RandoEFC

You say this like it's a bad thing! I'd have loved us to go for Potter instead of Rafa last summer. His Brighton teams are inconsistent but perform at least at the level they're expected to over a longer period of time. That style of play is the way to go as well. Conte might make Spurs feel good because he's got a top class track record and they want to be a top class club. Potter doesn't have that record but nor did Poch when he came to Spurs and he's the best manager they've had in my lifetime. Not saying out and out that Potter is the next Poch but there's a lot of merit in it. I can't see Conte really progressing Spurs over a number of years even if he'll probably get pretty good results out of this team for the time that he's there. He's not the type of manager who can repeat what Poch did in applying the finishing touches to a serious team that isn't quite ready-made.

In the latest episode of "this country and its media is very, very normal", we bring you the Prime Minister's sister using her platform on a national radio show to criticise his main opponent. This comes just days after a national "news"paper declared the PM as "back on track" following the local elections. For context, here are how many seats were won and lost by each of the parties and, yes, Johnson's Conservative party is the blue bar. Tin-pot stuff.

See I started to type something out to this effect except I don't have the historical knowledge to back it up with examples. Chelsea could have a very different perception later on in our lives, especially now that Abramovich and his money aren't involved with the club.

My only question is this, and it isn't just for you, but are we saying that Chelsea and Man City can never and or will never have that? Say Man City are the dominant team in England for the next twenty years, then they have a dip for a decade, can they not make the same claim when they get back to the top then?

All of these clubs established themselves at some point and went from not having football heritage to having it. There was a time where there were many ways of doing that. That time has passed. The only way to become an elite club now if you aren't already is financial doping. If there were more "legitimate" ways of doing it then I'd be more full throated in my criticism of Chelsea and City's methodology but there isn't. Unless those clubs fall away, we'll eventually have to accept their success in the 2000s and 2010s and 2020s as football heritage in itself.

This is ancient history now though. Man Utd are where they are because of what they used to do a decade or more ago now. A big club by default and not through competence or hard work. You and I could have been running that club the past decade and they'd still be one of the biggest in the world. I have no problem with pointing out the financial doping which has made Chelsea and Man City elite clubs but you can only sneer at it to a limited extent once you acknowledge that it's the only way to interrupt the monopoly that the established giants secured when that's the way the sport moved.

He beat Nadal in the previous round. The lad is only 18 as well and he's ranked in the top 10 in men's tennis. By far the biggest prodigy tennis has seen since the "big three" on the evidence we've seen so far.

Yeah are you inSane? Sorry.

An absolute dicking in Wales so far as well: Just put into context the fact that in these seats counted, Labour were sat on 230 and the Tories on only 116. The Tories have lost almost half of what they held directly (net) to Labour. Imagine the narrative from the Mail, Telegraph, etc. if the roles were reversed. English results have worsened for the Tories throughout the day as well including Labour comfortably winning the "Red Wall" Wakefield Council in which the Tories are defending a parliamentary by-election in the near future. Huge gains now for the Lib Dems and, relatively speaking, even more so for the Greens. Tories taking a net hit so far of ~450 seats in total across the UK yet the narrative this morning was that things could have gone worse for "Boris".

Scotland appear to be finished counting. Tories lose about 1/5 of their seats. Gains spread across SNP, Labour, Lib Dem and Green leaving Labour as the 2nd largest party as expected. Lib Dems making serious gains across England and Scotland it has to be said.

Anything that takes the majority away from the Tories has to be perceived as a positive. The pollsters seem to be suggesting results like these point toward another hung parliament rather than a Labour majority. The risk for Labour when things are in that ballpark rather than them looking at a majority, is that it opens the door for the Tories to scaremonger over the "secret pact with the EU-loving Lib Dems" (which I don't think is a very effective attack line) or the "Labour will give the SNP their second referendum" which might be more threatening. Time will tell. I was personally hoping for a bit more from Labour in the Midlands and some Northern areas given the absolute train wreck we've seen from this Conservative government. I agree though that things look largely positive and will look even better after the Scottish and Welsh results. Also worth mentioning that Northern Ireland are electing their Stormont Assembly and Sinn Fein are likely to top the poll for the first time and have the opportunity to nominate a First Minister for Northern Ireland. Sinn Fein are also polling at their strongest level of support in the Republic of Ireland in recent years so there are more tests for the survival of the Union on the horizon as support for a united Ireland creeps up. I won't pretend to understand the constitutional implications and possibilities though. Northern Irish politics is badly under-reported in England.

