Dave

I think Rooney's needs a bit of context. Derby was a horrendous situation and in his second season over exceeded expectations. Birmingham was a daft job to take given there was very few points separating them from 5th to 15th and they were about to walk in to a set of very difficult fixtures. This was really the first job to judge him, and fair play for him taking on one of the most difficult jobs in the divison. Lampard you can spin his times at Derby and his first spell at Chelsea as a success or a failure depending on your narrative. He either did well to get Derby to Wembley or he should have achieved more given where some of those players ended up. He either did well with the embargo at Chelsea and progressing young players or he failed given what Tuchel was able to get out that squad at the end of the season. I can't remember where Everton were in the league table when he was sacked but if they were outside the bottom then you could spin narratives with them. Again, this feels like the first job where we should be able to judge him. I feel like 7th to 12th would be a good season but I'm sure people will push the narrative that Coventry should be better given they've had Gyokeres and Hamer money to spend.

Not a surprise after the last two results. In hindsight they should have cashed in Morgan Whittaker in the summer and rebuilt the squad, they look the worst team in the league by a landslide when he's out injured. It's hard to make excuses for Rooney as the away form has always been horrendous and the home forms been pretty bad since early November. What I will say is I think English managers need to look at going overseas to places like Germany if they want to go high in management. The cut throat nature of the English pyramid and the financial rewards for being in the PL provides little to no time to learn from mistakes. At least abroad they'd get time to develop philosophies, learn about in game management, develop knowledge on sports science enhancement etc without worrying about appeasing fans and board members who want instant gratification.

There is something fundamentally wrong at Manchester United. Once they get rid of a cast of problem players it seems like they're replaced by the players who the fans wanted the club to be built around before. I look at Garnacho now, a player everybody wanted to see start last season, and i can already traits of him that indicate he will follow Rashford in the next wave as Rashford did with Ronaldo. I'm surprised by how wrong Ineos have got everything so far. They were "replacing" The Glaziers, and they have somehow shown themselves to have more disdain towards the everyday staff, fan base and local community that The Glaziers did. Some feat given it was such an easy win. As for the on the pitch matters I don't think the recruitment has been terrible, I quite like the defensive additions, but the handling of ETH and Ashworth has been absolutely comical. I don't know what can be done to turn the ship now. It looked like Ole was doing it, and then Bacon Face demanded they beat Man City to sign Cristiano Ronaldo and his death warrant was signed. A good start i guess would be not to answer Offshore Jim's zoom calls from his tax-free island whilst everybody's in the office and have a small team on the same wavelength as Amorin to figure out who needs to leave over the next 18 months so they can be in a position to push for Champions League football again.

I stopped following Crawley when they were 4-1 up so imagine my surprise when I heard it finished 4-4.

100% agree.

Seven games without a win for the Tesco Carrier Bags. Mental they get a free pass from the media because they're such a small club.

Alan Nixon has reported that Marc Guehi could join Liverpool. Alan Nixon has a reputation for being used by agents, but for Palace it's well known that his source is Dougie Freedman and I don't think he'd want to sour that relationship. Its been known that Dougie is high on Ben Doak. So it may be in the summer we work out a deal where Liverpool get a left footed CB for a big market discount because he's in the last year of his contract and there's a player exchange involved. One to keep an eye on for the summer.

Thought we looked like a side that were knackered after an intense period of fixtures because there's not enough options. Fortunately Eze bailed us out with a moment of class. It was a nice reminder to the board that we need to make signings this January regardless of what's going on at boardroom level. But it would be very Palace to see a couple of good results on paper and for them to decide that all of the problems have been solved.

I don't like the Continental Classic as a concept but I did enjoy those knockout matches at Worlds End. They've finally given me a reason to be intrigued by Okada since his debut.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/manutd-jim-ratcliffe-charity-funding-34385104?s=09 Offshore Jim's cost cutting is borderline comical. Every week there's a story that just makes you think wtf. He definitely refuses teabags.

This was taken before the embarrassment that was the Liverpool game so your stats are more than likely worse now. This also doesn't take in to account the amount of free kicks won, which i imagine you'll be high on. Calafiori in particular against us was a total embarrassment.

