Let's just say I'll believe it when I see it.

Looking like scumbag Ashley might finally be selling Newcastle.

Both Andy Carroll and Nasri are to leave West Ham. How you feeling demo? Relief? Sadness? The joy only a school child can feel?

Also, anyone watching the Europa League final tonight?

No feelings at all about Nasri but some sadness about Carroll. Very complicated relationship to the club. Brought in by Sam and was the embodiment of his neanderthal style, and his injury record speaks for itself. But he always gave 100% when he did play for us and was actually a better, more versatile player than the stereotypes suggest. I actually feel most sorry for him. He should've had a better career than his injuries allowed.

And he's just one of those people it's difficult to really dislike.

And yep. Off to the Chinese now to pick up my large chicken chow mein, curry sauce and spare ribs, ready for the Euros final. Livin' the dream

dammit, im so hungry.... no chinese restaurants near but i got some soy sauce in the cupboard

fml....

Lots of empty seats at the stadium. Crazy that two teams 5 miles apart having to travel almost 3000 miles to play each other.

i know you spoke of eras dominated by real/barca, but 4 teams from the same country in the european finals? 3 from london alone... is there a precedent?

anyway im lucky to have tuned in this year

auba kinda threw that chance away...

not convinced that wasn't a pen

lacazette getting hacked a lot today

holy shit yeah he did not touch the ball!

Swear Savage isn't actually watching the game given how many wrong things he's said.

Flat game it must be said. Couple of nice chances for both sides but nothing special.

õ_Ô

just jinxed poor arsenal!

—

shit... 4-1 now... and counting...

arsenal had several good chances in first half but did not finish them right

now again, tons of chances, all missed

next year they could use lewandowski or something...

fuck, poor arsenal

the chelsea finishes though... wowowow

—

se acabó

So, apologies for ignoring the Champions League final that I'm sure you're all hyped about, but: Women's World Cup? Anyone looking forward to it? Predictions?

no worries, today was europa league final, aka the runts :D

champions final is on saturday. liverpool v. spurs. total english monopoly: they might not have won the world cup, but their professional teams absolutely have conquered all.

(i think in today’s game there was just 1 english person on the pitch)

im not following the ongoing U20 world cup in poland nor will i watch a lot of the women’s world cup in france this summer. i might catch some games once it gets interesting but last year i took a month off to eat, drink, get fat, and watch the whoooooooole world cup. like traveling, but better.

this summer i need some recovery...

1st time it's ever happened apparently.

I don't imagine it'll happen again (or regularly, at least) but fair to say the hype that's been surrounding the Prem for years is finally starting to translate into actual success. I actually don't want English teams to continue to dominate to this extent. I'd like to see one in each final but a total close-out does make it a bit less interesting. As a one-off though, it's great. If only as a statement.

Glad Chelsea won tbh. I've hated the amount of stick Sarri has been getting even after what he's achieved with them in his first season. Surely Chelsea fans rank as the worst fans out there. Anyway, not a final that'll go down in history for sure. Then again isn't it the usual way that the semis are amazing and the final never matches expectations? Hope that doesn't ring true for the Saturday game.

Off to Scotland for a few days but I'll be back for the champions league final!

Only watching if Fran Kirby is playing for England. I'm also going to be biased and say England will win the cup. Fingers crossed anyway.

She's in the squad at least, so chances are good. Any reason her specifically?

You've got a fair shot at it - you should qualify from the group stage; Scotland and Argentina will be fairly easy but Japan are a handful. If you win the group you should have an easy Round of 16 game, but otherwise you'll probably end up with Canada.

(One of the things I love about the WWC is that Australia and England are pretty evenly matched)

i think it’s more than a statement—it’s a sign of a developing fault line. financial escape velocity + domestic competitiveness = more english top teams. it’s the supra-league, and the rest are feeders now.

the new prem makes the calls for a transeuropean league moot. this is the world cup, every day.

i just overheard “pep to juventus” on bloomberg wtf??.

-

post-search: they want pep or poch?

lol i dont think so

Dutch will win it of course :D


heck I don't know, I don't follow it so much. But we do have some very good players, e.g. Lieke Martens who was European player in 2017. And we have some other good players that play in the UK for instance, Arsenal I think. So we will hopefully have a good chance of getting far into the tournament.

