Dr. Gonzo

These top level athletes are hyper competitive. These individual awards are things they can point to that set them apart from their colleagues at the end of the day. And when your colleagues are some of the best footballers in the world, that’s got to feel great to people who are hardwired to be constantly competing. The other day Vardy was talking about the golden boot like it was just as good as winning the league, so it’s pretty clear to the players personally... these individual honours are very very important. I’m sure most of us would agree... Mane was rewarded for his excellent season with a league winners medal. He’s also clearly one of the most admired players in the league for what he’s done this season. He’s got fans, pundits, players all singing his praises. He’ll be remembered for his efforts this season. But I don’t think it’s surprising elite level athletes competing at the best care a lot about the recognition in their fields.

Oh shit, happy birthday @DeadLinesman even though I'm several days late now.

On that top graph there’s a club that’s missing at least 2 instances of light green for VAR review giving blatant non-penalties as penalties tbh.

I see the “they never do no matter who you are” and then I remember every fucking pundit in England telling us Roy Hodgson wasn’t out of his depth with Liverpool and we should be happy to be right near the relegation spots. The media never turned on him, we were just lucky our American owners took a pulse of the fan base and did something to remedy the intense toxicity around the club. Chelsea are so quick to sack though, it might not even matter if the media loves him

Tbh it’s a bit shit having a media darling at the helm when everything goes wrong. The media doubles down its support of their man and attacks the fans that are critical and then there’s this air of toxicity whenever you play. But tbh I like Fat Frank and he’s a legend, even though I don’t really like Chelsea, so hopefully the time never comes when he’s lost the plot and the media will come out and try to gaslight Chelsea fans. Would be shit for everyone involved. Well except people who hate Chelsea, they’d love it.

Lol as if the media would ever turn against Fat Frank. Aside from being well “in” with the media as one of their darlings, he’s related to the Redknapps. If shit ever goes really wrong with his tenure, the media will never be screaming for the axe to come down on him.

I mean, depends how you look at it. He's not done well since leaving us, and maybe he never will reach those heights again because he'll never be on a team that good again that's built around him. But maybe he will. But in terms of a players "physical prime/peak". He's 28, most people's physical prime is 28-29 (granted, not true for everyone). But chances he's a completely spent force, when he's not a player that really relied on pace or physicality primarily... and hasn't had injuries to affect those parts of his game, I think are unlikely. He's failed at Barca and Bayern because he does best when a side's attack runs through him, whereas at Barca and Bayern they've got better players than him and they're not going to change what's worked for them to build a side around him. Tbh, I don't even know why Barca signed him as they didn't want to use him where he proved effective for us. I think Bayern fans have said he's done alright, but not as good as a player that's on the kind of wages and would cost the amount he costs should do. I think he needs to do what he did when he left Inter, or similar to what Riquelme did in leaving Barca - go to a club that'll make him a centrepiece of how they create and attack, and you'll get the best from Coutinho. You can argue this makes him a bit of a "luxury player" because when there's a solid team unit... you might argue he doesn't quite fit in and maybe the side is better without him. I think if Arsenal signed him and built their midfield and attack around him feeding Aubamayang, they'd end up looking a lot fucking better going forward than they do currently. Although, should he be a priority for them? Probably not... but I don't know. There's so much about Arsenal - I think Arsenal need big changes in defense and midfield and I'm glad I'm not anywhere near involved in figuring out how they start going about being less mediocre.

Any signings they make, unless they clear the deadwood (which may be harder than it sounds), will inflate their wage bill. If they want to cut the wage bill, there's a big chunk just going to one man that's not made any real meaningful contribution to the club in years. But they're never going to shift off Ozil without subsidising some of his wages, so they're a bit fucked in that regard.

This is just false

We tried that for a while... it didn't really work out as well as buying a top keeper, defender, and defensive midfielder while having those good attackers though.

Pretty poor for a player-manager like him, tbh.

