KingsX

We squeezed off 24 shots mate.

Our only weaknesses in stark relief. We don’t finish very well, and in our setup, speedy attackers can punish our mistakes. That said, it’s no shock that 2 shots on goal beat one. Onward and upward.

IT'S ON

City today? or FT generally?

We are playing like a pickup side who speak 11 different languages.

Praet having a stinker is no shock. But he and KdH having one in the same game is hard to overcome. Surprised KdH is the one getting yanked, though.

That's his top speed mate.

* unless you're Riyad Mahrez

We were far more competitive in the first half of the League Cup match at Anfield.

We''re getting routed. I forgot what this feels like.

And Ricardo saves the match.

Cavanaugh whistles are great attack dead because Daka avoids Clarke who was already falling down.

Judging by their forum ... apparently not.

We're all pining for this victory. (Holy Jeezus are you lot starting to turn me English? Or is it just the ancestral blood?)

I care, and this being football, stranger things happen all the time, than Plymouth at home holding Leeds to one point. So I'm still watching even though they are one down. If I didn't care, I'd be watching higher quality football in Brentford v Liverpool.

Reading that has transformed me into Mr Burns.

Of course. And it's not good reading for the "possession is meaningless" crowd.

We can’t simply assume Brighton will go the same route as past clubs. Their approach is driven by factors that are hard to duplicate. They shop in a different market (smaller South American countries) not already crawling with European scouts. More importantly, they’ve been there for years, with their own personnel who have deep relationships with club directors and managers down to youth level. i.e. the people who know exactly who the good footballers are, and in that region, have the influence to tell them where to sign. Add in their proprietary database and analysis methods and … the results have been striking. For sure, others are already copying Brighton’s methods, and poaching their front-office talent. And as you note, there is the cost-control ceiling which they are approaching. (To compete with the biggest, you MUST grow your revenues.) But their operation appears the most sustainable smaller-club approach we’ve seen in this era.

I can still read Telegraph articles on my laptop (Firefox) using this method. Paste the url and go. As soon as the page load shows the text, stop it. Immediately place the cursor over the text and right-click Select All, then Copy, and you’ve got the page on the clipboard. Be quick; you have about 5 seconds to do all this. (I then paste it, text only, into Word or WordPad.)

I stand corrected. Per reports, the option becomes an obligation if we go up. Looking less and less like an "if"

We need to stop wasting our energy moaning about this sort of maneuvering by “cheap Italian (or French / Spanish / Turkish) clubs”. With strict FFP and cost control enforcement, this is the new normal, and not only on the continent. Putting an option in a loan deal It no longer establishes a non-negotiable strike price (if it ever did). It is how the loaning-in club puts a ceiling on the purchase price in case the player absolutely kills it. Transfer budgets and fees are falling fast. Deals done this summer will not reflect the pricing seen for similar players in recent years. Often not even close. I’d be surprised if we just write a check for €17M for Fatawu. We’ll negotiate, as we will be forced to with Soumare and Kristianssen.

“Kiernan came to me when there was all the noise about him and told me that he had no intention of leaving the club,” says Maresca. “He said he had an obligation to get Leicester promoted. He feels responsible for last season and wants to take the club back to the Premier League."

Man U reportedly poaching Brighton's recruitment chief. Not a shock I guess. Dan Ashworth will be given the responsibility of rebuilding Manchester United's scouting department when he becomes the club's director of football, with Brighton's head of recruitment, Sam Jewell, identified as the leading candidate to head up the new structure, sources have told ESPN. United are in talks with Newcastle United in an effort to release Ashworth from his contract as sporting director at St James' Park and sources have said that a swift resolution could see the 52-year-old granted permission to move to Old Trafford in the coming days, subject to a period of gardening leave being served before beginning a new role in Manchester. Sir Jim Ratcliffe's INEOS group, who will take charge of football operations at United once their 25% investment is finally confirmed by the NYSE next week, want Ashworth to transform the recruitment system at Old Trafford after undertaking an audit of the club's recent transfer dealings. Only Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain have spent more than United on new players since 2018, but United have won just one trophy -- the 2023 Carabao Cup -- in that period. https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/39530180/man-utd-eyeing-scouting-overhaul-ashworth-hire-sources

I wish we bought more lottery tickets. Almost every game, we spurn two or three reasonably high xG shots to try to pass or dummy for the perfect shot. Great when everybody is on the same page and it works, but we turn it over in a goodly number of promising positions when attackers misread each others' intentions and overplay.