RandoEFC

Very hard to read Practice. Red Bull looking unsettled again. Ferrari struggling for pace. Mclaren kinda anonymous. Mercedes ahead of the lot. Hard to imagine that form carrying into qualifying but things seem to be shifting around a lot this season.

DeadLinesman: Leclerc Leclerc Norris Sainz 1st Q2

Whiskey: Pole - NOR Race - NOR, LEC, PER Max - P1 Lance - Q1

As far as modern day football goes, it sounds like Everton might actually be on the brink of the dream takeover. No state ownership. No multi-club bollocks. Just two genuine Everton fans who have succeeded in the world of business taking control of the club having found the financial backing to do so. Get it done.

The worse the Tories lose, the funnier, but I'm starting to get worried now that if they end up dipping below 100 seats or something really bad, then Farage will be in a position to either take over the party in some grubby deal, or push Reform to become the biggest party of the right of centre. This would create a genuine risk that we'd end up with him as Prime Minister in 5 or 10 years depending on how long it takes for Labour to outstay their welcome in power. The Tories will never be palatable but I'd rather it be a David Cameron type character when the right eventually get back into power and not a Nigel Farage. This all goes back to Brexit again. Boris Johnson purged all of the vaguely sensible Tories over Brexit in 2019 and when he inevitable disgraced himself one time too many, all that was left to replace him was "talent" like Truss and Sunak. They really need a steady, experienced politician to take over and just get them back on an even keel otherwise the door will be well and truly open for Farage to become the next right-of-centre Prime Minister of the UK.

Apparently Marko has said that Tsunoda will stay at RB next year alongside Ricciardo or Lawson. I thought he might go to Alpine. Looking like this currently: Red Bull = Verstappen and Perez Ferrari = Leclerc and Hamilton Mclaren = Norris and Piastri Mercedes = Russell and Antonelli(?) Aston Martin = Stroll and Alonso Williams = Albon and Sainz(?) Alpine = Gasly and ??? Haas = Ocon(?) and Bearman(?) RB = Tsunoda and Lawson(?) Sauber = Hulkenberg and ???

@DeadLinesman @Whiskey @nudge @OrangeKhrush @The Palace Fan @MUFC Practice starts today folks, don't forget to predict!

While I think FFP submissions need to be based mostly on football-related incomings and outgoings for there ever to be a cat in hell's chance of movement in the competitive order, I don't feel *that* strongly that clubs shouldn't be able to sell assets to balance the books like Chelsea have done. The problem is them selling it to another company owned by their owner. It makes a mockery of the whole thing.

Reportedly, yes. Not confirmed. But I disagree with them if so. Just like every other Premier League club, Everton will short-sightedly stand on whichever side benefits them in the immediate future. The people running the club probably think that if Man City can successfully undermine the PSR rules then we might be able to get away with not selling a player before June 30 at a knockdown price in order to avoid another charge next season. Pure self interest. That's what the league is now. Thankfully, as a mere fan, I'm not obliged to play these political games and can call out that from a moral perspective and for the betterment of the league and English football, every other club should be leaving Man City all the way out to dry, on their own. Fans don't have to blindly back the positions of their clubs at all times. A man can have his own opinion. You should try it some time.

Struggling with a calf problem apparently.

There are clearly other clubs who are disgruntled with the rules because they aren't helping them to progress at this point in time. None of them have flagrantly run roughshod over those rules 115 times though and subsequently spend copious amounts of money on lawyers to use every trick in the book to avoid any retribution. Man City are owned by a state that violate actual human rights, their sporting operation has bent and broken the rules to financially dope up their club, they've made English football boring with their domination and smeared the history books with asterisks with success so plastic that it doesn't even mean anything. Love or hate the financial regulations, Man City and their owners are nobody's allies.

Taking Lewis Dunk over Branthwaite is a hilarious shout but it also barely matters. Even those players who have made the cut as fringe players will barely kick a ball. Branthwaite has one cap and wouldn't have featured heavily if at all. A shame for him though.

It is ludicrous that this threshold hasn't been adapted to reflect the inflation of player transfer fees and wages over the years. When there's 14 or more clubs in the position of having to sell by June 30th instead of 6 then we might see a rule change because that's how bad it needs to get for the clubs to vote for a change. None of them have any sense of wanting the rules to work properly. Self interest is king, this is why we need an independent regulator. The clubs and the Premier League themselves can't be trusted to do anything but drive English football off a cliff.

It needs to be at the European level really in my opinion. The six clubs in question have already shown that they can basically dictate what the FA and Premier League agree to. You can see that from the changes to the domestic cups. All this whinging about how they can't compete in Europe because the domestic schedule is too demanding just because we've had ONE year where all of the English clubs fell before the final stages. Anything like I'm suggesting won't get through because they'll point at what Real Madrid and PSG can do and what they can spend and insist that all the best players won't come to England anymore if we have new regulation to keep the rampant spenders more under control. They'd need a European consensus which just isn't realistic unfortunately. Our best chance to save football was to allow the clubs that tried to form their Super League to just fuck off and play all their matches in Dubai and the USA, leaving behind a somewhat level playing field. Would have been a tragedy for the genuine fans of those clubs but better for the rest of us and football at large.