They also lost their best player last season and so much of everything good Chelsea did last season ran through Hazard. He was a big loss for them. Tbf, there've been questions asked of him on why Chelsea haven't improved their defending (especially on set pieces because he played for Mourinho ). I think all things considered, with a transfer ban and losing their best player... he's had a decent season. I do agree with you, he's a media darling so he'll probably never really get the same criticism he'd get if he were say some Spanish guy who says "good ebening." I do think it's weird how Chelsea look to be spending big to revamp their attack, when really I think they ought to be focusing on fixing that defense up... because they'll immediately see an improvement in the amount of points they get next season if they spend big on defenders. Maybe the idea is with the revamped attack, they'll be spending less time defending. But I think there's a more simple solution to improving this Chelsea side.

Nah we've got plenty of old people on here. And old people don't say probs.

We're building new training facilities, we've got a big wage budget. When Arsenal were building a new stadium, they were also a bit tight with money as well. We didn't just sign VVD, Fabinho and Alisson out of nowhere - we had to sell Coutinho for that. I'm not saying we're not going to make signings or that we're skint. It's just we're not likely to be making any big money moves right now.

Not a lot to level at him right now, tbh. At the beginning of the season, Chelsea fans were talking about hoping for top 6... so he's beaten that. And I think cup run would just be a plus for them... and now they're in a FA Cup final. They're shit at defending, but he's done well this season - not a lot to criticise really. For us to be signing Havertz, we'd need to be selling someone more expensive than Shaqiri would go for tbh. It'd be someone like Mane or Salah for the fees that are being talked about with Havertz... and in that case, I'd rather go with what we know works for the system we're employing on the pitch now than make wholesale changes. I definitely think the squad could do with some rejuvenation, but all of our important players... I want to keep those. Gini Wijnaldum signing a contract extension is our most pressing thing to work out this summer, tbh. After that we've got to bolster the depth at the club with players that can push the starting XI. With covid, I don't see us dropping serious money on massive players this season.

I always liked him and I like Roma, for some reason, so I hope he goes on to have a good end to his career. I think Serie A football will suit him a bit better than the prem nowadays.

Chelsea haven’t really spent money like they used to and have actually made a lot of money off sales. And they had a transfer ban for breaking rules on signing youngsters (which is actually funny as this is the first year in a long time they’ve really relied on their, very good mind you, academy). I’m sure now they’ve seen how to get away with breaking FFP we might see a less “self-sufficient” Chelsea again though. But I actually think Werner at the price they paid is a pretty good deal in this day and age... so even that you can’t so much level the charge that was once true that they were ruining the transfer market. PSG & Citeh sort of well upped the ante there tbh. Chelsea were always going to spend a lot after the ban was over and they sold Hazard. I’m not that surprised. But if we see them sign Havertz and an expensive CB... yeah they’re probably breaking FFP rules and are ready to not give evidence over in a timely fashion and pay a comparatively small fine.

Ozil’s a spent force, Coutinho’s in his prime, does a lot more defensive work than Ozick, and it’s not that long ago he was one of the best players in the league. He’d walk into your midfield, easy. Arsenal aren’t too big that they can’t build a side around Coutinho to improve where they are currently. Especially not in their current state. And the best you’ll see from him is when the side is built around him in attack.

If Covid threatens to cancel next season... I imagine fans still wouldn’t be allowed in. And a lot of lower league clubs would likely fold, so let’s hope covid is under control sooner rather than later.

Lol our closest title rival this season was covid-19

I doubt Wenger was happy about constantly coming 4th and then clubs moving passed him, I just don’t think he wanted to be seen as moaning about his bosses in the media and he didn’t think throwing players he signed under the bus was good management. You don’t get to be a successful top flight manager without being very competitive and normally very competitive people are hurt the most by their failures. And while I think he was a legend, he left around the right time. Things under him had clearly rotted away and his methods weren’t successful. But I don’t think there was ever a solid plan for post-Arsene Arsenal. And @shut up is right that Arsene had a more old-school hands on approach with bringing players in, negotiating with them over contracts, and doing stuff that nowadays we see more and more clubs delegate that power to a Director of Football and let the manager focus more on the results. I wonder how much of that power Wenger had as a manager was also available to Emery. Because I don’t think Emery is really suited to that sort of stuff. It’s always a tough ask though, to fill the shoes of a legend. Even one who’s last years at the club he was a legend at didn’t go so great. But I do think the rebuild becomes a lot harder after a season where a club’s spent a lot and the squad looks even more unbalanced than it did the season prior.

