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The NHL is actually a pretty interesting study when looking back to the 90's to compare the differences to the modern day. They introduced a salary cap system in the mid 2000's roughly? Its drastically altered the way the league plays out. Teams draft and develop players and as they come into their prime teams open up "windows" of competing for the cup. When teams are in their windows they trade draft picks for players that match their core's ages or older to try and win now. Eventually what happens is when their windows are closed teams have to rebuild generally from the ground up. In the modern day for example theres been a few dynasties, Chicago, Pittsburgh Tampa Bay. Chicago is a good example to work with, They won 3 Stanely Cups with essentially a core of 4 or 5 players and built different supporting casts around them at different times to win. By the end of those core players careers they have to and are currently trying to draft players and start up again but it will be some years of pain before they can do so as they had traded all their young prospects and draft picks to keep winning. Previously in the 90's yes there was a draft and yes teams would still use it to build but they would also go out and just buy the best players available in free agency as the rich teams had a clear leg up. The NY Rangers come to mind as one back then with the talent they amassed and would seemingly always go out and get the best guy money could buy until eventually they won a cup. I could get more into the weeds but this is the general idea anyways. The currently Salary cap era isnt perfect and I know theres been discussions about this before but isnt really adaptable to football but its created some of the most parody in the NHL as far as I can remember. This years cup winner will be a team that hasn't won in I think at least 20 years with 4 teams remaining.

It's his domestic abuse history - I wouldn't want him anywhere near us!

Yeah, if you were to combine a XI of Portugal and England I'd call it 6/5 in England's favour but the Portugal players that miss out could still be match winners if the sides meet. For disclosure i'd have Diogo Costa, Kyle Walker, Ruben Dias, John Stones, Joan Cancelo, Declan Rice, Joao Palhinha, Bukayo Saka, Bruno Fernandes, Phil Foden, Harry Kane.

Thank you all for thinking of me and feeling sorry for me. It certainly hurt. Now we're gonna lose some of our best players again and rebuild for the new season with a lot of uncertainties.

I'm not sure what to make of him. He's a real advocate of the multi-club ownership model whilst Parish, Harris and Blitzer are not which is why he's selling up. He's never had full control here as the other three vote in unison so its better to look at what he's done at his other clubs. He's had a real tough time of it in Lyon. They've sold some real class potential in the past 18 months and they had the big issue with previous owner freezing club bank accounts once he recognised Textor wasn't going to let him continue running the club as a dictatorship. He's turned the corner with Botafogo by winning a Championship after he originally left the fan base livid by selling there best player midway through a campaign to Lyon. His Belgium club don't seem to like him and the story that stands out the most is he signed a player who was the highest transfer fee in the league, only for him to be immediately loaned to Lyon. I get the impression he's investment heavy as opposed to cash heavy. I think he has a vision but he's effectively learning on the job with these football clubs. I think there will be growing pains for him at Everton, and at times it will be frustrating, but I think he's a far better option than Moshiri and 777. You'll always have a football club to support under him.

Wonder how much him looking like Pep is affecting the decision to appoint him.

Didn’t qualify, mate.

They should change the fixture schedule so the top teams from the previous season play each other in the last few games and likewise for the newly promoted sides and teams that finished near the bottom the season before. Having these foregone conclusion matches at the end takes away from the excitement. Imagine if last weekend you had City vs United and Arsenal vs Newcastle then this weekend it was Arsenal vs City? Gets rid of this tedious case where one team is 2 points clear with 10 games to go and 8 of their remaining fixtures are guaranteed wins.