JPJCB

Ok- step back, have a glass of water. Read the post. A guess would be me just picking at random. But my argument explicitly rests on actual evidence of high profile drinking incidents so is therefore educated

Of course we don’t know how exactly much he drinks. But we are allowed to make educated guesses from numerous (not just one) high profile drinking related incidents throughout his career

Without him in the team. Back to the original point. No one’s saying that if we couldn’t have grealish back for free it would be a bad idea (or if they are then I disagree with them). But the transfer and wage cost would be huge and he’d likely have not that much resale value by the time we looked to move him on at 32-33 (which is where the professionalism point comes in). Plus we’re already well stacked in his position with Ramsey, McGinn, tielemans, Buendia (when fit) all able to play there. I’d rather spend the money on younger options for the squad at CM, RB and striker. In any case given the cost constraints I suspect he’ll end up either in MLS or Saudi soon enough cause no one in Europe will fork out the £50m plus to get him

Sure although we’re doing pretty well in that front without him these days

Sure although you can add to grealish’s list that he’s been caught in numerous drink related incidents in the past and said in interviews that he will always enjoy going on a night out. No ones doubting grealish’s ability. But for some reason this thread has morphed into equating him with players like young in terms of fitness/professionalism and ignoring all the evidence in front of our eyes

If you were asked to pick out who you thought might be the biggest drinker in the squad, who would you choose: the guy who drinks for 72 hours straight at the victory parade and has to be carried out his front door to the next event, or someone else?

Gareth Southgate spotted at Sunday league match checking on a potential partner for rice in midfield

I agree. Getting ready for the next phase though where spurs are included in the discussion and we aren’t. If we’d not won against sheff united then I’m almost certain that would have been the narrative. ATM were acting as a boundary line: anyone above Villa is in a title race; anyone below Villa is in a Europe race. We could be joint on points with 3rd and 10 points above 5th and that would still be the narrative

Now that he’s a deeper lying centre mid he’s got more chance of getting in. He’ll be competing with the likes of Gallagher, Henderson and Phillips to play alongside rice. And to be fair, based on current form you’d pick him over any of those

I’m speculating on a not very fun subject here but the greenwood thing seems like one of those situations where she probably does love him despite him being a piece of shit. She posted that clip of him and nearly ruined his life and then probably felt guilty subsequently and wanted to stay with him hence the collapse of the case against him. Maybe money was involved but i could imagine that not being the driving factor Doesnt change what the whole world heard on that recording clip and fair play to Bellingham for calling him what he is. Just a sad situation that these types of relationships exist with shitty men who are abusers

To be fair, he was poor when played as part of the double pivot- and his inability to play there has caused us a bit of a problem given we basically have no depth there if Luiz/Kamara are injured. Fair play to him though for his performances in a more advanced role. Without wanting to hint at agreeing with delphinho(!) his main value add to the squad has been as a Buendia replacement

If La Liga fines him for this while doing next to **** all about the racial abuse of players like Vinicius then it will tell us a lot about the values of that league. Bellingham should be looking for a way out

That XG also implies he doesn’t get into positions to score very frequently. Maybe that’s down to not getting chances but it’s a very low number even for a relegation threatened side

Would love to hear Danny Murphy’s opinion on this

if alonso is in the running why not this guy?

Overall this is good for us. Klopp was arguably the best manager in the world at getting more out of players than they have on paper. Liverpool aren’t a money bags club and him leaving makes it more likely that emery’s villa can displace them regardless of who they get to replace him

I’m not defending Gerrard by any means but sanson’s first year with the club coincided with smith and he did barely anything in that time. And as others have pointed out, he could have stayed with Emery but decided not to. Theres plenty of other players who have more of a right to complain about Gerrard- mings, Luiz, Buendia to name a couple

Edit- misread original tweet

He said afterwards in an interview that no one would be talking about him moving the foam/ball if he hadn’t scored. Yeah, obviously mate. He’s not the brightest is Ivan

Ashley Williams (who in general is a decent pundit) arguing that it’s forest’s fault that the toney goal didn’t get disallowed because they didn’t complain about it. Since when are those the rules? Either it’s breaching the rules or it isn’t and if it’s the former then VaR has ample opportunity to rule it out

Watching MOTD and arsenal’s second goal involves Jesus clearly obstructing the palace goalie on the corner in question. Does VaR check it? No Meanwhile a month ago Ramsey does a similar thing to the Sheffield united goalie and the goal is disallowed despite the goal coming about a minute later in a different phase of play. Make it make sense. Meanwhile MOTD’s analysis focusses almost entirely on how arsenal’s set piece coach is a genius because he’s taught players to obstruct the palace defenders on corners leading to free headers. (No danny Murphy in sight of course)

This is the best post I’ve read today. It really is

What have they even spent that money on? As this season has shown, their squad isn’t even that good. Fair enough Guimaraes, Isak, Tonali. But Who else has been warranting such big sums? Harvey barnes?!

I know somewhat off topic but the first goal shows everything that’s special about Kamara. The way he deliberately holds on to the ball longer than you’d expect and engages a defender before feeding Moreno…just class

Not sure about that. I seem to recall emery liked a front 4 of McGinn, Buendia, Bailey behind Watkins at first and then Ramsey in for Bailey toward the end of the season. Youre right that diaby being around makes it more competitive but the signs in pre-season were that Buendia was preferred to Bailey. My guess is we would have started the season with Buendia and McGinn on the wings, and diaby behind Watkins. Whats changed in the interim is that Bailey’s form has astronomically improved - he’s probably benefited most from Buendia not being fit- and so buendia’s chances of getting in the side are lower than pre-injury. But it’s wrong to say that Emery didn’t like him last season