RandoEFC

Wolves got fucked over again tonight.

Watch this clip 5 times and I bet you won't be able to work out why this goal got disallowed without opening the comments.

Nunez for £85m will go down as an absolutely horrific investment. Rare for Liverpool. After he hammered that chance straight down Pickford's throat I think the away end joined in with the chorus of "you're just a shit Andy Carroll".

Just now, Rick said:

Fed up of seeing VanDijk throwing his arms in the air everything we concede, like he’s never at fault for any of them

Van Dijk was shite for a bit, then good for a bit, then when he scored the winner in the League Cup final there was that clip of him saying "they all thought I was finished" after the game. And ever since he's played like he's finished whenever I've seen him.

Just a lovely evening all round and one this fanbase sorely deserves. Cracking performance to a man. Liverpool hilariously bad. Honestly a miracle that that team has stayed in a title race for this long but I'm glad they did because seeing us put the final nail in the coffin for them tonight is a nice cherry on top of a win that all but guarantees our survival.

8 points clear of the drop. Might actually be able to enjoy the last four games of the season without worrying about the club facing a potential existential crisis. First time since Ancelotti was manager we had that luxury to be honest. What a novelty.

Just now, Stan said:

Neville thinks Calvert-Lewin's first name is Daniel

 

He also thought Goodison wouldn't have booed that offside decision that cancelled out the early penalty if they'd just been shown the evidence .

About as good a half as I could have hoped for. Half time has come at a good time for us. Mykolenko probably needs to come off though, as much as I might joke about a one-legged Mykolenko being better than Ashley Young...

Shame about the offside but probably the best 5 minutes of performance from us in a derby since we won at Anfield .

3 minutes ago, Dan said:

If it's true that Chelsea aren't going to be done because of selling hotels to themselves or whatnot then they need to abolish the rules and reinstate all the docked points immediately. But that's one of those things that's so stupid I wonder if I've just fallen for some bait on Twitter.

No it's true. One of Boehly's other companies bought a hotel off Chelsea for £70m. Apparently Chelsea can prove it's that valuable so it's fine and the whole conflict of interest/money laundering through a different company angle just isn't covered seemingly.

Actually not that stressed about tonight. I think we have a not insignificant chance of keeping them to a draw. I can't see how we'll really hurt them enough to nick a 1-0 win and if they score first at any time in the game then it's game over. I do expect us to go down maybe 0-2 or something but it's all about survival at this point and we're finally in a good position. Anything we get tonight would be a massive bonus and it would of course be very funny if we could cost them 2 points which could end their title charge but my expectations are zero. I will be pissed off though if we throw in another performance like Chelsea and get embarrassed.

3 hours ago, Danny said:

Tbh I don't know much about the Everton case and who is right and who is wrong. But I do think that if you gain a sporting advantage then you should be given a disadvantage and a points deduction is completely fair for doing that. The issue is ofc being able to identify correctly who has broken the rules and then being able to punish them swiftly.

Everton's situation boils down to the fact that we have an owner who wants out and isn't really funding the club anymore, his main source of money was Alisher Usmanov whose assets were frozen because of links to Putin costing us loads of sponsorship money (e.g. he was sponsoring our training facilities for what nobody can deny was a very inflated rate) which is why the club tried to use the Ukraine war as a mitigating factor in the case. Add to that the financial drain of building a new stadium and having a relatively poor cash flow through our own sponsorship deals, kit deals, matchday revenue, etc. (all again linked to the lack of leadership at the top of the club while the owner is absent and waiting for the sale to go through) means the club is losing money hand over fist. Everton thought they were just about compliant because of thinking some interest they'd had to pay on a stadium loan wasn't included in the FFP calculations but were found guilty because you can only omit those from the calculation if the *stated purpose* of the loan was to fund infrastructure (the stadium). Moshiri funded the stadium with his own (Usmanov's) money and took the loan to help with day to day running costs. Then Ukraine happened, the loaned money had to be re-directed to the stadium due to the loss of Usmanov's money and therefore the interest payments counted as losses when it came to the FFP calculations. The counter-argument is "well Everton shouldn't have spent £30m on Onana that year and then they wouldn't have breached" but because of that interest stuff, the club thought they had that to spend.

It's all VERY interesting and exciting, but the bottom line is I think we've been a bit unlucky and the club is more guilty of clumsy accounting and generally not being run very well more than cheating or financial doping.

