Zoob

It won't be bas bad as that, much as I wish it was. Guess you never know, but yeah, even the title wins 'after' the cheating stopped were all built on the foundation of the cheating that went before it.

Also, f**k them even more, because I believe the total charges agains them was actually 130, not 115. "When the Premier League announced the charges in February 2023, its initial press release detailed 115 distinct alleged violations spanning nine football seasons from 2009–10 to 2017–18, plus failures to cooperate with investigations through 2022–23. After publishing the list, a review and correction of the specific handbook rules cited showed the total number of rule references actually added up to 130, as certain requirements were repeated or grouped across multiple seasons."

And the PL will make them pay most/all of their legal fees, and this too should be added to the tab. As it is, it genuinely wouldn't surprise me if they've been cooking the books when it comes to how much they've spent on legal fees during this whole thing.

Interesting that this has 'leaked' out. Makes me wonder if someone close to it was getting fed up of the delays and silence and trying to force things to actually move forward. Obviously we have no idea whether we are days, weeks or years away from any punishment being issued, but still a step in the right direction. It seemed from the outside that they would either be found guilty of most or none, so this is an encouraging step. I just hope the punishment fits the crime, given the scale of their f***ery and what it helped them achieve.

It's a real shame. I was shocked when I saw what he looked like in pre-season. To go from player of the tourney in the U-21s to this, is pretty sad. The whole Villa debacle obviously contributed massively, and maybe left him feeling like he doesn't give a crap anymore, which is also sad.

Did they get a FK for that? (or was it a booking for diving?)

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I feel bad for him because he's obviously talented and doesn't want to stink the place out like that but wow he was bad today. So so bad. He reminds me a bit of Nigel Clough. But worse.

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Yes, although he (and VAR) did make a nonsensical decision to send Foden off, when it could easily have been red or yellow for both From the Beeb: There is one key part of the offside law which applies to Fernandez here. A player is offside if they are: "Clearly attempting to play a ball which is close when this action impacts on an opponent." - And then you think back to Robbo ducking (when not even directly in line of site of the keeper) and our goal being disallowed against City. (Oliver on VAR that day). Ducking out of the way is apparently interfering more than attempting a diving header from an offside position.

It's funny as heck cos of who the decision went against, but the amount of key decisions for goals/pens/non pens that have gone City's way is quite staggering.

I thought they were joking when they said he wasn't making an attempt to play the ball. Remarkable.

Yeah - would help a lot if they showed the line stuff at the time of the decision. When they do it 5 mins later, it makes it look like they're fixing it up, but based on the one they finally showed, yep, onside. Aside maybe from Enzo who was offside potentially interfering with the play.

Am so glad I'm not the only one confused by that goal. Haaland is offside when the ball gets crossed, and is offside if Enzo did get a touch. Is it cos the ball clipped the Manchester United player when it was first crossed in?

I had the same thought, but what happened to us last year is so far from the norm. I don't know if Arsenal will walk it, but I can't see the wheels falling off as happened with us a year ago (and the signs were there despite us winning those early games).

Ha, yep. Getting old. Meant Atleti. Re Frimpong - I can understand that with limited options and a Fulham side that also looked like they were running out of gas after 70 minutes, bringing some speed on could have helped. Unfortunately, Frimpong can run quite fast but can't play football so...

Think he just needed to give Mac Allister a rest. He'd had a shorter pre-season cos of the world cup, and played like a proper midfielder against PSG. And these 2 were the only ones left, but stank the place out. And of course this is why we were all screaming for another midfielder.

It's crazy weird how often he underhits passes, and I can only put that down to tiredness, because technically he's obviously able to pick out some very good passes, but the amount he does this is embarrassing, and I'm sure he's embarrassed by it. Also needs to leather the ball more. Did it for a couple of goals last season and does it plenty for Germany. Still have faith he'll come good, but time is running out.

Our midfield reminds me of something from the Evans era. Hopefully Mac Allister can get back to the form of 2 years ago, but Grav and Dom are both both like luxury players, and Grav just seems to have lost the ability to do much of what you want a midfielder to do. His runs to the edge of the opposition box before giving the ball away and being caught upfield are far too regular.

He was crap, as was everyone else. We set such a low bar today, that I don't even think he was the worst, and yep, for what we paid for him, he should be doing a lot more, but we are just so dysfunctional as a team, it's hard to know where the blame lies because there's so much wrong with us. One thing to note is that he's consistently been covering the most distance out of any of our players, so at least he can't be faulted for effort.

Think it's going to take a while to get our general fitness back up. We pressed really well in midweek, and this was mostly the same team that played (and the replacements who came in played terribly). Think they were just sadly out of gas. But was a terrible game to watch.

Just seeing us press again and rather than "keep hold of the ball regardless of whether it helps us" (last season), players have clearly been told to press, and pass the ball more quickly. It's so noticable already, just 4 games in, and actually watching us try to play football is to remember that this is meant to be a sport we enjoy watching.

He wasn't the Mac Allister of 2 years ago, but he was far closer to that version than the damp cloth version we've seen for the last year or so. Long may it continue, cos he looked like a proper midfielder again.