SEE YOU! A brand spanking new modern fitba thread 2023/2024

I know the numbers look bad. Everton are 0-0-3. No goals scored and six conceded. But I am not panicking. We're going to be fine. Everton dominated both home games (Fulham & Wolves) and were very unlucky not to score. The away game at Villa was a disaster and they're a very good team that punishes you for mistakes. Statistically we've improved on everything from last season. Just can't put the ball in the net. That's what happens when you don't have striker. Iwobi and McNeil will be coming back from injury. Danjuma is finding his form. Beto incoming. We're going to be alright. I expect to finish 10th to 12th this season. Much better than the last two seasons.

 

Maybe im getting carried away but factoring in

Man city
Arsenal
Man utd
Liverpool
Newcastle
Spurs
Villa
Chelsea
Brighton

Is this shaping up to be the strongest premiership year ever?

 

It's the strongest I've seen in many decades following the sport...


But in all seriousness, yes, the Prem is fuckin stacked this year.

Villa, while I don't think they have any chance of winning the league, is one of the most fun to watch imo.

 

I didnt even west ham either who look like they might beat any high-line possession based side on their day. Not saying they'll have that success but tactically they're the Ranieri's leicester of this season

 

PSV all over Rangers but not taking their chances.

 

PSV are annoying. Can see them getting caught napping here.

 

5-1

 

Goldson

 

This will get quietly resolved now, I'll wager. The dykes have overstepped the mark....."cooler heads" etc and all that.

 

Dutch beat the shit out the Huns.

 

You might decide to focus on culture wars angle on this but Rubiales has long been in the crosshairs as one of the loud and obnoxious football administrators at UEFA. The way I see it, loud bullies like him you take down whenever they offer you an opportunity, whatever the rights and wrongs of the actual circumstances. That goes for every organisation, most have these assholes at different levels making life uncomfortable in different ways, you have to snuff them out when they leave themselves exposed

 

That might be very tempting and make a degree of practical sense but it has been a long standing principle of law and ethics that a man is charged with and found guilty of doing that which he has done.

Sam Allardyce for years was an uncouth, corrupt, louche, sneering blighter who was as much an adornment on the Premier league as warts are on a cock.

When he was finally taken down it was for not any of the above but because he'd admitted and been recorded on undercover taping not to any indiscretion of his own but to a general state of corruption within the game.

Rubiales might be all that you say he is and more. Ditto the likes of Boris Johnson. It is simply not sufficient to place their heads on blocks for minor transgressions the prosecution of which one finds palatable while simultaneously turning a blind eye to much more serious transgressions one has either failed to prosecute for want of efficiency or, worse yet, for want of deeming them transgressions to begin with.

Boris Johnson undermined peacetalks in Ukraine. But his detractors ask me to prosecute him not for that but for eating sandwiches in close proximity to other people.

That is high farce.....

Judge Roy Bean once hung a man and sent him to the gallows saying that in the event he was innocent of the charges in question it was probably the case he was long overdue prosecution for some prior transgression OR that he was probably going to break the law in the future.

We can do without that sort of "Justice".

In addition, there is the question of the locus standi and morals and history of those seeking to enforce this sort of rough justice.

For years ,Gordon Taylor lead charge after charge against FIFA and Sepp Blatter, all derived from the severe public embarrassment the FA endured in failing to secure either the 2018 or 2022 World Cups.

Taylor was the head of the players Union (PFA) in England. It had FUCK ALL to do with Taylor. It had nothing to do with the Union. But Taylor was recruited into the cause. In addition to this, Taylor was himself corrupted and had serious gambling debts and was eventually forced out of his own job.

Then there's the facts of this case itself. There is the question of why Rubiales kissed only Hermoso in the fashion he did. There is word of a prior romantic relationship between them. There is no doubt that Rubiales was heavily emotionally invested in the entire affair. He'd just sat through 106 minutes of it.

He was not prowling some corridors with an erect prick, or dressed as a woman inveigling his way into dressing rooms.

Hermoso for her end was seen posing joyously with him back in the dressing room after the fact. There was no question of her seeking to put distance between her and Rubiales.

As Dunphy himself would say,she appears to have been ", got at" and that "the hacks are all on board". There is more than a feeling that this has been seized upon and worked on and whipped into something it is not.

A former chief prosecutor in England +Nazir Afzal) said that what Rubiales had done constituted "Sexual Assault".

Bullshit.

Women's football is KNOWN to be riddled with vitriolic sows with axes to grind. They were already raging because the manager had seen off one mutiny and lead the team to it's greatest victory. So they were already seething. 15 of the sow's walked out and he still got the job done. Swing and a miss.

Rubiales might be a cunt and more besides. But on the facts, here, in a fight between Rubiales and inked-up trainee mad-cat-ladies, I'll hold the coats.

