Cizzler

I just can’t fathom how all of the highly paid people who work in our recruitment department have supposedly scoured the world for a new CB and then plumbed for a 26 year old, average centre back who was on the bench last week for a mid-table team who can’t defend. If it’s £15m, it’s a crazy decision. If it’s a loan with no option to buy it’s slightly more palatable - but just reeks of panic.

Nice ball from Ings for Digne’s goal

That touch from McGinn was like something from 5aside PowerLeague, Jesus Christ

Must be wondering what he’s still doing here if he can’t even get a start tonight against a mid-table L1 outfit, after Ings and Watkins both played at the weekend.

Really poor that he has to use this game to figure out his best team and can’t even start Archer. If you deliberately hold back a promising young player from going out on loan, they really should be playing the early rounds of the league cup against mid-table L1 teams.

He’s desperate for a win/ any momentum that will help him save his skin. Clearly still has no clue what his best team is. Oh well, at least this should help somewhat.

Tragically it’s much more likely that Cash is the one and only position (amongst the outfield 10) he’s actually sure upon. Rested.

Either way, his manager has deemed him not mentally right for a big cup game. The post I replied to said there’s “no behind the scenes drama with him” - that’s clearly not the case.

Really uninspiring signing (and screams panic buy after Carlos’ injury). Third choice CB for a bottom half of the league outfit. Of an age where any dramatic improvement is drastically unlikely. The only good thing to say is he’s better than Hause.

Didn’t he refuse to play Man City in their FA Cup game? https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/20007279.amp/

Why don’t Steer nor McGinn count?

Any surprises now we have the announcement @useless ? I don’t follow the academy (apart from on this thread!) but would you say Kadan Young and Travis Patterson (plus the two new signings from Derby / Rangers) are the most promising prospects of the bunch at the moment?

Why is Kesler-Hayden not there?

Bissouma, Spence and Richarlison all look like fantastic signings to be fair. They’ve massively upgraded at centre mid and right back and added a great rotation option for Son/Kane/Kulusevski. Also have brought in Perisic to play LWB, which is an underrated acquisition. Lloris, Romero, Son and Kane are already easily amongst the best players (respective to their positions) in the league. With a great manager too, would bet on them being closer to 2nd than to 4th.

Our youth team is littered with players poached from WBA, Exeter, Rangers, Derby, Bournemouth, etc. It’s a bit hypocritical to deem that good business - yet throw our toys out the pram when we lose a player. What did Man City get for Sancho and Bynoe-Gittens? What did Spurs get for Noni Madueke? Chelsea for Jamal Musiala? Etc, etc It’s part and parcel of the game and good teams don’t let losing one promising youngster affect them. Either he signs a contract or he doesn’t play a minute for us again imo. He looks like he’ll become a great player - but he isn’t one yet. Let someone else have the minutes.

He’s never a £100m player, is he. Two great chances when he came on. Was he trying to square the first? A goal looks on if he went near post. The second was a great save by Courtois tbf - no slight on Jack there. Did he do anything in extra time? I can’t remember any contribution. A few comfortable passes from the left wing. He wasn’t close to unlocking the Madrid defence. Surely you want a £100m player to take the game by the scruff of the neck, to demand the ball and actually create something. Despite the way he left, I couldn’t help but root for him a little bit tonight. I wanted him to prove he belongs on this stage. Can’t lie that I’m happy City crashed out though. “Champions of Europe, you’ll never sing that”. Real to win please. The idea of a Liverpool quadruple is sickening.

Ehh both cases involve innocent civilians (defenseless children + women) being raped and murdered - I think they are the same magnitude of absolutely awful.

My Lai?

They beat Leeds the game before this. Although agree if they lose to Burnley they’re in trouble

Who does a false flag op benefit? They are already performing atrocities on Ukrainian civilians, they don’t need to conjure up a ‘justification’. And they already feed their own citizens whatever information they want - so it’s not like they need to ‘sell’ Ukrainian aggression. I find it hard to believe they’d deliberately blow up their own fuel supplies when they already control what their citizens believe.

The Ruble rate is not a meaningful reflection of the Russian economy. The WSJ did a good article on this a few days pack. It’s behind a paywall - but you can find the article here if interested: https://jnews.uk/how-russias-central-bank-engineered-the-rubles-rebound/

It depends what you mean by bypass. The "West" is over half of the world's GDP. I'm sure they can function by only trading with the East, but their economy will take years to recover. There's no short-term solution to this. Key countries in Europe are over-reliant on Russian energy. These countries would risk recession if they suddenly stopped buying this energy. However, long-term Russia has lost the EU energy market permanently.

The Ruble exchange rate is not a meaningful reflection of Russia’s economy. It stopped being so the second Russia’s central bank severely limited anyone being able to sell the Ruble. The WSJ did a good article on this a few days pack. It’s behind a paywall - but you can find the article here if interested: https://jnews.uk/how-russias-central-bank-engineered-the-rubles-rebound/

Collateral damage possibly? They were hardly careful with the nerve agent in Salisbury... I think I read four Ukranian diplomats also displayed symptoms of an attack - so it's unlikely Roman was the main target, but who knows.

To be honest, I had completely trivialised alopecia as "just hair loss" before reading this (and bickster's) post. So thank you for posting this.