Happy with a draw after that start. Especially on the road. Still very tight at the bottom.
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The 2022-2023 Football Thread
- Thread starter Scepticalscribe
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Well done, Hammers. That’s a very good point against a very tough Newcastle team. Feels like it’s been forever since someone scored against them in the league.
I was certainly surprised at the outcome. Hopefully it will give our confidence a boost. After all Chelsea then Spurs next.
Agreed.
An excellent point for West Ham.
Yesterday, I had the feeling that Arsenal could have launched a thousand attacks, and none of them would have struck home; as the game edged towards its inevitable end, I would have happily settled for a point.
You’ll have Jesus back soon. That should help in the attack.
True.
And, in truth, I expected that we would feel his loss far sooner than this, that is, far earlier than yesterday, which was the first time I thought that we really missed what he has brought to the team.
Elsewhere, in a a somewhat surprising (but not undeserved) smash'n'grab, Forest are leading Leeds by a goal to nil.
Harry Kane breaks the Spurs record, and is now on course to set his own
So, Harry Kane breaks the Spurs record, and Spurs (oh joy, be still my beating heart) take all three points from Manchester City, defeating them by a goal to nil.
This defeat means that Arsenal - despite yesterday's defeat to Everton - remain five points clear at the top of the table.
I think the only correct punishment is for three of there players to be transferred to West Ham.
We’ll have
KDB
Haaland
Ake
Seems fair to me. Oh and City have to pay the wages!
Marsch had a pretty impossible job following Bielsa and I think he did well under the circumstances, but this is not a surprising outcome. Whoever comes in is probably going to try and make them tough to beat, undoing everything Bielsa created and Marsch attempted to maintain in terms of sophisticated and forward-thinking (if, perhaps, ultimately not successful) play.
Leeds fans will probably soon be complaining that their football is boring, after having previously complained it was 'too exciting.'
I wipe a tear from my eye.
On a more serious level, (not that tears aren't serious) this development is both very welcome and long overdue.
While this appears to be a serious set of charges backed up by a mountain of evidence, I am highly skeptical that the consequences to Man City will be remotely in proportion to their level of financial doping.
They can afford to blithely pay any fine. A transfer ban would have to cover several seasons to seriously hurt them given their depth - and as soon as it ended they'd be back to buying the next Haaland. Even a hefty points deduction, or relegation for that matter, would only set them back for whatever season or two it was imposed on.
The only way to properly punish Man City (or any other club) for financial doping is to restrict the ownership's ability to funnel money into the club. Otherwise, virtually any punishment aside from the theoretically-possible-but-we-all-know-it-will-never-happen ejection from the competition is merely a slap on the wrist to Man City.
EDIT: Though, just to throw it out there, this puts paid to the oft repeated (including by me) idea that Man City are the model of a 'well-run club'...they are not. They are cheaters who laundered an immense fortune through the club in order to supercharge their competitive advantage. Their so-called competence is founded on having a superabundance of resources.
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I agree that a fine - as currently envisaged (£20 million? For Manchester City, this is proverbial peanuts), would amount to nothing other than the proverbial slap on the wrist, unless the sums involved were truly stratospheric, in other words, genuinely proportional to their level of financial doping.
Now, personally, this is something I would like to see, but think it rather unlikely..
However, a hefty points reduction, and/or a transfer ban extending for a few seasons, and/or a ban imposed for a few years on being able to compete in the CL, would genuinely hurt the club.
Yes, over time, it mightn't curb the egregious behaviour or conduct, but it would demonstrate that such actions can come with serious consequences, consequences that will hurt, - even if only temporarily - the club.
Juventus has been severely punished on multiple occasions for cheating in virtually every way imagineable. It hasn't stopped them from cheating, nor has it stopped them from winning.
Italy is not England, but there is so much pressure in the game to find money to spend on an upwardly-spiraling transfer market just to reach the elite levels of the sport, let alone win anything, that I am very skeptical there there is sufficient will to put a lid on it in a meaningful way. Also, the Newcastle sale has broken my belief that fans (as a whole) even want things to be fair - they don't, they just want their club to win, regardless of where the money comes from.
Nothing will change unless and until there is a truly independent, competent, and essentially honest regulatory body overseeing things. But that would require that the people running the game essentially fire themselves first. I am not holding my breath waiting for that.
Points deduction or not able to compete in the CL would be a deterrent for the future. But I can’t see that they are the only club bending the rules. Chelsea must have breached the same rules with their spending.
Just catching up on the weekend’s games. Really enjoying the Liverpool game. Even though Wolves are one of our relegation rivals, it’s always nice to see one of the greedy six get humiliated.
To be quite candid, I'd prefer to have the points securely on the board, but, as the season progresses, a game in hand does confer some room for manoeuvre on the club that finds itself in this position.