Idk I think Henderson HAS been our best player this season. He’s consistently put in top performances when he’s played. And when he’s not playing we never look anywhere near as good

The same thing happened to my neighbor. Big fat guy who just got home from several weeks on a ventilator, but was deemed “cured.” Heart attack is what killed him, they say.

It's interesting to me that Microsoft bought Obsidian, but they're completely fine allowing it (and other games made by some developers that were bought out by Microsoft Studios) making games like Outer Worlds (which is, imo, a fantastic game btw - highly recommend to anyone that was a fan of Fallout New Vegas) that are available on PS4 and the Switch. I've never played an Obsidian game I didn't enjoy, so I'm excited to see what they've got coming out. Although that game where you're ant-sized looks like it might be totally shite, but if it's like Sea of Thieves... I'll probably have a surprising amount of fun on it with my friends. Maybe it's because Microsoft originated as a software company, so they see the value in allowing as many devices as possible to be able to play as many games as possible. It's more money for Microsoft Studios (and therefore Microsoft generally) in the long run. Cuphead also made it onto the Switch (which I'd hoped would mean Game Pass would be coming to the Switch soon... because that would be absolutely brilliant for me - I'd have so many more games on my Switch in an instant). The first Stalker sort of a cult classic game and I'd not heard anything about a second game at all. The Metro series is, I believe, the spiritual successor to the first S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game. I've never actually played it, I've only heard about it. I might watch someone play it on YouTube (or a synposis) before I give the sequel a try. But it's cool to see a sequel to a game that is really highly regarded and very popular with people who played it. In other news (and keep in mind, I never played Fallout 76 before the Wastelanders update that came out recently)... I'm very pleasantly surprised with Fallout 76. It was panned at launch for not feeling very much like a Fallout game... but so far (and I've only done a few quests, I'm only level 6) - it feels like a genuine Fallout game that for the first time I can play with my friends (which you can do as soon as you're at level 5). And with the promise of new content in the coming months, including 2 new questlines... it seems a far cry from the many reviews that said "there's not enough fallout content." I've heard the game feels a bit stale after you finish the main Wastelanders questline and you only have the original quests/daily quests (which I don't have yet lol) to do. The only thing that annoys me about the game, so far, is the C.A.M.P. system and the whole "base building" (which was by far the part of Fallout 4 I hated the most). I hope Bethesda learned a fucking lesson about releasing a complete game the next time they're going to bring out a big name Franchise. Because if all of this content was in FO76 in the first place, and they'd had a roadmap of what they were doing to the game in the coming months like they do now, I'd probably have bought this game in the first place... not waited to try it out after it's been "fixed" after two years because it was on Gamepass. Just like I hope the Fallout 4 Far Harbor DLC questlines & the main FO76 questline are evidence they've learned from the issues of the main story quest for Fallout/Skyrim.

I don’t think Emery as a successor did Arsenal any favours. And tbh at first I thought he was great because his Sevilla were so annoying to play against... but his time in England quickly proved me wrong. But then I looked at the league positions of his Sevilla... and I thought “maybe that makes sense then.” I think he was picked mostly for his Europa League cup runs... which were definitely impressive... and I think maybe his time at PSG made him look better than he was (big fish in a small pond situation). Wenger definitely went stale, but I don’t think the stability he provided was necessarily a bad thing and he probably should have been a bit involved in picking a successor before fucking off. It’s not like he’d fully fallen off like Clough did with his last years at Forest. I think the bigger issues at Arsenal are above the manager’s head at this point. But Arteta’s got a massive job on his hands (and as his first job as a manager). It’s a big club so there’s pressure to do much better than they did (and tbf they should be doing better). But the squad is very unbalanced and there’s a lot of deadwood on decent wages. But I think a lot of how successful Arteta can be is only in his hands so much. He’s at a club that’s been mismanaged above the manager for a while, his bosses above him need to steady the ship and give him the resources to build a squad that’s the quality everyone would expect from Arsenal. I don’t envy Arteta, even though I don’t like him very much, because I think his job would be hard even for an experienced manager. This is a really really hard job for a novice.