They are the most insufferable team to watch live with Arteta's "marginal gains". All the time wasting and high fiving to get an "Atta boy!" from Arteta. The refs let them get away with it as they don't want to be called a disgrace from Lego Head and are well aware the other manager will handle themselves with decorum. Preferred them when we had to put up with AFTV.

These VAR checks have been painful.

Jordan Ayew is a national treasure.

I think Bruno needs to go from United. They got the best out of him playing in a 10 in a counter attacking team, I dont think the next good version of this team has him in it.

Sad it didn't work out for Baraja. What a player he was. Baraja, Albelda, Aimar, Vicente, Canizares, David Villa... all those 'Proper Barclays' sheep were watching the wrong stuff.

All kicking off in Palace land. And at the same time this has been published on LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/zechariah-janjua-dean-sportsbank-alleged-rpist-ties-crystal-smith-9zcsf/ First thought was this could be someone with an axe to grind. However these are posts from a Palace forum in mid November. So i imagine the CPFC journalist's will be earning there money and we will find out shortly what on earth is going on. Nothing with Textor is ever simple.

It's 2024, everybody's got to have a philosophy, even if it means dropping points.

4 of the first choice back 5 are out, any team in this position plays Liverpool and it’ll be a similar outcome. They've also had there best DM missing the last seven games before this. One players are back they can push for top five again, which is only two wins away and contains Forest and Bournemouth. The season is still very much open and the mitigating factors make pressure on the manager unnecessary.

This is the big thing for me. They're unique in the sense they're a family. They're not a hedge fund that have the immediate contracts to take on a role and make a profit. There was always going to be growing pains. As long as they learn who cares.

Not expecting anything. Eze's out injured so I expect Kamada to start as him playing a deeper role when he came on for Eze worked well against Brighton.

Poor Yuki. Pretty sure Lawson didn't beat him once in qualifying. I guess Horner wouldn't want to deal with Max and Yuki on the radio.

Interesting times ahead for The Friedkin group. Roma fans will still expect to be the priority club with there history, but the reality is the initial priority needs to be keeping Everton in the Premier League. The transfer window opens in less than two weeks and they need to make quick decisions on what to do with several people in prominent positions. I sympathise for them a lot more than the people that cover Italian football do with how Roma has been handled over the last year. They had a plan this summer that was thrown out the window overnight when Dybala (or maybe it's was his wife) decided he loved Roma and wanted to stay on his new monster wage. Given they had already signed players to play in a 4-3-3 system, including a Dybala replacement, and now they had to accommodate a superstar who can only play in a two up top and get rid of several players to cover his wages. I'm not sure it would have been fair to expect them to challenge for top five. At the same time they're not completely absolved of blame. The decision to sack De Rossi and bring in a manager whose philosophy was completely the opposite of what Roma needed was weird. They also seemingly appointed the wrong people in positions of power who have now resigned. The story of the councillor who was hired and then resigned after less than a month sounds very, well, Everton. At the same time, they do deserve some credit for the short term appointment of Ranieri whose practically calmed the place and has turned out to be the unofficial councillor they needed. I think it's in there best interests to sell Roma now. They've been trying to appeal to get Saudi interest for some time and the fans are not going to tolerate being second fiddle, even if it's only for six months, given how fractured the relationship already is. They'll get the 'at least it's not Moshiri' pass this season as long as they're not relegated. It may not be until September when we can fully judge them as owners of a Premier League club. Everton fans are realistic about the position they're in, but if they struggle in the next two transfer markets and people in powerful positions come and go. That comfort period could come to an abrupt end.

I'm indifferent about it. It happened over five years ago. She's apologised to the woman involved who has forgiven her. Given she was arguably on par with any woman 2017-2019 from a performance perspective, she's missed out on a boatload of cash from either AEW or WWE in the last five years. She's was streets ahead of Britt Baker for example. At what point do we allow somebody to show they've changed? I know the IWC get a fetish over blacklisting people, but the people that are vocally complaining don't watch TNA anyway. He's on Cbeebies doing the night time story on New Years Day so I can't see him changing character any time soon.

Seeing booed off at half time seems to have spurred Arsenal on. Good first goal from Jesus, most modern players would have gone down. The second I think VAR disallows.