The Dutch team is playing your country this Saturday, in my hometown, in a friendly match. We call it an uitzwaaiwedstrijd. the last game before they leave to the tournament. Last time they played the same stadium, there was a crowd of 30.000 people, it will be similar this time. Back then they won 7-0 against Northern-Ireland. Let's hope for a more equal match, shall we? And according to the article I read it will, your squad were called "physically strong and superfit"



edit:
you're 6th in the ranking and we're 8th, so it will definitely be a good match-up as last preparation.





================================
totally unrelated:

Did you hear about the Norwegian kid that scored three hat-tricks in one match? Under 20's squad against Honduras. Total score 12-0
He was born in Leeds, so there is a possibility he could be selected for the English grownups team.

yeah pep is going for the glory i think, and today the only fair competition is the prem. pep’s got enough money, the sheik can always provide more, and he already was in a monoleague previously with bayern, and with la liga there was real. what is the challenge of beating fiorentina or sampdoria? juve always wins domestically, and a team needs more competition to get better. it’s not enough to just amass great players.

pochettino just needs to take spurs shopping.

@_tunic_: The match should be pretty even - we beat you last time we played, but that was in 2017 and you didn't have home ground advantage.

Australia has beaten pretty much everyone recently, so there's no team we're definitely going to lose to. However, at the actual WWC you've got an easier draw than us - Canada are tough, but you should beat New Zealand, and definitely Cameroon.

That could be the one big problem for Spurs. They have the money but their owner is notoriously tight.

yeah but... his vehicle needs spare tires

https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video...m3wLDlc9Q.m3u8

(give it a moment to load and expand)

That isn't loading.

Yeah, they needed new blood last season. How many players did they bring in? Zero.

you click on it and it wont open a black page, then a tiny square, then a video player?

ok lemme see if i can find the whole tweet. the tweet is about financial trades but the sport is one you like. one sec..

here: https://twitter.com/dollarsanddata/s...59162334138368

the evolution of the pit stop blows my mind. i havent seen auto races in ages. what they do now is amazing.

guess i just needed an excuse to post it ha ha ha.

but no, spurs specifically needs a kane replacement i thought. can’t wait for him the long periods that he’s on the mend.

same as the slow pit: waiting, waiting, waiting for fresh tires while the other cars race ahead

get lewandowski, haa haaa haaa

get someone

The need a back up, but it's hard to attract a top player to essentially play an understudy role, considering when Kane's fit, he plays.

from what ive read kane had injuries last year as well

replacement could be a wunderkind or could be an ageing star as long as there’s sufficient quality. they could rotate, much like robbéry did for ages (not sure that’s a strict portmanteau).

it’s a grueling schedule with 4 simultaneous competitions with no breaks and it’s 2019 and it needs a fast pit stop like man city has. not 1981.

reminds me of this mcenroe/borg documentary i saw the other day: when borg returned from early retirement he was still playing with a wooden racket. so it did not go too well for him.

bundesliga at least has christmas break and it’s just league + pokal, and 7 teams in europe. but the prem+epl+fa+champions/europa nonstop is fucking murder.



things are changing as we speak, there’s no need to go away for a while to see the mutations happening. it’s deep bench time for english teams with man city in the lead. it only makes sense that contenders must emulate. and a lot of rotations, or death, for the top 4-6.

Teams do rotate, far more than they used to, but where teams like Spurs could/should definitely spend more, they'll never be able to emulate Man City in terms of squad depth, just cos they don't have that kind of money.


And is what Man City's doing even legal?

no idea about the law.

but start agüero? or start jesus?

even if others can’t do it at the same level, they have to try to close the gap.

I think you'll be in favour tonight. It's a bloody 26 degrees today (that's in Celsius ;) ). First hot day of the year, and we Dutchies are not accustomed to it yet I'm afraid.


But it will be an all football night, on the same channel is first our match at 6PM and then the Champions League final

sad news:
Reyes passed away today in a car accident. I actually am not very sure who he is right now, I'm bad with names. But at 35 years old. Damn. R.I.P.

That's awful. I remember him at Arsenal.

oh, I just realised this:
the male and female best player in UK championship were both Dutch this year! Miedema and Van Dijk








that will of course change the chances for tonight's women's match ;)


what are the odds for Liverpool? Will they win easily? I hope they will.

My local bookie has Liverpool at 10/11. I agree they should be favourites but that's way over the top.