I think the Forest case where they've signed 42 players since being promoted and continued to spend on Chris Wood, for example, last January, who directly helped them to stay up at the expense of Leicester and co., when they knew the deal would take them over the FFP threshold, is probably worthy of a points penalty if anything is. It's why our fanbase was so outraged when they only got 4 points and we got 10 reduced to 6. The Premier League should actually have a sanctions policy written down though so that all of this back and forth and appeal stuff can get in the bin and take all these asterisks away from the league table. Even now, Everton and Forest might get back a point or two from their appeals which means Luton don't know what they need to do with 4 games left to survive. They could go and get a point at Wolves and then find out later that they really needed to push for the win. 

Mad how Arteta in his first coaching job has turned Arsenal into this side while the strings of more experienced and decorated managers at Chelsea and Man Utd over the years have made them worse and worse. Shows the importance of having your ducks in a row as a club and having an actual plan, but I also think what he's doing as a manager is a bit underrated still.

Can one of the clubs with a bit of money not just go all out and buy Cole Palmer this summer just for the sake of putting Chelsea into a relegation fight? I don't think we'll ever see a better opportunity for one of the Super League Six punted into the Championship. 

1 hour ago, The Palace Fan said:

To be fair, the clubs that have pushed the limits of the restrictions have created this 'sad' new football. Clubs like ourselves shouldn't be at a sporting disadvantage for abiding to the restrictions set.

I get what you're saying but those that have implemented the rules, sanctions and timelines have seen the league table altered in the courts 4 times this season and it could be 6 by the time the appeals processes are wrapped up. The clubs and the organisation itself both have to take responsibility for that. Regardless of who you blame for it, and I'm certainly not trying to make out that Everton are innocent here or shifting the blame elsewhere, but it is an absolutely whopping load of shite for the league table to be altered in any way by off the pitch events.

The clubs that have pushed the envelope could still be punished by a sporting disadvantage by not being able to register new players, for example, whilst still having a league table that is solely decided by what's actually happened on the football pitch.

3 hours ago, Dan said:

It's the one particular point about points deductions and the timing. You couldn't have had a better year to have it - this is pretty much certainly the worst bottom three there's ever been and like I say, if we get one next season (which I'm pretty sure we are going to) then I highly doubt we're going to have this luxury. It'd probably be in our interests for Ipswich and Norwich to come up with us.

I'd be surprised if we didn't get hit with a points deduction next season too to be honest looking at our last set of accounts but at least we'll never get done for two time periods in the same season again. There was some talk about Leeds' accounts looking bad a few weeks ago as well. This is the new football now. Sad.

19 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

Tbh, I'm not sure questioning the standards of the refereeing is all that different to questioning the integrity of the officials. I feel as though PMGOL has not only not done enough to protect their referees from looking like they lack integrity... I honestly think they've left open enough doors for their integrity to be in doubt that they truly have invited people questioning their integrity.

I think Forest's tweet was unhinged, I don't truly understand what a "referee analyst" does at a club other than Forest paying Mark Clattenburg to sort of rubber-stamp the unhinged messaging coming from Forest... but at the same time, I do think PMGOL having their integrity directly attacked by a club was bound to happen sooner or later and I'm not surprised by it. At the end of the day, I don't think PMGOL has anyone to blame for public accusations of referees lacking integrity than themselves.

And I don't think PMGOL makes any steps to try to restore the illusion of having referees with integrity or generally improving the performances of referees/VAR officials without getting some very public criticism that can't be ignored. Forest's tweet was unhinged, but it can't be ignored and it keeps the integrity of referees in the spotlight. At the end of the day, I don't think that's a bad thing.

If PMGOL and referees don't appreciate the heightened scrutiny and having their integrity questioned after this season... I think they've got to take corrective action to improve how they're viewed. In Forest's case with the incidents in question, I don't believe lack of integrity was the cause of the bad decisions. Everton aren't 115 Charges FC or Newcastle. But I don't blame Forest for taking advantage of the fact trust and faith in officials actually having integrity is at an all time low while they make unhinged accusations.

It is very different. The fact they've mentioned he's a Luton fan on VAR is one step away from alluding to match fixing.

The truth is that referees getting too many decisions wrong is distorting results far too often and PGMOL need to make fewer mistakes. Forest are suggesting by bringing the guy's Luton allegiances into it that there's a deliberate element to it.

Forest, just like every other club, are only upset because the decisions went against them. They don't give a fuck if the officials are incompetent until it affects them in a negative way. Until the clubs in the Premier League get together and put a vote of no confidence in PGMOL together or something then I won't take any one of them seriously when they start cry-arsing like this. All it is is them trying to twist it in their favour for the next match.

@nudge @Viva la FCB @6666 @RandoEFC @Michael @Pyfish @Bluewolf @CaaC (John) @...Dan @Dan @Redcanuck @Rick @Tommy @Rucksackfranzose @Lucas @Whiskey @Stan @Storts @DeadLinesman @N U F C and any others welcome.

