CVByrne

This is the issue. 6 years with McLaren and 1 world title. Then 6 titles in 7 years where Mercedes drivers were 1st and 2nd in the drivers Championship in all bar 2 of those seasons. Mercedes won constructors in all those seasons comfortably. Just remember what people were saying about Vettel after his 4 titles in a row when he had such a dominant car. I think Hamilton and Alonso are the best drivers of there generation with Vettel in 3rd. Schumacher and Senna are a cut above however. Schumacher in clearly inferior cars in the 90s almost winning world titles was the best era for me. Joining a joke team like Ferrari who were a laughing stock and dragging them to the top again. The thoughts of the best driver going to one of the worst teams because of the challenge is just not something we'd ever see these days. In modern sports though people just chase the statistics, like number of grand slams in tennis, or majors in golf, or grand prix wins and championships etc. Back in the past it wasn't all about chasing the statistics, careers started later and weren't as long for example.

I'm excited for this era of the cars as we finally are seeing competition. I think next season Ferrari and Mercedes will make big leaps forward and we'll have the three best drivers (Verstappen, Leclerc, Russel) in the three best cars hopefully giving us really competitive racing. The 11 years that were Red Bull and Mercedes basically being untouchable and we had to dine on only the odd little bit of competition. It's great that that is hopefully in the past. It's all about competition and I think this new rules set looks to deliver it (hopefully).

I think we are in a better place than Leicester and West Ham to get into that best of rest. Newcastle obviously a big rival. But with these changes to European competition the PL should get 8 European places regularly. Also with the increased financial might of the PL in general the gap between the Big 6 and us and Newcastle should close as we can attract higher quality of players than a 7th placed PL team could 5 years ago

Diego Carlos our most valuable player according to them at £36m, Kamara valued at £22.5m. £50m worth of players signed for a £27m fee combined.

Was reading article about Tarkowski transfer on The Athtletic. It impressed me, we were seen as guaranteed to sign him. We said we'd meet the wages he asked for (says well below the reported 120k). Gerrard also met him to discuss the move. But it was all just a back up for us, we couldn't not be going full in after Tarkowski who was a free agent if we wanted to ensure we would get him IF the Carlos deal didn't go through. We were going to get one of them and we got our first choice. I have a feeling (based on what Gerrard himself had said) we were going to get one of Kamara or Tarkowski on a free and the other position is where we would spend money. So as we got Kamara that meant we could spend on our preferred target Carlos. I think to pull of our top two signings in the most important positions has been great work.

Makes sense, be good signing for them

Depay is a good player, did well enough at Barca last season, 0.5 goals per 90

F1 drivers are not really known for the pleasant personalities. Like Hamilton is a dick, I know to British fans they don't see it because obviously you support your own drivers. Lots of people hated Schumacher. Alonso is a dick but he's in many peoples opinions the most talented driver of his generation. I think to have the edge you need to be unlikeable somewhat. Kinda like say Roy Keane effect. People might fear you a bit more out there.

Max has been brilliant since he joined F1. He has an edge to him and lots of raw talent. I think he's great.

Housing is like everything. It's supply, demand and affordability. It's a complex market and you can have governments intervene for what they believe is a positive reason and it has unexpected impacts. Take the reduced stamp duty period we had, that was to help stop a market crash due to covid. But what was not understood was that there was a boom coming anyway because of work from home and the new switch to remote working. People wanted more space. So all the government did was Gove a tax break which fuelled even more house price inflation and made even more people out of reach of owning a home. The same when people say clamping down on 2nd and 3rd properties. Without private landlords you can cause huge damage to the rental markets. Ireland has shot itself in the foot like this. They put in controls to stop landlorda raising rent more than 8% on a year and a set amount over 3 years of the same Tennant. Only new builds and new houses to rental market could set the rent at whatever level they wanted but were then bound by the se rules. What that lead to was it became less and less financially viable for the private landlords to keep renting out their properties and so they sold up. This reduced the supply of properties for rent and rents in Ireland have exploded to insane levels young people are just emigrating again as cost of living is too high. So what the government thought was a good idea to help people from increased rents led to astronomical rents and made the situation worse. It's simply supply and demand. Build enough houses for the population and it will keep houses affordable. However the vast majority of home owners don't want more houses or apartments in their area and the nimby councils are always on their side. Home owners want house prices to go up up up as they get wealthier from that. It's a highly complicated topic is housing.

Yeah makes sense. Like a home / away thing.

Why to British F1 fans hate Max? Assume it's because he's main rival to Hamilton and how last season ended

Aberdeen are in UK though

You have to give the club credit. We had a shortlist of 3 players. Bissouma, Phillips and Kamara. If we failed to get one of them we were in a bad place as it was the most critical signing of the summer. To beat out Atletico to get Kamara on a free transfer is superb work. If given the option of Bissouma for 25m+ add-on or Kamara I'd probably have preferred Kamara. Phillips would have been my preferred signing at £45m. Still, well done to the club for nailing the Kamara and Carlos deals so early. Seville needed to sell a player before 30th June. Same with getting Coutinho for £17m, brilliant work. I really don't see what people are complaining about. Small bits of astute business like signing Chambers a player who can play multiple positions and is very experienced Premier League player with international caps and two seasons of CL football.

I wish we could find out if we are owed compensation regardless of who signs him next summer when out of contract. I think it's a FIFA thing not just a UK thing

£14m + add ons for Hickey. tbh if you could between Brentford as 1st choice and back up at Villa you'd choose Brentford.

You'd expect Max to still win it easy tomorrow on a dry track

Well done Sainz, long overdue first Pole

Alonso is a genius

I think it's just about to stop raining from the rain radar I'm looking at. The plot thickens, inters at the end of the next session might be the one. Most will go for the wets

Q3 should be exciting

True the over round or margin that bookies add makes it more difficult. Betting exchanges will always give you better odds and have very small overround so I'd always advise using them in general like betfair. But the advantage the punter has is we can pick our fights, bookies need to fight on all fronts. Take a weekends horse racing, there are hundreds of horses racing and I only need to find one or two I think the market or bookies have priced incorrectly to have an edge. If you approach it looking for good bets instead of specific events you want to bet on. For example deciding you will bet on a specific football match rather than looking at all the games and seeing if there is a good bet. So by having the ability to pick what we bet on and when we can have an edge. If there is no good bet that weekend then you don't bet.

I really think he can operate as one of the split forwards with Watkins ahead of Coutinho/Buendia in 10 Also if we play him as one of the two 10s, we can tweak the right hand side so he's a bit more providing the width and Cash is coming into 8 so McGinn gets forward or Cash underlaps into the half space himself.

Same, made a lot of money betting against us. Wolves and City last season were big wins. Bet on them to win after we were 2-0. It's called an emotional hedge. If we win all good, if we somehow collapse and lose in final 20 mins from 2-0 up I win big.

We've 2 months to do more. I think the left back needs to come in before we go to Australia ideally. Then it's based on players leaving and potentially being replaced.