 

Irish, at least get rid of the glasses. I can't think of another man in the department who wears them.
Reference to locus standi and morals, principles of law and ethics, and even "justice"?
I present to you kleptocrats like Pat Hickey and John Delaney who have corrupted organisations so completely that their individual corruption has metastasised and they feel they can act with complete impunity. Much like Pat Hickey and his dodgy tickets deal, once these guys provide a chank of an opportunity, you have to act quickly. Otherwise, these cockroaches will exploit and subvert those proper procedures to stall and dig in.

 

Great great movie. Top 10 of ATG movies, for me.

Like I says your methodology has great practicality to it, planting evidence is justified especially where one KNOWS, like Dudley Smith was postulating in the above scene, that the accused is guilty.e subverted

If the systems and procedures be proper, then they can't be subverted, can they?


("Lose the Glasses" was a different scene,btw)

Ditto when Smith turns his back and Exley shoots him we see that Exley has become what Smith wanted him to become, a man who goes beyond the parameters of acceptability to do the right thing .

I get it . I do. It's very very tempting.

But you're concerned about subversion of process. I understand that. I'm sincere.

Now ask me ... Does it serve the process to send rogues in pursuit of rogues??

And are we really dealing with the same thing here? I don't even know if Rubiales and Delaney are as bad as each other.

Derry O"Rourke on the other hand....yes. I'd be prepared to meet you at the Victory motel to do a number on him. I can see the usefulness of such an approach.


Is Rubiales really as bad as you say he is? Is he that bad we're prepared to level an entire forest of law so as to deprive him if anywhere to hide?

Bearing in mind, as Thomas More pointed out (played by Paul Schofield in another Oscar winner, Man for All Seasons) " when the devil finally turned around to face you, where would you hide, the forest now bare of law? I give the devil the benefit of law.....for mine own sake"

I can't have the question of sexual assault bent and molded to suit the vagaries of a given case simply because the target is a disreputable unlikeable character who sold tickets he didn't own or had a big mouth.


When Andy Grey sued News International for hacking his phone, he was forced to settle out of court by the well-timed leaking of select clips which showed him up in a misogynistic light. Then he was broadsided on QT by Tory grandees like Karen Brady who were on board to help News International..

Superficially, Grey was a dangerous misogynist who needed taking out.

In reality, he was just an uncouth man whose case against News International was of far greater public importance.

 

Celtic get Feyenoord, Athletico, Lazio.

Could've been worse. If we can get a couple of draws and a home win i'll be happy

 

8 groups. 4 teams per group. Millions at stake.

Hut:" Celtic blah blah"

 

That's a tough group for Newcastle. Great to see their name back in there though.

 

Their best chance is to be underestimated and act accordingly. Spring a surprise or two.

 

Fuck me.

MTF

 

That's the group was praying for. Instead, we got that...

MTF

 

We can beat anyone at home, if our heads are on it. Mind, I'm in the pub and have been so day, so I might change my mind tomorrow.

MTF

 

Tough for Newcastle, although it's also the group that they will want to show on TV, some fun teams. Group B could also be very good, it's quite even in terms of quality imo.

 

Honestly i feel like the 4 teams in your group are pretty evenly matched, if anything Newcaatle might be slightly favoured over AC and BD

 

Rubiales I'd facing a tribunal tonight that could 8n it's outcome see him banned from football for 15 years.

Let's put this in perspective:- Roy Keane ended a guys career, costing him £hundredsK and unknown potential achievements.....banned for 5 games.....

 

I honestly wouldn't be that shocked if Newcastle won the group. Both PSG and Dortmund have lost big players and Newcastle are a genuinely good side in their own right.

 

That late collapse Vs Liverpool suggests they're still green at that level. Seeing out games in Europe is just different. I fancy them at home though.

So they'll bee looking for 10 points I reckon to get out of the group.

Then the fun really starts. As the season kicks in and the games come thick and fast and injuries add up.....

 

You CANNOT win with these people.

 

Sounds daft but i saw Celtic get absolutely nailed by it in the CL last season:

Frentically high tempo side: the number of actual in play game minutes starts to count

Unlike Celtic in Europe, Newcastle very smart last season at time wasting to get a rest. Long breaks between set pieces etc. As a result they had one of the lowest in-game times in the prem. Well below 60 min

This season they say that'll all get counted and added at the end

Might see them struggling late more often against top teams

 

I get what you're saying but there's a difference when playing teams you play every year to ones you play once in a lifetime on the biggest stage, where you have something to prove. I'm probably being nostalgic with memories of the Leeds and Leicester runs in the competition but I honestly wouldn't be that shocked if they finished top. It'll be tight though.

 

The groups are notorious. You can finish top or 2nd-last depending on one or two results.

Eindhoven would have been perfect for Newcastle. All attack, no defence.

Milan are toothless and PSG are glass jawed.

Howe will like their chances but as I say it can all hinge on two games .