Inverted

I'm in the weird position where I actually do believe that some faction in Iran (not necessarily the leading one) is behind this, but I would be happy to see the world tell America to fuck off, even if they were finally telling the truth.

With the way things are at Chelsea rn, getting a manager of his pedigree would honestly be a coup for them.

I think that, like direct free kicks, putting a corner into the box is probably inefficient but too ingrained culturally, and the reward for doing something different is too marginal, for most teams to stop doing them. Like shooting from a free kick is quite a stupid thing to when you think of it. You're given free reign to make a pass right outside the opposition penalty area, and the opposition is forced to give you loads of space to make it. Instead, teams almost always choose to take a shot that requires a perfect execution and then has to beat the wall and the goalie, who are all expecting a shot. It's quite likely that shooting isn't the best choice, unless you have a Messi-tier free kick taker. But, fans expect you to shoot. Your star players will want to have a shot. Even if you try different routines that get you more goals overall, the difference won't probably be immediately noticeable, and the pressure to go back to the norm will probably build out of control before an alternative approach paid off. Corners are similar. Fans would never tolerate a team consistently taking short corners, except for the few teams like Pep's Barca who were so obviously not suited to attacking corners the normal way.

I look forward to seeing if they make a similar announcement for every bid they end up accepting from whichever clubs down south end up going in for him now. If we were run better, we would have been in a position to call it off the moment Motherwell sent out that statement, and that's what we should have done. No serious club should do business with a partner which runs off shouting all the details of an incomplete transfer. If they hadn't have waxed on about how "transformational" the transfer will be for them, I'd almost think they were trying to sabotage the deal. As it turns out, I think it's just amateurish enthusiasm.

Unbelievably embarrassing. If he and the agent are playing hardball, we should be quietly telling them to fuck off and moving onto another target. But, that would require us to be working to identify other promising young players who can be gotten for a similar price, like any halfway competently-ran side in a smaller league. As it stands, it seems all we do is poach players in Scotland, and try and hit it lucky with young cast-offs from English sides. It also doesn't help how much Motherwell have publicised about the whole process. Ideally, nothing would come out until the player had agreed too, but Motherwell had to go make a big song-and-dance about accepting our bid. If the club had said nothing about why things hadn't progressed after Motherwell's big announcement then it would leave everyone wondering why the deal wasn't finalised. But it would have been better than this.

My grandad likes a cup of Bovril. I don't really get it, it's basically like drinking watered-down gravy as far as I'm aware.

"We need some policies to show we're serious about the issues" "What about getting behind medicare for all?" "Green New Deal?" "Break up the tech monopolies?" "Financial regulation?" Joe: "WE'RE GONNA CURE CANCER, FOLKS"

On the way into town when I was little, we would drive by a distillery, that had a big chimney that spewed out thick white smoke. I thought it was a cloud factory.

Woodgate becoming a manager. This is like being 5 years into a FM save.

Lovren is being linked to AC Milan. Gap for a centre-back at Liverpool?

Poor guy, if he's really the passionate, determined sort like he seems to be, he's going to regret this decision in a few years. Unless he's infected by the mental rot at PSG by that time and becomes another Verratti, happily picking up his wage.

Can anyone tell me why centrist, remainer liberal types are fawning over Rory Stewart? He supports austerity and killing more poor people, so yeah obviously that attracts liberals. The confusing part is that he isn't even willing to do anything to stop No Deal. Labour are literally tabling a motion to give Parliament the power to stop it and he is opposing it. He says No Deal is bad, but he offers no proposal on stopping it. Brexit is meant to be the all-consuming obsession for these sorts of people. It's just civility politics gone mad. Despite all policy considerations, centrists will just flock to whichever candidate seems the nicest.

I think it would make sense that young Americans who otherwise aren't too interested in football would be drawn to clean, modern designs. You can see it with PSG's performance in America. But my impression of European millennial football culture is that there's a big enthusiasm for hipsterish historical throwbacks.

Touch of course. Passing is also important, but there's no point playing a great pass if the recipient is a donkey and his touch goes out of play.

Belgium are shitebags because their creative players are so fucking good that they are even able to subject teams to the indignity of conceding to a finisher as dogshit as Lukaku.