Football 2024-25. Pep’s last season?

Top of the league!*

Mrs Binners is a fiver down and not happy! :D

* for the only time this season

The Harry Maguire dive was the moment of the match.

No real unexpected results yesterday. Ipswich looked good against Liverpool, first half. Arsenal looked good again too. Saka had an amazing game.

It’s going to be interesting to see what squad Chelsea put out later, given the 7 million players they have available. A nice easy game for the new players to bed in

Chelsea squad returns to their 1st training session….?? pic.twitter.com/KZGeujVfxN

— Andy-Lena67 ???? (@Barney_Boy67) August 12, 2024

Chelsea must be one of biggest employers in London now.

Im on hols in Italy so swapped League One Huddersfield with my sons for some Serie A opener action between Hellas Verona and Napoli. Football was average but the atmosphere was epic due to a combination of enthusiasm and the stadium roof. Verona won 3-0 which puts them top! Plenty pyro, and beer on the terraces.

Ace evening and takes me right back to Sunday afternoons on Channel 4 – https://youtu.be/HXI-u37RAW0?feature=shared

It’s great to have Jamie Vardy back in the Premier League! :D

Vardy reminding Spurs fans of how many Premier League titles they’ve won pic.twitter.com/BRH4MJm2GL

— AFCAMDEN (@AFCAMDEN) August 19, 2024

Not much going on in the world of football or ex-footballers except the rather surprising return of Ilkay Gündoğan back to City.

Apparently Chelsea have signed Jermaine Jenas

Not much going on in the world of football or ex-footballers except the rather surprising return of Ilkay Gündoğan back to City.

He’s been an amazing player since his early days at Nuremberg, then Dortmund. He was one of the few good things at Barca last season. He’d be a great addition to any team.

Happy to have Gündoğan  back at city, top class intelligent player, a future manager as well IMO, well after we win another treble with Vinnie first.

Oh good, Gündoğan back at City. Just what they really needed for tomorrow.

The away end experience tomorrow hopefully can’t be any worse than the last time I was in Manchester to watch Town.

Oh good, Gündoğan back at City. Just what they really needed for tomorrow.

The away end experience tomorrow hopefully can’t be any worse than the last time I was in Manchester to watch Town.

The record breaking defeat? I’m hoping we don’t end the season with a new record for lowest Premier League points.

Showed enough against Liverpool to show you can compete – sure there will be a few drubbings given quite an attacking style. It took Burnley too long last season to become a bit more pragmatic, McKenna seems pretty switched on.

Recommended viewing: the Amazon documentary on Sven. He’s quite an amazing human being and seems almost bizarrely stoic in the face of his terminal cancer diagnosis. An amazing life.

Also responsible for one of the best chants ever when Shiniwatra was going to get rid of him…

We don’t need no Phil Scolari

We Don’t need no Mourhino

Oi! Taksin! Leave our Sven alone!

Has some rather Fonze-like characteristics in more ways than one.

@Jolsa – I have a running joke/tradition with one of my Citeh supporting mates of betting on a 5-0 result whenever one of the newly promoted sides or those at the bottom of the table travel to the blue side of Manchester. It’s paid out quite a few times, particularly with Burnley.

I just had a look and the odds on that scoreline are 12/1. I hope it isn’t, as that’ll be a long journey home for you. You looked good in the first half against Liverpool

Anyway… we’ve got the early kick off to get our traditional loss to Brighton out of the way early in the season.

Arsenal Villa should be a cracking match later 

I too hope we don’t get slaughtered today but equally everyone has to play everyone and I view last week and this week as getting tow of the harder games out of the way early. It might be nice to have had a couple of games where we stood a chance of a result as a bit of a confidence booster but listening to the team talk they’re fairly pragmatic and I like to think McKenna will take those on the chin and learn from them anyway

I view last week and this week as getting tow of the harder games out of the way early

That was my view – if we go into the third game with even 1 point that would have been a huge bonus.

Struggling to convince myself there are three clubs who look likely to finish below us, but Everton might be one of them.

Fabulous result from Brighton today ! :D

I had them down for a 1:1 draw, so glad to be proven wrong in the 95th minute, presumably mrs binnners made some money ;)

Yes!

No!

Bugger!

Double bugger!

Poor old Ipswich

It’s the hope that kills you

Looks like City might be about to take another record from United….

