Burning Gold

The fear wasn't that he's injury prone, it's that when that knee does go, it'll be the end of his career. I'm not a medical professional, so I don't know whether that's a legitimate fear, but what needs to be put to bed is this "he hasn't been injured yet" stuff. I'm a little hesitant beccause of the league he plays in as well as the injury, but it's got to the stage that anyone Klopp and Edwards like is more than good enough for me. All for it if we can get him for a small fee on a short deal

You missed one

Top notch centrism from Joe. No one's going to disagree with curing cancer

Behind closed doors to stop it being a "home game" for you? It's just the state of soccer in your country mate. We're not allowed to play any home cup matches because the agreement with the Albuquerque Isotopes to use their stadium covers league matches only. Bit of a shock coming from a European background

So it's exactly like the FA Cup My family's local team (and therefore mine) New Mexico United knocked out MLS side Colorado Rapids last night to be one of only 2 USL sides in the round of 16. Very proud of what the team's been able to achieve in their short existence so far.

Raiola's good at making money for his clients (and for himself). For all that he's got a bad name amongst fans, players want him on their side, and that ultimately is what matters.

Fucking hell Nailed on that De Light goes to PSG for me and he and his advisors will deserve a share of the blame for that. You know exactly what's going to happen when you get into bed with Raiola

This is where players and fans differ. We can moralise about objectively disgusting clubs like Real Madrid, Barcelona, PSG and Man City, but we're looking from the outside as people who aren't going to change clubs and don't have a lot of skin in the game. For a player, these clubs are all potential employers and they're some of the biggest/best in the world. It's a big honour to be considered good enough to play for them, and they represent some of the best chances to win big prizes, in terms of both trophies and individual honours.

I've voted for two legs with away goals because that's the best format for a cup competition. I could be persuaded to get rid of the away goals rule for extra time, but then you still have the issue of one team getting an extra half hour at home on top of the advantage of playing the second leg at home in the first place. Maybe you get rid of extra time altogether and just go straight to pens, but you'd lose a hell of a lot of drama if you got rid of the away goals rule. With all that said, domestic cup competitions are often seen as something of an annoyance (I think this is @Stan's point) and a lot of teams don't take them seriously. Increasing the number of games by going to two legs would only mean you see more of that, so maybe the best format overall is one leg, no replays.

You appear to have misread my tone as badly as I misread yours. My knickers aren't in a twist in the slightest, just thought it odd that you were picking Messi over Guardiola in a situation where it's clearly not relevant

I do wonder if arse-covering had something to do with it. I can't say for certain that playing Kane was the wrong choice, but there's no doubt it was the easy option

Don't think it makes sense for Maddison to go to United. He's 22 and his stock has shot up massively in a year at Leicester. Give it another year, maybe two, and he could be looking at a move to one of the best clubs in Europe.

Not sure why it's funny. Playing under Guardiola would be much better for his development than having Messi at the other end of the pitch

By the way, the penalty award was a perfect example of how well VAR can work when the rules are clearly defined. Ball strikes the arm, ref gives the pen, radios upstairs to see if the ball did indeed strike the arm extended beyond the silhouette of the body. Yep, sound, go ahead Mo. So quick that a lot of people didn't realise it had gone upstairs.

The first season when we went to two cup finals? We did finish 8th, but "pear shaped" is extremely harsh. It was little more than a case of him failing to exceed expectations for me, because our squad was pretty poor and we were focussing on other priorities (the aforementioned cup finals). In any case, he wasn't under any kind of pressure because he hadn't even had a full season, or a transfer window. Karius, fine, wasn't great, but I don't think he was "bad" signing considering he was only £4m. He obviously wasn't as good as we were hoping, but sometimes you get what you pay for.