mean of both teams’ ratings — a balanced measure of matchup quality that can better detect when both teams in a game are either good or bad — has been below average in 13 of the 17 games played in London. On top of that, all four games to be played in London this year will be below average, according to the team’s current Elo ratings. NFL fans will generally tune in regardless of who is playing. So perhaps the NFL’s intention was that the consistently poor quality of opponents would be scratched out by competitive, exciting contests. If that’s the case, the plan is generally working. Ten of the 17 games — or 59 percent — have been decided by one score. That might not sound so thrilling, but just 35 percent of all NFL games played since 2007 have been decided by 8 points or fewer. One of last year’s London games was so tightly matched, no one won it. (Fortunately for Cincinnati and Washington, they were playing in the one NFL location where fans are content with a tie.) Low-quality games usually lead to drops in attendance toward the end of the season. Not in London, though. All but two games have attracted a crowd of more than 80,000, with the highest NFL London crowd at 84,488 — for last year’s tie at Wembley. To put that in context, that average draw would have been the second-highest home attendance of any team in the league last season (behind only the Dallas Cowboys). As Goodell continues to push some of his most mediocre teams onto the international scene, it turns out that they’re rewarding fans with some of the league’s most competitive play. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/london-brings-out-the-best-in-the-nfls-dregs/

Things not getting better for Everton. Only managed to draw at home vs Apollon Limassol -- and gave up the equalizer right after the visitors had been reduced to 10 men. They are not too likely even to get out of their group.

This bus is making me see strange things ... or as Johnny Cash used to sing, Drive on ... don't mean nothin', drive on ....

What's your point?

There's good trolls and then there's

Thanks Top! when you spelled that right, you gave yourself away ...

They are one good season away from being everybody's second club.

I thought Southampton were quite an outlier last year, on 8th with just 46 points. Point taken that a negative W-L record is feasible there.