I won £6 with my £1 stake for Ipswich to score first so it’s not a complete loss

Depressingly normal service has been resumed, tonked by Deadpool.

Depressingly normal service has been resumed, tonked by Deadpool

Had to sell my ticket as mrs S has brought me into Liverpool for my birthday. Very happy with 7 points out of 9, especially with Mullin out through injury for all 3 games. Hopefully he’ll be back before Birmingham away.

edit – Mullin came on after 74 minutes

What’s going on with Arsenal kit? Are they sponsored by Lynx Africa this season?

Good start for the Albion, 2 away wins and a point at home against Leeds last week.

4-1 away to Man City no embarrassment. We got our (brief) party in the away end scoring the first!

I’d moan about not being given the pen, but all too typical and unsurprising.

Need a few of our signings to settle in, and I think we have a good chance of survival.

Got to work VAR out a bit, Man City got a pretty soft penalty there, Savinho was down before the tip of the guys foot touched him and VAR were referring the ref, then up the other end the Man City player clatters the Ipswich player and it’s not brought back for VAR, nothing against City, they look like they’re starting up again, Haaland is on fire and they could still bring in other decent players to have an even better squad!

Yep, 4-1, not too disappointed with that, think I’m still in “happy to be here” mood. If that carriers on like that all season it might be a bit depressing but I’m hoping there’s some points in there somewhere

Not sure how much Ipswich paid for Music but when we had him at Forest it wasn’t a great loan, came with suitable pedigree from City though so expected a bit better for a champ team back then, was young though.

Def have one eye on Ipswich as I think Forest will have another season flirting with renovation, you’ve kept a good rep rather than take the our approach first year up akin to a kid in a sweetshop on the first day of school, we did need those players though, we’d not have stayed up without those signings. It’s such a step up though, and ever widening.

Think Southampton will be down there if they continue the possession experiment, they’ll just get held at arms length and picked apart at the higher level.

We need a striker, looking like Nketiah currently, think he’d link up well with some of our forward players, just hoping we have no further outgoings, although expect it’s Morillo’s last season before bigger things/Chelsea.

No sign of MerescaBall being dull so far.  Looks to me like Chelsea are going to have to score a bundle because the defence is so leaky.

Brentford’s away kit is a bit…… different ?

We’ve got the first ludicrous VAR decision of the season with the disallowed Bournemouth goal. Bonkers!

Carragher described the first Liverpool goal as being Klopp like. Might make a good opening intro which Arne Slot might appreciate in the after match interview.

why? Clearly went in off his arm, which is defined in the laws as the bit below the armpit. Put an elastic band or your hand around your arm and move it up to the bottom of your armpit, that’ll show you.

The mistake you are making is listening to pundits who don’t know WTF the laws are of the game they’re being paid large sums to comment about. Again. If you went with their ‘below a sleeve’ definition then you’d have a case, but it’s only in their heads where that is a law. Unless in their head everyone is wearing cap sleeved shirts.

https://www.thefa.com/football-rules-governance/lawsandrules/laws/football-11-11/law-12—fouls-and-misconduct

It is an offence if a player:

scores in the opponents’ goal:

directly from their hand/arm, even if accidental, including by the goalkeeper

immediately after the ball has touched their hand/arm, even if accidental

By that definition, it isn’t even interpretation. It hit his arm and went in the goal, so was disallowed – simple as.

Looked harsh, and the commentators were on about it being harsh, but the thing i think that made it more of a handball was the fact he had his arm around the defender, so if it hadn’t hit his arm, he wouldn’t have got it, if it had been one of the mistimed headers that hits him like that, you’d be thinking it should stand, but having his arm over the defender gave him an unfair advantage to get the ball with a part of his body he’s not allowed to use.

The ref gave it and no players complained about a potential handball. I thought this season the idea was to keep VAR out of it as much as possible and go with the onfield decision?

They didn’t get VAR involved when Jolinton then clotheslined the keeper which was as clear a straight red as you’ll ever see

VAR reviewed and decided it was not violent conduct. I think it looked worse than it was, a classic ‘seatbelt’ tackle from the other game, but if Schar was sent off last week I’m amazed that wasn’t as well.

The handball was a factual decision, not opinion, hence what the ref and other players thought is of no consequence.

Did it touch his arm below the armpit?

Did it go into the goal, or lead immediately to a goal?

Simple as.