I don't have any idea what the number should be but it should just be capped so that the first £200m (or whatever number) in sponsorship is allowed to count towards your PSR budget and if you make more than that then fine, you can pay it out to your shareholders. It needs to be a number that is achievable for most Premier League clubs but not guaranteed. A number that Brentford for example could realistically get to after 3-5 years of getting into the top flight and consolidating their position well. There should similarly be a number put on matchday revenue and other non-sporting forms of profit as well. If you want to spend more money than that on players and wages then you make it through player trading. This model is the only way that the PSR rules will achieve what they're supposed to achieve without destroying any sense of meritocracy or aspiration throughout the pyramid. The problem is, football clubs vote in their own interests and the Premier League clubs could never approve this if their European counterparts didn't do the same thing so it'll never happen.

Whatever you think of whether or not the financial regulations should exist, if they say an owner isn't allowed to invest a gazillion pounds into a club and spend it immediately, then there's no point in having them if a club owner can set up a company and have them sponsor their club for a gazillion pounds which they can then spend. I think I mentioned this in another thread not long ago but if they're going to limit spending based on income then there just needs to be a limit on how much sponsorship income you can have to count towards what you're allowed to spend. It isn't on that a dumpster fire of a football club like Man Utd can still have a billion pound squad after being run like shit just because they built their brand 30 years ago and therefore have permanent access to massive sponsorship money, while a club like Brighton could be the best run country in the world for the next 100 years and still never be able to spend close to that sort of money even if they had it in their bank account. It just makes any pretence that this is still a meritocratic sport in some part and not just an out of control capitalist's wet dream quite laughable really.

Man City's fans are trying to spin this as being the rest of the pyramid vs Man Utd/Liverpool/Arsenal and the financial monopoly they used to hold over football. Might hold just a fragment of weight if you choose to forget that they conspired with those same clubs to run off and form their own relegation-free league to make more money, away from all the clubs that should apparently now be queuing up behind City to support them.

"Tyranny of the majority" is an.... interesting concept, isn't it? I see that Man City have been threatening to spend less on their women's team and a bunch of community stuff as well "because they'll have to cut back in order to afford to bring the best players to the Premier League". Load of absolute bollocks because community spending is exempt from the financial regulations that they're whinging about and they could increase all of their spending in that area 100-fold without it remotely impacting their owners' bank balance. Just a scummy threat made in bad faith. This is why people need to stop sneering at Everton and Forest fans for the complaint that they've had the book thrown at them while City's case has been allowed to rumble on. It's not "well that's understandable because their case is more complicated so obviously it'll take longer". It's a bad faith actor that have deployed every trick in the book to avoid being tried. When you compare to the Everton and Forest cases, how many more rules City have broken, how much more of an advantage they've gained, how much more obstructive they've been in facing up to it, you're looking at removal from the Premier League at an absolute minimum. Even if they were hit with something like a 30 point penalty it would make a total mockery of English football.

Disappointing from a fan's perspective. I wonder if they'll regret it too. Not that teams care as much about the Constructors' Championship but they're getting reeled in by McLaren and Ferrari and Perez' performances could cost them that title as early as this year.

Leclerc Leclerc Sainz Norris 2nd Q1

Everton and Forest both briefed that they were convinced they hadn't done anything wrong and received points penalties. Man City are hardly going to claim anything other than innocence while this is ongoing.

Just relegate the cunts to the bottom of the pyramid ffs. They're an absolute stain on English football.

He'd probably do well in the right system. Seems like he's finally got over his post-Covid dip physically. Great physical attributes, just lacking in defensive awareness and poor on the ball.

Predictions - Canadian Grand Prix Deadline is start of Qualifying on Saturday. @RandoEFC @Stan @MUFC @Tommy @nudge @Whiskey @The Palace Fan @Coma @DeadLinesman @OrangeKhrush Pole Position - Which driver will post the fastest lap in Q3 AFTER MAX VERSTAPPEN IS REMOVED FROM THE RESULTS? [INSERT DRIVER] Podium - Which drivers will finish the Grand Prix in the top three positions AFTER MAX VERSTAPPEN IS REMOVED FROM THE RESULTS? 1. [INSERT DRIVER] 2. [INSERT DRIVER] 3. [INSERT DRIVER] Random Driver - Predict the finishing position of this week's random driver, Max Verstappen. [INSERT POSITION] Bonus Question - At Lance Stroll's home Grand Prix this weekend, which session of qualifying will he be eliminated in? Out in Q1? Out in Q2? Or into Q3? [INSERT DRIVER]

This lost of course despite getting the first goal on the board just after 10 minutes in. No regrets from me. Settling for the £125 profit still didn't do much for me in the table and ending up in profit would not have been a remotely honest reflection of how I've done with this over the season.