Very good night for Labour in London. The rest of England a very mixed bag. Some seats that were last contested in 2018 in the likes of Nuneaton actually went from Labour to Conservative. On one hand, this is them catching up with the 2019 general election "realignment" but also can't be taken as simply accepted for Labour. Their vote held up well in some areas though, Hartlepool was expected to go worse after they got trounced in the 2020 parliamentary by-election but all of their seats there held up. They also smashed a majority in the Cumberland council which covers a jurisdiction that currently has three Conservative MPs. Also some losses to the Lib Dems in Hull and a few seats to the Greens in places like the Wirral. Largely an alright recovery for Labour but not enough to point to a majority at the next election. Lib Dems and Greens had some pretty big gains in various areas. The Tories have very little to be positive about. Obliterated in London, mixed bag across the rest of England, but suppose they could have expected a lot worse given their scandal-ridden term in Westminster. I think the Welsh and Scottish results are due in today. Polling appears to suggest Labour will decisively overtake the Tories and become the second party in Scotland whilst also making a few further gains in Wales where they're already the dominant party. Should give them licence to put a positive spin on the election cycle overall but digging into the detail, more is needed to get into government in a couple of years' time.

Pretty much what Cicero said. Liverpool have also had the other side of it where the English title became a massive monkey on their back. There were other opportunities to win the title before it happened. Off the top of my head there's the Benitez "facts" season where you were bang in the hunt and the infamous Gerrard slip season where it was in their hands. Even the year before Klopp finally got you over the line, you had it in your hands before drawing a game (can't remember which one ) and opened the door for City. This one doesn't really count as much for me though as jokes aside, I don't count drawing a single game out of the last 8 or however many it was as a mentality problem, but it's still worth mentioning. Anyway, Liverpool had that bit of insecurity about them when it came to the domestic title whereas in Europe you can see that doesn't exist. Maybe it would have if you hadn't won the Champions League under Benitez and the European dry spell stretched as far back as the domestic one did. But Man City very clearly have that insecurity about them in Europe. They will get there eventually though surely.

We spoke about it in the matchday thread. You can always tell watching Liverpool and Real Madrid in particular that competing for European trophies is just a normal part of being that football club. The pressure's off in a way because they've won it a bunch of times already and they always feel as if they have nothing to lose because they'll be there year after year giving it another go. Around other clubs, particularly PSG and Man City, there's always that anxiety and pressure of expectation, and almost a sense of embarrassment these days that they really should have got over the line once by now. It's a decade this season since City first won the Premier League title in this era. Both them and PSG have enough quality to have picked up at least one Champions League title each in that time. There is so much scrutiny on this situation at both clubs now that it's getting worse not better. They'll get over it eventually though.

The thing is, Mane, Salah and Jota are all primarily goal-scoring forwards even if they don't necessarily play centrally. You can't really say that of Man City's options in those areas apart from Raheem Sterling really. Foden, Bernardo, Mahrez you'd describe as creators more than finishers and Gabriel Jesus, while an out and out goalscorer really, isn't of the standard required. Even before Aguero tailed off and ultimately left, I was always saying how Man City missed Edin Dzeko since he left. Obviously there are strong links to Haaland for this summer but the lack of a striker who can act as a focal point and score different types of goals for you has been a weakness in their squad for a while, even if their strength elsewhere has allowed them to largely get away with it. I don't think this is their problem last night though. They've got a mental issue in Europe which sees them manage to find new ways to lose each season.

Make sure you vote in the locals tomorrow! YouGov projecting a poor but not disastrous night for the Tories and Labour to make gains in Scotland, Wales, London but not so much the rest of England. I've become a bit of an unashamed nerd when it comes to political polling and stuff so always interested to see how people vote and if the Tories get a kicking in any way, that's a bonus.

Yeah thanks for the advice. I probably would be looking at a small house of some description to be honest because I'm keen to have at least a little bit of outdoor space to myself. The Isle of Man isn't exactly flushed with blocks of flats anyway.

I'm 29 and at the point where I have enough savings and a salary where I can afford to start thinking about buying. On the Isle of Man, though, the property market is more difficult even than a lot of the UK. I've been renting for the last 5 years, at one point in a house of four lads which allowed me to save a lot of money on rent. My current place I'm now paying the full rent for what's effectively a two-person house as my most recent housemate moved out. I'd rather pay the extra money for a little while than rush into a property purchase or move to another, less expensive rental for what would probably be less than a year. Part of my problem is that I can't decide what I actually want, how far from work/town, whether I want a flat just to get on the ladder or to go for a house with scope to stay there for a longer-term, and there isn't a huge amount of choice either. To be honest, I always thought through my early-mid-20s that I'd be in a solid relationship by this point in my life and that my imaginary other half might just make all the tricky decisions . I do need to get on with it though.

Are you in the picture? I need to know as I'm trying to figure out if this is the 1980s or the 1880s.

What century is this?

Andy Murray on a decent run at the Madrid Masters on clay. Just picked up his first top 20 win of the season against Shapovalov and plays Djokovic in the next round. Their first meeting for over 5 years.

Deliberately using the wrong thread to make it look like the Man City thread gets some traffic.

I don't know if Newcastle's owners are looking to sell up to Farhad Moshiri this early.

Pornhub, Cornhub, easy mistake to make.

Still can't get my head around why he walked out on us. That's some achievement though. Obviously going to Bayern and PSG is a bit of an open goal but still.