2023/24 Soccer Thread

Tasty Pudding wrote:
Prederick wrote:
Tasty Pudding wrote:

Yes, and the Championship kicks off today!

2-1, Southampton over Sheffield Wednesday.

Genuinely a bit shocked that James Ward-Prowse is still with the club after going down, I thought he was dead-cert to get a move.

West Ham tried to sign him but backed out over the price.

https://www.theguardian.com/football...

Looks like they figured something out. Which, understandable. Dude is way too good for the Championship and Soton right now.

Also, looking at Jamaica and Nigeria's recent eliminations:

IMAGE(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F3AUrEhXsAEpJu2?format=png&name=900x900)

It's such a shame that these teams played with such passion and despite and showed up so well, but their FA's are full of such corrupt, feckless morons.

Corruption? From football boards? Surely not?

When I saw the early days of his career "Ross Barkley signs for Luton" is not where I expected it to end up.

Consensus seems to be that Barkley is talented and physically powerful and completely uncoachable tactically.

Signing for a team who are going to rely on him to just go out and do Ross Barkley things is probably going to be great for him.

Julien Lopetegui has left Wolves, who have appointed ex-Bournemouth manager Gary O’Neill in his place. Lopetegui apparently unhappy with a lack of investment in the team over the summer, however you can’t help thinking he should have seen that coming.

Edit: only just noticed that Pred posted this earlier. Oops.

bbk1980 wrote:
Dimmerswitch wrote:
bbk1980 wrote:
Sorbicol wrote:
bbk1980 wrote:

They really did scrape through. If a few people note interest here I will set up the goojer fpl tonight.

I’m in for this.

One more and I will get it set up. If it stays that way I can guarantee myself bronze at least.

I'm in, and will probably help you take silver.

Then here is the autojoin link for the league good luck one and all!

https://fantasy.premierleague.com/le...

Just pushing this up in case anyone else is interested in joining us before Friday nights kick off. If you haven't played FPL before it is really simple, when you get on the site and costs nothing.

I think Harry Maguire will end up being a very solid signing for West Ham, personally. They definitely seem his level.

I think I would like to see Mctominay go there too. From a Scotland point of view I don’t see him getting the game time he needs at Utd.

Prederick wrote:

I think Harry Maguire will end up being a very solid signing for West Ham, personally. They definitely seem his level.

So that level is flirting with relegation while winning random European cups?

.....................................................yes.

Mr Bismarck wrote:

That was a real let-off for England today and you have to think James' red is going to be upgraded from a one match ban because it was genuine foul play, not just a bad tackle.

I think James is lucky here - her one game ban was upgraded to two games.

I could have seen that being a three game ban instead.

Two games means if England do make it to the final, James would be eligible to play.

Predictions time? Predictions time.

Okay, I'm gonna go 20-1, mostly since the only interesting part is roughly 20-6

20 - Sheffield United. If they stay up, I will watch an entire Test Cricket match on purpose.

19 - Luton. I actually think it'll be one of those "heroic but doomed" campaigns where they beat 2 or 3 big clubs but are deffo going down.

18 - Wolves. Although I'm not confident, this could easily become an Everton 2.0 situation where they just scrape it.

17 - Burnley. 17th, but it won't be much in danger, I think.

16 - Nottingham Forest. They've got enough about them.

15 - Fulham. As long as we stay up.

14 - Everton. They can't be that shit for that long, right?

13 - Bournemouth.

12 - Brentford. Although I can imagine a world where, without Toney, they have huge problems. I might swap them and Fulham.

11 - Crystal Palace. Love Roy, but think this'll be one of those largely unremarkable seasons of mid-tablery.

10 - West Ham. But with another trip to European knockout rounds.

9 - Brighton. Also making a trip to the Europa League knockouts.

8 - Aston Villa. I know some people have them breaking into the Top 6, but I'm just not quite convinced yet.

7 - Tottenham. Although I don't think anyone can reasonably say where they're going to finish until we know whether or not Harry is staying or leaving.

6 - Newcastle. They'll be fine, but the adjustment to Europe will take a small toll.

5 - Liverpool. Would love to see them up and mixing it up, but I need Diaz and Nunez to prove it this year, and I think the midfield won't gel until December-ish.

4 - Arsenal. The fans will be outraged, but I think they regress this year. I think this year should be all about their CL performance.

3 - Chelsea. Personally predicting a huge bounce-back season from them, ad I think Poch has the goods. Although the Nkunku injury is big.

2 - Manchester United. Was actually tempted to give Chelsea #2, but I have a feeling they'll put together a surprisingly good campaign.

1 - Manchester City. We are firmly in "they're the favorites until someone beats them" territory for me. So barring major injuries to key players or Pep retiring mid-season, they're the favorites again.

Seems like Spurs and Bayern have agreed on Kane's transfer fee but Kane is hesitant to leave (rumour is that he has a better offer from somewhere if he stays put this year and leaves as a free agent).
One more year of winning (checking notes) zero trophies then.

slazev wrote:

Seems like Spurs and Bayern have agreed on Kane's transfer fee but Kane is hesitant to leave (rumour is that he has a better offer from somewhere if he stays put this year and leaves as a free agent).
One more year of winning (checking notes) zero trophies then.

Why would he leave just as Ange arrives?

Apparently Kane has agreed to terms.

Also Courtois out with ACL? Yikes. Big blow for Real

Streets is saying Caicedo to Liverpool. They get him and I'll have to seriously think about making them Top 4 finishers.

Hey, there's a World Cup game on at a decent time tonight. Oh wait, there's a Vikings preseason game that starts an hour later so local Fox affiliate is going to show that instead with a one hour pre-game show. Fuuuuuuuuuck yyou.

Edit: I forgot that there's an alternate channel for the local Fox affiliate. The games on there, at least. I didn't want to figure out Fox's streaming. As far as I know, this channel is only used for sitcom reruns and minor league baseball. Seems like it would have been much more appropriate for a Vikings preseason game.

Unfortunately, once the USWNT went out that was pretty much a guarantee.

It's on Fox Sports at least, so I can watch it online.

Mostly sad Danielle van der Donk is suspended. A fun name to hear people say.

Daphne van Domselaar made a number of good saves against South Africa and has just made another brilliant one against Spain, tipping a shot onto the post.

For a number of years people who wanted to criticise women's football would pick on the Goalkeeping - it's good to see so many really good performances at this World Cup so far.

Oooof, that's the kind of penalty that.... well, ooof.

What a shitty way to lose a game of football.

I know that fits the rule, but that might be the weakest penalty I've ever seen. A cross hits her right on the side of the penalty box in an area where the XG might be 0.01 and... penalty kick.

Prederick wrote:

Streets is saying Caicedo to Liverpool. They get him and I'll have to seriously think about making them Top 4 finishers. :P

The $€£ figure is... Wow. Not sure how much is related to performance and or complicated kickers but ya.

Makes me feel a tad better about the Rice price as apparently that's just the price or at least Arsenal helped set the market for Brighton.

Hahaha game on.

Great to be a 100% neutral in games like this.

Let's go Netherlands!

That's much better than having the game decided by that penalty.

How is Beerensteyn still sprinting full speed out there? A lot of players looking out on their feet and Beerensteyn still roasting people.

Mr Bismarck wrote:

I know that fits the rule, but that might be the weakest penalty I've ever seen. A cross hits her right on the side of the penalty box in an area where the XG might be 0.01 and... penalty kick.

Especially after they overturned the shove in the box a few minutes prior

Happy the Dutch equalized

The winning goal was a goal worthy of winning the game too, so it all worked out.