shen

OoOoOh Welsh friends

Ward must be on enormous wages

Only unbeaten team left, together with RSCA. Not bad! Especially considering draws against the early in-form sides.

To be fair, they didn't quite 'create' Maresca's departure. Though they likely did sway his decision.

Some may find it interesting that yesterday's announcement of Wieghorst's sick leave means that Knudsen, assistant for the Danish NT and former Leicester set piece coach, is now promoted to Team Manager for Denmark's upcoming Nations League games

RIP Sven. What a way to go, proper farewell tour, lots of love and attention all over, getting celebrated and honoured. I feel it speeks volumes about what a man he was and how he conducted himself. By no means uncontroversial and many managers have achieved more than him, but I've always admired him as a manager. Easily one of, if not, the best Scandinavian coaches in history.

We don't really know that. A bit like the Dean Smith appointment, Cooper smelled of desperation and ill-advice. We've seen plenty of sides 'gamble' on foreign managers in recent times with no prior PL experience. Slot, Ten Hag, Hürzeler, Glasner, Iraola, Lopetegui etc. Not saying we should attract those managers, but similar managerial talents were surely available.

For one, we've watched Ricardo for years. We know his outstanding qualities and last year he doubled down by nailing his new role almost from day one. A new manager's dream you'd think - someone with the tactical flexibility and technical skills to fit practically anywhere on the pitch in any kind of system. Mavididi has some very specific strengths, which he was able to show consistently all season. Now Reid is playing in this exact same position, but far less efficiently. It's a bizarre change and a baffling downgrade. Reid might be off form, but this makes the lack of change even less understandable. We had enough weaknesses in the team going into the season - fixing what didn't need to be fixed is a great waste and judging by performances, has only made us worse. Perplexing.

There's always a segment that will push the button early. I have seen little positives so far and to me Cooper's not helping himself in the fans' eyes with how he speaks in public. I appreciate it's not an easy job or situation at the club, but where Maresca had a clear idea and authority, Cooper comes across as rather rudderless and contradictory. The way he overlooks Ricardo and Mavididi for inferior options are clear an obvious red flags.

Remind me again which side the goals yesterday came from? Ricardo was a mainstay in the meanest defense last season and he was a key player in controlling possession and using our '8'.

I can't work out how Cooper claims he's seen our games from last year and decided that from a footballing perspective Ricardo isn't a starter. In a team with questionable quality, he's easily our standout player tactically and maybe even technically.

It's all a moot point - we'll never know how he would or wouldn't have done. I'm fairly confident we would have been stronger than last year with Maresca, simply by virtue of another pre-season and fine tuning of the squad. We likely wouldn't have lost KDH for one and two of our best players from last year would be starting. Also not convinced Maresca would've signed off on Reid or Ayew. He's had an entire pre-season to train this "similar style" to Maresca. I know last year we made the transition to the style in near record speed, but the transition was arguably much bigger than what Cooper says he's attempting.

Hadji played for us...? Thought he was only at Cov.

What? the guy played for a side that qualified for the CL...

In Danish it was 'Zohoar', which in itself is a bastardisation of the West African roots. Another odd example is Martin Braithwaite who's times explained that his name should be pronounced without the first "i" (i.e. Brathwaite), as I seem to recall it was a spelling error in his (grand?)fathers immigration papers that was never corrected. He's since just accepted and embraced that it will forever be mispronounced. Edit: Also, I find it funny how Hermansen, Iversen and Vestergaard pronounce their names in Danish, but Kristiansen pronounces it in English every time

Payrise and sign-on I presume. But yes, difficult to argue otherwise.

Established? He was a rotation/backup player for Spurs. Despite breaking through a long time ago he's not been able to cement a place in the team. Compare this to the fee Spurs paid for Maddison, a high-scoring, high-assisting star player at Cov, Norwich and with us for several years in the PL. It's just an eye-watering price and a fee we will likely never get close to recouping. I hope he turns out fine...

Seems extremely excessive this fee. How Winks is 10m and Skipp 20m is bewildering to me...

They got a king's ransom for him on the back of a purple patch, form which he failed to reproduce anywhere since. I find that Portuguese top clubs are experts in timing the sale of their best assets. They had our pants down with both him and Silva

Funny and wholesome

Sure, not to mention factors like (sports) culture, climate and genetics (and maybe even doping ). You look at the winter OGs and see Norway topping the all-time tables. The events there are tailormade for them, but they only have less than 6 mil inhabitants. It's a bit greedy to want more from team GB in my opinion.

I think you forgot about the world's largest country, mate.

Alright gramps I do wonder why we persist with some bizarre athletics too like triple jump, discus and hammer throw or shot put. Why not have a 10m sprint or 50m sprint or 150m sprint while we're at it when we have 100, 200, 400, 800, 1500, 5000, 10000, Marathon, 4x100, 4x200, 4x400, 110 hurdles, 200 hurdles, 400 hurdles, 3000 steeplechase in mens and womens editions...? I love watching athletics, but just because they've been around forever, doesn't make all the T&F events relevant today.

Athletics have the Euros, WC and Golden/Diamond League too, Cycling have their Grand Tours, Monuments and WC etc. It's the same for many sports. The Olympics used to have amateur athletes only as I recall, no?

Do you remember the days of every other race having 1-3 false starts? Was frustrating for all involved. It's been a rule that's been around for a long time now and on the whole, I think it's fair. Do have sympathy for the guy though.