Below are the fixtures for Gameweek One.

Montpellier vs Nantes

PSG vs Le Havre

Metz vs Lille

Clermont Foot vs Reims

Lorient vs Toulouse

Strasbourg vs Nice

Rennes vs Brest

Lyon vs Monaco

Marseille vs Lens

My pick for Gameweek One is PSG. Good luck!

4 hours ago, Dan said:

Luton fan I work with has said to me for years if they ever made it to the Premier League they would treat it as a cash cow to get themselves in order, to sort out a new stadium etc... and that they would not make any serious fist of survival. To have that go up alongside a calamity Sheffield United and a Burnley side who've badly underperformed. Forest and Everton are lucky their deductions have come this season. I expect us to hit one next year and we're not getting this sort of luxury.

I do think Luton will be back and they've been good value for the league, they're a genuinely fun team. Probably the nearest thing to Holloway's Blackpool. I just hope they have a slightly better legacy - I think they will though. They haven't been promoted four times in ten years by being daft. Got a lot of time for Luton.

You have to go a long way to put "Everton" and "lucky" in the same sentence over the past few years. I'm mostly of the same school of thought but this football club has become absolutely allergic to being anywhere other than 15th-17th in the table. A part of me genuinely believes that if we'd have had the 6 point penalty last season then we'd have just found an extra two wins and if we'd have been deducted 2 points this season instead of 8 then we'd have just lost two extra games and ended up in the same position. Like you say, we've developed a knack of finding a win when we most need it but we also have a massive knack of failing to win any match that would see us climb to 13th/14th and allow the fanbase to actually sleep well for a couple of weeks.

I admire what Luton have done of course. There's a lot of base sympathy for the underdog. But I also think their fans and the people involved with the club are just as big of a set of twats as everyone else and the fact that their squad costs naff all and their matches have a lot of goals in them doesn't change that. They were one of the worst fan-bases to come up to Goodison (twice) this season singing "feed the scousers" and "bin-dippers" and whatever else they think is funny. This attempted media narrative and their owner thinking that they've been hard done by because Everton have "only" been deducted 8 points when they're the only team in Premier League history to fight for survival against two teams that have had points removed is a bit hard to swallow as well.

Not to do them down too much. They've punched above their weight and have certainly made a mockery of Burnley's attempt to stay in the league. I'd also rather see Luton stay up than Forest, especially after Forest's antics in the last few days and earlier this season. I'd also rather be competing against Luton when we're inevitably in another relegation fight next season because as entertaining as their matches are, as a relegation rival I'm quite glad to know that Luton can go into any given game and are probably going to concede anything between 3 and 5 goals. Hopefully for their sake, Danny is right and at least that style of play will see them fetch some good fees for the attacking players who have been allowed to put up some decent numbers as a result.

What is wrong with them!?

I can't believe how many people I'm seeing on social media agreeing with them and praising them for "sticking up to the officials".

I'm all for questioning the standards of refereeing but what Forest have done, questioning the integrity, is very different. Staggering how many people think Forest are "taking a stand" and not cynically trying to create an unconscious bias in their favour by applying this much pressure on PGMOL.

Probably good news that alternatives to 777 are being considered. I hope we don't follow the state ownership model though.

1 hour ago, Bluebird Hewitt said:

I can't remember, but did our lot do that when we visited?

Would be very strange if we did, considering what Wales as a whole is like for poverty.

It doesn't ring a bell as far as I can remember.

Also what I forgot to mention is the number of Luton fans commenting on it saying well we'd rather have seen a draw so VAR not giving Forest penalties was actually not in their interest .

It's so embarrassing for Forest, isn't it?

The implication of corruption is bad enough but I think it's the "the VAR was a Luton fan" angle that is the most shocking. I've actually seen a few figures in the media back them up on that as well. Referees and officials are clearly somewhat interested in football if that's the career path they've chosen to pursue, so chances are that they support a team. You can't . Can you imagine the precedent it would set if Forest had their request granted to remove Attwell from VAR because he's a Luton fan? There's footage of Michael Oliver somewhere wearing a Newcastle shirt and saying that he hates Everton and our fans will always mention that on social media if he ever gives a decision against us, but you can't expect him never to officiate any of our matches and I'd be absolutely mortified if Everton took to social media and started spouting off about him being biased.

This Clattenburg thing is on really shaky ground for me as well. They've employed him as a refereeing consultant. For what? Looking at his Daily Mail column last night, it looks as if he's basically being paid to use his name as a former high-profile referee to put pressure on the current officials on the club's behalf. We've seen that current and former referees aren't shy about taking up big money offers, whether it's to fly out to Qatar or UAE to referee their matches during the week or in this case, to completely embarrass themselves in the public discourse by crying corruption at an organisation that he used to be a major part of, and would have insisted didn't contain an ounce of corruption when he was on the other side of the fence. I'd feel quite dirty if I was him turning around to attack PGMOL because that's what my paymasters want from me.

