The Doctor

few claps from people, lot of boos from the GERRITFORWARD brigade

I mean coca-cola literally had trade unionists in Colombia murdered back in the 90s, and PepsiCo had child labour in its supply chains until very recently. like, not to go rabid communist but there is a reason the saying "no ethical consumption under capitalism" exists (and why it was a core plot point of the good place). The only ethical shirt sponsor is no shirt sponsor, because there's not really any such thing as an ethical company under a capitalist system (if I were to go full communist here I'd talk about how capitalism is inherently unethical because profit can only exist in the form of wage theft, but no-one wants that argument in here)

Lol, get the prat sacked.

don't think they're going up to march just yet with the rearrangements

which ones? definitely not Leeds where we absolutely battered them, and had a goal wrongly disallowed that would have made it 2 while they were desperately hanging on. Plymouth, the literal definition of a smash and grab (xG was 1.6-0.2 in our favour). Middlesbrough again a smash and grab (2.1-1.0 in our favour). Millwall again, 0.9-0.5 in our favour, draw would have been a fair reflection of the pattern of that game. so we arrive at Coventry, where we had the mitigating circumstances of playing with 10 for a half, and QPR/Blackburn, which I already said we deservedly lost.

i mean it didn't though? what happened was everyone doubled up on Mav and Fatawu, leaving loads of room for the CMs at the same time that wilf and Praet got injured and Casadei got recalled, leaving us with just KDH and Winks as the CMs available. yea we lost more but cov - 10 men for half a game. Middlesbrough, Plymouth and Leeds we missed a ton of sitters, even Millwall to an extent. the ones you can say we deservedly lost on performances are QPR (played poorly) and Blackburn (final day of the season, nothing to play for and everyone half cut). we came up against an injury crisis in a key position and still looked absolutely fine.

yea. it's a pretty shocking window tbh. Okoli and BEK fit the old model of buying potential and developing it to sell on and are the two permanent deals (excluding Fatawu) that I'm happy with, Skipp I'm not convinced is good value at all but I do at least get the idea given we were really light on CMs last season even before losing KDH and Praet but then Ayew, Reid and Eduoard are just baffling.

idk, if we're looking at the system we played last year I think you could make a case for BEK over Ndidi (assuming you put Facundo as KDHs replacement). not fantastic to have only upgraded on one player who didn't leave still

PrEmIeR LeAgUe ExPeRiEnCe

it had been yea, but it wasn't flapping at crosses, it was just he'd consistently punch rather than catch. to my memory he only messed up the one punch which was the defeat at home to Pompey. People just straight up considered punching a cross to be a mistake

Yea, there was that, then there was the 3-2 defeat in 10/11 at easter, went behind twice, equalised, then a long range shot sort of just bounced over his dive. Then the 2-2 in 11/12 where Kasper was sent off for returning the ball to the centre circle after conceding (Still convinced Moss was match-fixing), Weale came on and just jumped underneath a cross for a stoppage time equaliser. Not sure what the other blowing a 2-0 lead was. Weale wasn't that bad, those were the only major mistakes he made, but being in local derbies they stand out. Same with Ricardo really, he made one mistake with a cross (at home to portsmouth) but people make out that it was like 10 times a match because people absolutely hate the idea of a keeper punching crosses, even if situationally it can be the far superior option to catching.

Ricardo didn't really have much of a problem with crosses, he just punched rather than catching and people lost their minds

what did you find exciting about camping in our own box for half a match and refusing to attack?

absolutely hideous reading and honestly makes even clearer that "premier league experience" is a folly that bad managers obsess over to hide their flaws

he played 44 games, missing Preston away (on the bench as squad rotation) and Huddersfield (one knock). calling missing one game through injury in a 53 game (league and cup) season "injury prone" is going completely over the top

Steve Cooper seeing a way to get more DMs into the team:

ah but how many points where you expecting, you've got to give a new manager time, who else would take the job etc etc.

nah, stick a zipline on it and then we can immediately put Faes in Prison for any more stupid mistakes

Everton fans still not getting that infrastructure is an allowable deduction so they weren't deducted points for building a new ground then? and, am I missing something with the cov fan? we didn't do anything wrong in 2001/02 from what I remember? just played shit and got relegated

loud and proud at home to Everton next time out. I want to hear those bastards combust with rage in their shellsuits.

so, we avoided EFL punishment by arguing we were a PL club when breaching so the EFL didn't have jurisdiction, and avoided PL punishment by arguing that the EFL had jurisdiction, not the PL?

that he's essentially expected to play as a wing back to cover for the set up? that we're lining up with so little offensive intent that there's no chances for him to create?

no? failing to ensure players did not behave in an improper way means the same thing as failing to ensure players behaved in a proper way.

I did yes, not sure that means that people actually claimed he was secretly older than he was when he was flagging for us, rather than it being a fatigue issue or anything else.