Burning Gold

What do you think I guessed? Be specific

Now imagine taking part in it

1. Bullshit and bullshit. Football clubs don't care what country you're from, they care if you're good at football. Show me the evidence that Peruvians are ignored, and it better not just be that there aren't many Peruvian footballers in the top leagues. Portuguese sides outside the top 3 don't get scouted? First of all, PL clubs send their scouts everywhere, and the smaller ones often, another Portuguese team! 2. Why didn't he play 10 games mate? Okay, he struggled with injuries, but Sporting clearly didn't see enough in him to keep him around in the hope he could play more games for them after he recovered. "If you're raiding players from a successful feeder league side... you're going to go for their best". Well if you're a 12 year old playing Football Manager, I suppose you might, but if you're in charge of a successful football club, you'd be interested in any player that would improve your team. The Premier League is, as you say, poor defensively (moreso now than then, admittedly, but it was still true back then) so I'm sure there are a whole host of clubs that would be interested in a defender that would be one of the best in the league. And yet... 3. Yeah, I'm not sure it's football that lacks logic mate.

Actually, I have seen him play, but it doesn't matter. I don't need to be familiar with him to poke holes in your arguments, which so far have been: "He didn't hit the heights he could have in club football because it's very hard for players to get scouted in Peru" (the guy played in Portugal) "Sporting are a good team to have played for because their good players are often poached by bigger and better teams" (he remains unpoached) and lastly "He could be one of the best defenders in the PL, but just playing in Europe at all is a great achievement for him"

And yet no one in the Premier League picked him up after he left Braga or Sporting. Can't think why?

No one who forges a career as a professional footballer has absolutely failed, so I obviously mean it in relative terms. If you want to tell me this guy could be among the top 20% of CBs in the Premier League, then yes he did fail in relative terms by topping out at Sporting (or Braga if, like me, you're hesitant to even count his 7 game spell at Sporting). Playing in a Europa League final may be an impressive achievement for Braga, but we're not talking about Braga, we're talking about this footballer whose name I've already forgotten. The top players in surprisingly successful teams always move on to better things. Kante moved on to Chelsea, Vardy nearly went to Arsenal and Mahrez tried to go as well; from the Liverpool side who nearly won the league in 13/14, Suarez left for Barcelona, Sterling went to City, and last summer Coutinho tried to force his way to Barcelona. Did your man move up from Braga? Well sort of, he went to Sporting, who are bigger than Braga, but still no great shakes in European terms these days. In any case, he wasn't there long. Yeah... do you see how this doesn't support your argument that someone who topped out in Portugal would be a success in the Premier League? He was given a chance in Europe, though. That's my point and it's indisputable. He had a chance to play in Europe. I suppose you could argue he wasn't given a chance to play in a better league, but no one's just given that chance; they have to earn it and he clearly didn't.

Why are you talking about scouting Peru though? The guy played in Portugal, where top clubs have scouts all the time, and didn't sufficiently impress anyone bigger than Sporting. It may be hard for Peruvians to get scouted domestically, but that's not relevant to this guy because he got his move to Europe and failed.

Put simply, there are too many bad teams in the Champions League. Most of the teams on the receiving end of a one sided beating this week won their league and simply couldn't hold a candle to teams from a better league, champions or otherwise. With the exception of the occasional shock result, this happens every year. Remember this next time someone comes out with the utter stupidity that the competition should only be open to league champions.

@LFCMadLad

I'd say it's more likely that Karius plays all the cup competitions and Mignolet plays (most of) the league games. I think Klopp's trying to mould Karius into being our starting keeper, and exposing him to the English game is an important part of that.

Oneplus?

Yeah, same as the new iphone. I actually have two pairs of bluetooth headphones (one pair of earbuds, one pair of proper headphones) and they're useful for certain things, but for the most part it's so much more convenient to have a pair of normal headphones

I do indeed. Thanks I was ready to buy an HTC U11 as soon as it came out (which I never do) until I found out it doesn't have a headphone jack. What a waste of time that is

Does it have expandable storage? I'm also looking for a new phone, although not particularly urgently

If he does play for Southampton before then, they won't sell him in January.

Strange? I think it's shambolic. We spent the whole summer waiting for Southampton to invite us to make an offer for a player they didn't want to sell!

No, it's because he's a twat. Behavioural issues last preseason led to him being frozen out, not even considered for selection when we had something of an injury crisis at CB, and ultimately sent on loan to Crystal Palace. He's actually a pretty good passer of the ball for a centre back, although not a player you'd want to spend a lot of time on the ball.

Christ. I remember a mate trying to convince me that Carlton Cole could be a 20-25 goal a season striker in our team.

It'll be interesting to see how you manage this season with a squad of about 3 players

Apparently he's already agreed to sign for Juventus next year, which will be incredibly annoying because he's finally starting to look like the top class footballer we all knew was in there somewhere.

That's why I only said they'd do mate. Obviously we'd like a top keeper, but that clearly isn't happening. That's extremely vivid I wouldn't worry, there's no way the Coutinho deal is going through.

He's cut the big errors out of his game (although there was that moment against Hoffenheim I referred to) but he remains a fairly poor shot stopper, organiser, distributor, etc., so his inadequacy goes under the radar a little these days. Unfortunately, Karius doesn't seem much better, and I fear his signing was a wasted opportunity. Obviously as good a goalkeeper as we could get, but someone like Schmeichel or Fraser Forster would do. Ultimately, though, it's pointless to speculate because, as MadLad's catchphrase goes, Klopp's happy with our goalkeeping options.

To be fair, they are shit. Mignolet did well last season, but he had a very hairy moment in the Hoffenheim game yesterday when he flapped at a cross and then dropped the recovery. If he goes back to the form of every season except the last one, I am going to shit a chicken.

Absolutely. We haven't had a proper Champions' League campaign for nearly a decade and I sorely miss it. Could also do with getting our coefficient up because we got very lucky with the group draw this time around.

You are rattled as fuck aren't you