The standards of refereeing in the Premier League at the moment are really horrendous and Forest were on the wrong side of it yesterday. Personally, I think all of the clubs should come together and demand better standards from PGMOL but they're all too busy looking after their own interests to take any collective action for the benefit of the fans or the competition. All of them will cry foul when it happens to them which says to me they're not really interested in better officiating overall but rather just decisions that don't go against them.

Forest haven't really gone down the "standards of officiating" route at all. They've gone down an integrity route and it won't get them anywhere, quite rightly. They need hammering for that statement yesterday.

Results - Chinese Grand Prix

This week it was @The Palace Fan's turn to go AWOL so no points for him. I know I'm not helping by posting predictions on Wednesday or Thursday, especially with so many of the races so far being overnight for those of us in Europe. I'll endeavour to get back to posting predictions on the Monday of race week.

Onto those that did predict, everyone once again went for a Max Verstappen pole position and bagged 5 points. I think I've seen enough now to change this prediction to a Pole Position without Verstappen. Even if there's chances for other people to beat him on a Saturday, those chances are so slim that there isn't an incentive to take a risk, so for the foreseeable future, we will change the pole position prediction to one excluding him.

Also resolved on Saturday was the bonus question. @Stan and @Tommy both backed Haas to get a car into Q3 and Nico Hulkenberg duly delivered on this again. Kudos to @Whiskey who backed a Q3 appearance for Sauber even before seeing their form in the Sprint Shootout and Sprint Race. Bottas bags him 5 points as well.

Onto the Podium Minus Max, this week's result was Norris, Perez, Leclerc. Hilariously, everyone who predicted this week went for a combination of Perez and the two Ferraris here, so nobody gets any points for Sainz. @Stan and @nudge made the best fist of this, with Perez and Leclerc in the exact correct positions bagging them 10 points. @Coma, @DeadLinesman and @OrangeKhrush take 7 points each for their PER-SAI-LEC combination, while @RandoEFC, @MUFC and @Tommy have to settle for 4 points each.

Finally, Yuki Tsunoda's retirement made it impossible to give any points for this week's random driver prediction. If anyone had put 19th, I'd have given points for that as he was the second car to retire from the race but I'm not giving consolation points for a driver who retired apart from that scenario.

Here's what it does for the table:

@The Palace Fan shows the cost of a missed week as he drops from 1st to 8th, but in terms of the points differential, still has 19 races left to recover a 12-point deficit to the top spot. @Stan is this week's "Driver of the Day" with an impressive score of 20 that also takes him to the top of the standings with a decent 5-point lead. Single figure returns for @RandoEFC see him lose ground in the standings and @MUFC remains behind his team-mate despite completing one race more - ouch!

In the Constructors' standings, @Whiskey's return to the fray saw Ferrari bag this biggest team points haul we've seen so far this season, and they can begin to eye Mercedes up in the battle to get off the bottom. McLaren's lowest score of the season sees their narrow lead in the standings disappear, while Red Bull leapfrog both them and Aston Martin with a very strong score of 29 points this weekend. 

4 minutes ago, Devil said:

115 charges, you should be the most hated football club in football. 

 

Dan describes it perfectly here:

4 hours ago, Dan said:

Correct. Will always be a significant fixture to me even if I will give it barrels about how much they've fallen off. Not a rivalry per se it's just everyone knows a Man United fan in the way they don't know a Man City fan. Liverpool is similar.

Man City are objectively the worst club in football because of this investigation hanging over them, the completely plastic nature of their standing in the game and their immoral owners. It's impossible for most people to conjure up that sort of animosity though because they don't know an insufferable Man City fan whereas everyone knows half a dozen Man Utd fans and half a dozen Liverpool fans (and they're not all like this by any means but) who boast as if they're invincible in moments because they've got safety in numbers so you've got to poke fun at them when they get a knock-back because those are just the rules. The decent Man Utd and Liverpool fans who didn't boast that much in the first place just end up caught in the crossfire but it goes back to the whoppers in your fanbases who bring that upon the rest of you because they don't know the meaning of humility. That just isn't there with Man City. Yes, they should be the most hated club but if you don't have that day to day interaction with their fans then you're just not going to be as arsed.

I think this is the best title battle we've had heading into the final round as past champions @nudge and @Viva la FCB, along with @6666 and @Michael, are separated by just 2 points overall. With a maximum score of 7 available in the final round, it's almost mathematically impossible for anyone to come from outside the top four to claim the title.