Leaderboard

England can have them.

Uli always runs his mouth but imo he should be sucking up to Tuchel. There are literally no other options right now and having a guy in-house who's a proven winner ain't a bad place to be.

The extra mid-week catch-up games were always going to boost scores, and some players took full advantage. One of those is @Storts who scored highly with 24 points to regain 5th place, and go to two points within @Dan. The top 2 cancelled each other out, and there needs to be a massive swing in points for @6666 to usurp @Rajabhat Rovers. @Rucksackfranzose also scored very well - 23 points and he was the only one to pick Man Utd to beat Newcastle, although not quite getting it perfect. @CaaC (John) gets Prediction of the Week for being the only one to correctly guess the 1-1 outcome between Newcastle and Brighton.

Had to change the topic title. @Stan is just awful with topic titles.

Yeah, it's a shame that Brandt has been dropped in my opinion. Who would I have dropped in order to keep Brandt in the squad? Well Nagelsmann has named 27 players, meaning he will still have to drop 1 player for the Euros to make it a 26 man squad. I am assuming it will be one of the 4 keepers that he drops, it's mad to take that many keepers for a short competition like the Euros. I'd also keep the defenders he's selected, as he's named 5 central defenders, 2 right-backs and 2 left-backs. The selection in defence seems balanced to me. But yeah, Pavlovic would probably be the first player I would replace with Brandt. Pavlovic hasn't been capped once yet for Germany and he is still young and quite inexperienced, despite his huge talent potential. I think there are plenty of players who could currently cover for him in the squad anyway. Gross has been Brighton's best player this season in the Premier League. He is not flashy, but he is a real workhorse, who does the dirty work in midfield. But he is a late bloomer really and he was only capped recently at the age of 32. So yeah, they are the 2 I'd consider replacing with Brandt. Although Brandt plays in a different position to those 2 we've mentioned, he is much more experienced at international level and he has just had an excellent season with Dortmund, where he has been one of the most creative players in Europe. Of the forwards I might potentially replace with Brandt, you might find this shocking, but I'd say Undav. Although Undav has scored a lot of goals for high flying Stuttgart this season, he is also highly inexperienced playing for Germany. He only has one international cap to his name that he recently picked up. Moreover, he is not the quickest of forwards and he is also not great in the air. He is a natural penalty box finisher and he has shown himself to be great at that this season, but does not have the all-round abilities the other forwards in the team have in my view. It wasn't long ago he was really struggling at Brighton. Beier and Fullkrug for example, have a much more rounded game from what I have seen. Fullkrug for example, is much better in aerial duels than Undav. Havertz has to be selected because of his great season at Arsenal and the impressive talent that he has, while Thomas Mueller has that vital experience for Germany. He has been there and done it so many times, he is just the kind of experienced player that one should take to a tournament like this.

Yeah its interesting. Pavlovic obviously plays a very different position though so you wouldnt think they would be competing for spots. Goretzka being left out is interesting too and probably the right decision overall.

I think the competitiveness is about the same as it was but people have more issue with the tactical and strategical zeitgeist. That was also an invincible season, I didn’t pick because of that, it’s just twenty years ago now.

The point spread is pretty similar up until the bottom teams.

Can’t believe you called it shite tbh

Those particular statistics might support your argument but I know for a fact that the city of Borussia is a lot smaller than say, a small town in England such as Swansea

But you said it and I don't agree with it, that's all. There's been the most amount of goals in a PL season (I think), but I wouldn't call this the most exciting. It's probably been the most controversial and frustrating - VAR screwing teams over, PGMOL issuing apologies, calls to replay games, points deductions, points given back, more points deductions...

Wrong! @Tommy I got him! Edit: Actually, one more player will be cut, so maybe he'll be right.

Honestly I think he was always the best option for Bayern. It's not like he performed poorly... Leverkusen were just an unbelieveable team this season. Squad still needs a major overhaul. Upamecano, Goretzka, Choupo-Moting, Gnabry all need shipped out. Probably some others.

In what sense?

While we're all right to bemoan the boringness of it, what's actually a bigger issue here is that the Premier League will have crowned City champions twice since levelling 115 charges at them for breaking the rules and City are yet to set foot in a courtroom to defend themselves. In the meantime, two other clubs have been fast-tracked (one of those twice) and Leicester have been pretty much told they'll have a points deduction next season when they come up. It really shows who's governing things here. If the Premier League had an ounce of integrity they'd stop making excuses about how complicated City's case is because they broke 114 more rules than anyone else and get on with it. Start with charge 1 next week, if City refuse to turn up to the hearing then they get sanctioned. The case isn't going to get any less complicated the longer they wait. Get the fuck on with it. And if it's that complicated to do it as one case then offer to have 115 different hearings for them and see how they like the threat of having to fight each one in the courts with a constant drip feed of points deductions over several seasons ruining their chances in the league.