HanoiVillan

They're gonna be getting some form of points deduction on probably two occasions next season, so not sure you'll have to suffer them for long.

An excellent interview, seems very mature and well-spoken. Definitely a loan that has really worked for everyone, we haven't had enough of those this season.

Quite. He also could have done his ACL in the first minute of his first match. It's a vexatious waste of time.

Preventing dreadful ideas like 'the 39th step' is one plausible vision for what a 'football regulator' would be useful for. Seemingly our PM-in-waiting isn't a fan of the idea though, so who knows if it will ever get going.

They won't get 15 points ever, because I'm pretty sure it was addressed in one of the PL judgements that as administration is 'only' a 10 point deduction it wouldn't make sense to give a team a deduction greater than that for going into administration. Not sure whether that makes the cap 8, 9 or 10 points though. The big picture is that you're right, Chelsea are in a much *worse* PSR situation next season, not better. In the normal course of operations, they could be something like £150m over their PSR limit next season, without any financial engineering like the hotel transaction. This is why I said on a previous page that you cannot completely rule them out as candidates for a relegation battle next season.

I'd love to avenge that 8-0.

Since a] the idea you could work out what chance a club had of relegation if a player was hypothetically available (to one decimal place, no less!) would utterly laughable if it wasn't such a bleak situation, and b] even if the number were somehow believable, it's almost exactly a 50/50 coin toss anyway, I can't really understand how they think this legal argument will persuade anybody at all.

We're in danger of copping the backlash

You're not going to believe this, but apparently 'a study' has declared that they had a 54 point something percent chance of staying up with Sala in the team, so they have rounded that up to 100 and then billed Nantes the entire cost of relegation as they see it. Absolute scumbag club, always have been.

Pep, is that you? The games are the price of success. If we didn't want to play the games, we could just have thrown the tie against Hibs and we wouldn't have had to play more than two of them. Complaining about beating other sides is the ultimate 'poor winning'.

Slightly confused how Louie Barry managed to make an error leading to a goal if he was subbed off at 2-0?

Denzel McKenzie is a brilliant name tbf

To be clear, I'm not suggesting that's a *likely* outcome. But the path to it would involve the possibility, which AIUI does remain, for them to get two points deductions, for both the 22/23 and 23/24 seasons. My understanding of the current situation, based on the White-Jordan-Borson chat last week, was that Chelsea have not yet gotten official approval for including the revenue from the sale of those hotels towards their PSR calculation, and that if that approval is not granted (and I have no way of knowing how likely or not that is) they will have failed their 22/23 PSR calculation by nearly £100m, and if they can't include similar transactions for 23/24 they could fail again by an even larger number. This would surely have to occasion pretty much the largest possible points deduction. Again, I have no way of knowing how likely that is, but it is at least *possible*. If two points deductions were combined with an inability to sign enough in the quality to replace players heading out, and also perhaps with failing to manage the Thursday-Sunday routine if they get into the Europa League or Conference League, you could get problems. After all, West Ham weren't a million miles from going down last season; if they'd had a couple of big points deductions as well they'd have gone. I wouldn't bet on this outcome, but I also don't think it can be ruled out completely, at least not yet.

In fairness nothing, their statement is a joke. 'When we implied that the VAR was a corrupt crook engaged in a conspiracy against us, we to be clear did not mean anything about any individual official, of course not. But he shouldn't have been selected because . . . reasons'. They haven't even got the courage of their shitty convictions.

Oh come on, isn't it obvious that the men in dark shadows are cackling with laughter as they plan their evil scheme to ensure Luton are able to stay up instead of Nottingham Forest. Just don't think too hard about it, absorb the vibes from the club's Twitter account, and it'll all become obvious soon enough.

Isn't the point that 'clear and obvious' doesn't really apply to offsides, because they believe (perhaps wrongly) that their lines are factual and definitive? Or 'Factual offside decisions will be based on the evidence provided by fully calibrated offside lines', per the Premier League's website: https://www.premierleague.com/news/1297392

This is in danger of getting off-topic perhaps, but what decision in the FA Cup was clearly 'incorrect'? Have I missed some definitive conclusion about the offside goal being wrong, because to me that looked so close I don't know how anybody could say confidently the decision was right *or* wrong.

If no-one expects 100% accuracy, then everyone is expecting mistakes. It's not a surprise that if mistakes occur, *sometimes* they will occur in a visible and potentially outcome-altering way like three penalty claims (though it's far from clear to me that three mistakes were made, I think only the last one is a clear mistake). The implication of 'no-one is expecting 100% accuracy' is that ultimately you have to have some tolerance of human error.

If 'the standard of refereeing [everywhere]' is 'wholly unacceptable', I think you ultimately have to ask whether the problem is more to do with your [our] expectations and less to do with the decisions.

Yes, it would have been a reasonable *request* beforehand. I'm disagreeing with 'that aspect of the criticism is valid', ie the communication after the event.

I don't think it is valid. The plain English reading of their tweet is that Atwell acted corruptly because he supports a rival team. They have no evidence to support the strong implication that acted corruptly, and if he 'considers his options' they could yet be in legal bother.

Exactly this. These are entirely problems of their own making. They don't *have to* try to win a quadruple every year, they could just play kids and reserves in the domestic cup competitions for example.

Was irked by that, but then it also sounded like the next commentator referred to 'Luis Paqueta' as well so seems like confusion was contagious.

Largely agree with this. The third is absolutely blatant; the first is more or less the same as the one we got from Duran against Burnley so consistency suggests it should have been given; I think the second I would learn towards it not being a pen but it wouldn't be a scandal if it was given. Their statement was stupid though, and as Jagielka pointed out on MOTD, it's far from clear that an Everton win is even the best result from a Luton perspective anyway (it's at least debatable).

Honestly, that list demonstrates their problem pretty clearly. The first half of the list is mostly players who did well when they first came up with Wilder half a decade or so ago, and the second half are mostly nobodies. Brereton Diaz and McAtee will go on to better things, otherwise those are mostly not PL quality players. They'll need a complete rebuild next season.