Sciatika

Surprise, surprise. Arsenal was having difficulty getting a goal against Bournemouth. They were given a soft penalty, with Havertz leaving a leg in so he could fall over. VAR gave the penalty eliminating the risk that the title race might not go to the end of the season, undermining the broadcaster's revenue stream. Same old, same old.

As often as not, they go on to do advertising and charity work, and then there are a host of events in the evening assuming they are not travelling to away fixtures or on club tours.

Odd. I thought he played quite well last season against West Ham, Brighton, Fulham, etc. where he was MOTM. Opinions vary obviously.

In his first season, Drogba got 16. He may reach that. Before you complain, I am not saying he will be as good as Drogba. Just that the return is not "pathetic". Opinions vary obviously.

I think an intelligently run business that is currently on plan A would consider plans B, C, D, and E. They may not be actively recruiting, but I bet they talk to other clubs and the agents of both players and managers to see where the ground lies. That doesn't mean they are looking to get rid of Poch, especially as he only has one more year on his contract.

I downloaded Kodi (sp?), but I am not sure how to set it up. I have VPN connections to different countries. I think I need to do some reading. 😞

Someone on the "London is Blue" Discord has decided to rename Marc Cucurella "Hair Force One" after this performance.😀

Its not on at all in the UK 😞

Mjelde: 'Thank you from the bottom of my heart' | News | Official Site | Chelsea Football Club (chelseafc.com)

They don't have many on the treatment table. On our side, the most likely returnees are (apparently) Colwill, Nkunku and Sterling. I am slightly less nervous about the Badiashile-Chalobah pairing, but having the option of bringing on Sterling or Mudryk on the left, Palmer on the right, and Jackson through the middle is probably giving the likes of Coufal, Ogbonna, Zouma and Emerson a nightmare. However, stop Bowen, and you stop a big part of their threat.

Chelsea Since Birth

Hate to say it, but it looks like they have been training for this.

I take it back what I said about Cucurella

Trevoh!

@east lower Key Question...did you bring your boots?

Just think how good it would feel if we get a win with that squad, Spurs fans will be crying all the way back.

It looks like both attacks are better than their respective defences, so it comes down to who can get control of midfield with Caicedo-Conor against Bissoumi-Sarr. Worry about Gilchrist against Son, though. Need Mudryk and Madueke to help out the defence.

Spurs: Vacario, Porro, Dirty Sod, Van der Ven, Emerson Royal, Bissouma, Sarr, Johnson, Kulusevski, Son, Richarlison Subs: Skipp, Hojbjerg, Dragusin, Maddison, Gil, Lo Celso, Bentancur, Austin, Moore

Interesting bench!

Enzo will be more athletic next season when he isn't playing in pain.

Apparently, Nkunku has scored more Premier League goals than Antony despite missing most of the season. The same number as Timo Werner.

This will only apply after next season (i.e., 25/26). There are two sets of rules: the maximum expenditure rules like FFP and the anchoring rules. All this is still being worked out. This is a summary, and I am happy to be wrong about the details or the consequences. In the maximum expenditure rules, clubs not in Europe will be limited to spending 85% of revenue on their squads. This includes wages, amortised transfer fees and agent fees. If you are in Europe, this will be 70%. This latter figure is in line with UEFA rules. If we want to be in Europe, this is how it is. Reductions in agent fees would be good. Our problems with player wages will be solved mainly by getting rid of a few high earners (e.g., Lukaku, Sterling, Kepa, Ziyech and maybe some others), as we plan to do. We may need to reduce the squad size to lose depreciation costs. The anchoring rules are supposed to ensure that the big clubs do not use their financial muscle to control the league. The idea is to link the maximum expenditure of all clubs to the revenue of the bottommost club in the league (presumably for the subsequent year). For clarity, this is what they earn from TV revenue (at least according to the Sky reporter). In the current season, Sheffield Utd will earn about £103m, so clubs will be limited on spending no more than some fixed multiple of that. The multiple has not been decided. Let's say it is 4.5, then about £463.5m. These rules may not affect us very much in the short term because I doubt we will seek to refresh the squad. In the new regime, we seem less likely to do lots of transfers. Instead, we will look to promote the kids (a good thing), preferably on lower salaries and limited agent fees. These regulations will leave room for the odd landmark purchase.

To me, the key problem is the lack of transparency. By being more transparent, the players and fans become more aware of how the referee and VAR interpret the rules and, for the fans, fill the gap while decisions are being made. It also makes it harder for the officials to decide based on 'feels' and get away with them. The release of audio has illustrated this very well in some respects. I would like it to go further. We should be able to hear the discussion about an incident at the time. We also need to be forgiving about referees and assistants getting it wrong. Contrary to popular opinion, they are human. If they get it wrong, admit to it, learn from it and move on. Having said that, I also think that referees should be allowed to give the benefit of the doubt in their decision-making. If they and their assistants cannot tell in real-time whether a player is offside, they should give the benefit of the doubt to the attacker and only use VAR as a last resort. I think fans would accept goals scored when a player in the buildup is marginally offside over the long delays and decisions based on toenail length that we currently have. I am not against technology, which is cost-effective and does not interfere with the game. Goal-line technology is a good example. It's relatively cheap and has a good track record of successful decisions and does not affect the flow.

I don't know about 'oop North'. My family came from a rural part of Essex. When I was young - far too young to be in pubs, I remember men referring to something they called 'filth'. Usually, it was when reminiscing about their "halcyon days" (i.e. before my time). What the pubs served hadn't changed much. There were the usual beers: bitter, old, mild on tap, sometimes a heavier winter beer because it's cold outside, along with bottled stout, pale ales and so on. At that time and place, IPA was a bottled beer, and stouts came as milk stout (e.g. Mackeson) and Guinness. Mackeson was something you took home. My Nan was fond of Mackeson before bed and firmly believed it to be a healthy drink. You could ask for combinations, such as light and bitter or old and mild if they had them. Light and bitter was later my drink of choice. In Greene King pubs, it could be "Abbot and Bob" (Abbot Ale and Old Bob, a powerful bitter and pale ale). The combination was colloquially known as "GBH" because of what it did to the brain. Anyway, often, at the end of the week, the men (it was mostly men in the public bar) would be short of money. If you were friends with the publican (an oddly rare event), you could quietly ask for something to tide you over. This was essentially the slops, colloquially known as 'filth'. It was probably not legal but rather a private arrangement. We had a village bobby on a bicycle, but he spent most of his time growing veg in the garden - far too busy to police the nonsense at the pub.

@My Blood Is Blue I think its important to have backup in every position, but we seem to have them in the injuries squad as well.