filbertway

Not sure if it was because of the horrific performance vs a knackered and weak Wednesday side but I was expecting a lot more people to be laughing off the suggestion in early August If we didn't lose JJ for basically the final 3rd of the season, I'm fairly confident we wouldn't have gone down, we only got 4 starts out of him in the last 18 games.

Given Lijnders has been sacked within about 6 months of his 2 managerial jobs, he should probably stick to being coach/assistant for now. Probably another that's a good coach but lacks the actual traits that make someone a good manager.

What's the latest ticket sale count for this absolute feast of football?

I thought it was Stoke heavy before I noticed Pulis was manager. I assume he's had a very big say in the squad haha

Depends how you define struggling. I doubt Forest or Palace were too chuffed with their league performance. Certainly doable to compete on two fronts, but playing Thursday Sunday is obviously going to be a struggle and it'd be fair to expect you to slide back somewhat in the league if you do well in Europe. All English teams should qualify from the league phases as well as we just have such a big advantage over every other league. Anyway, I was chuffed for you lot, hope you enjoy next season I fancied you to do the best of the 3 that came up as your gaffer plays a way that suits underdogs. Obviously your recruitment was superb as well, signing basically a whole new starting XI is no small job either.

What? If hes as competent as you're saying he is then yes, absolutely. Of course you'd plan for 2 scenarios that are very possible. Honestly the main weird thing is that we've not said goodbye to Rowett. Either we want him or we don't want him. Keeping him around in limbo is literally what we had with RVN.

I wish I could I cant rationalise players on 80k and more a season celebrating not being relegated like that haha

Spurs players celebrating 17th place like theyve won the league

Mark Lyson overtakes Howard Foster in the early stoppage stakes. Grim. Catterall was so good absolute masterclass. Sheeraz continues to be a monster. Main scrap was really good. Shame the ref murdered it.

True dat!

The lack of pressure should hopefully result in some quality exhibition style darts tonight

@StanSP after further reading 6th could well get CL spot. The wording by UEFA is confusing but the Premier League have confirmed. England get 4 positions. By virtue of being in the top 2 nations England gets an extra domestic spot. So if Villa finish 5th. That extra domestic spot will go to 6th place as they have qualified via the Europa league. If they finish 4th then the domestic qualification supercedes the Europa league win. So that spot will be redistributed to Sporting What a way to spend my day off reading up on this madness

If post of the year still exists, this has got to be up there

The EFL have hammered Southampton. Not the FA

I don't think it was ever available for 6th place though. These new rebalancing rules were brought in with the model change last season. 5 spots available from England 2 spots available for UEFA who choose to have the winners of the Champions League and Europa League. Europa League spot - Goes to team outside league qualification with highest co-effecient. Champion League spot - Goes to champions of Country that is 11th in UEFA coeffecients. (Champions of 1-10 already qualify directly for league phase) So that'll mean Shaktar get the Champions League winner spot. Sporting get the Europa league winner spot. If we're talking purely on sporting merit then that seems infinitely fairer than a team in England who finish 6th getting a crack at the champions league because another team their league finished above them and won a European trophy.

I don't think I understand what you're saying sorry. Redistributing to the highest co-efficient in the CL makes sense to me. It's not a spot designated for England, it's a spot designated for the cup winners. If the cup winners have already qualified then I think the fairest option is to give a league place to the next team in the queue in the actual competition.

EFL need to bring in a new rule. Any club hiring a lawyer to try and gain a sporting advantage get a 30 point deduction. Applicable immediately. Absolute wrong'uns.

I'd rather not be put through that again

6th place don't get CL - the spot gets redistributed. Sporting CP set for automatic Champions League league phase berth if rebalancing is required | UEFA Europa League | UEFA.com

Bloom's done it with Brighton and done it with USG. I've no doubt they'll be challenging the old firm, genuinely wouldn't be surprised to see them become the dominant team in the league in 4-5 seasons. Even with the massive advantage the other 2 have. They're just going to operate levels ahead of the 2 old firm clubs off the pitch. If they can get the European money in and recruit, develop and sell like USG and Brighton have done, then they'll have more than enough money to match the old firm.

The general gist I've been working under is that any club would need to have him agreed, medical passed and register intention to transfer him to their academy by mid june. If it's by start of June though, even better. Good luck reaching out to anyone at the club before June. I expect it's a ghost town there atm

I meant to reply to you last time you replied to me on here but I must have got distracted I'm absolutely not an expert and have no experience in the field, but I can't find anywhere that says you can legally tie an u17 to a pro contract before they turn 17. Is that June timeline start of June or end of June? I'd not ready anything about that but that's interesting. My assumption would be end of June in line with the season? I know there's a general minimum guideline for Cat 1 players going to other Cat 1 academies. I think we'd be in a fairly strong position given what Monga has been promised by the club, but I imagine it's a relative snip of what we could recieve if he is signed as a pro with us. If it does come to him leaving, I'd fancy a tribunal to get us a better deal than we could manage with Rudkin negotiating haha.

We can try and negotiate a compensation package. If the clubs don't come to an agreement though, he can still go and it'll be sorted by tribunal. Until he's 17 he's not a professional and we have basically no leverage. There's a deal in place for him to turn pro if he's with us when he turns 17, but until that point I'm pretty sure there's no legal way to make him be here until he's 17. If there was, other clubs would have been doing it.

God rest her soul, one of the best to do it and will be greatly missed.

To be fair I also misunderstood your point at first. I think it's because you led with "he's not involved in the day to day running of the club" which initially read like he wasn't a decision maker. Then the mention of Jan kerfuffle threw me further It did make sense in the end though haha