Aguero, Sterling, Halaand, Gvardiol were already well regarded as one of the best players in their positions when they moved to City. All were signed for big money except Aguero

KDB, Doku, Alavarez were gambles that worked out or at least appear to be working out very well.

Mostly because refs back then were totally cool with allowing teams to just kick them off the park

Pep was way ahead of the curve on this one.

I think this is one way managers such as Pep, Arteta & even Klopp partially have been ahead of the curve, by building squads where a single player can play multiple positions. This allows better coverage of injuries and better rotation. Still not sufficient but assuages the effect somewhat.

Manchester United have been too focussed on putting all the eggs into one basket with huge $$$ signings since Pogba and ETH is partially at fault, buying players like Mount who can just play in one position (which is already, more or less, taken by Fernandes) and average dosh like Anthony.

Both are really good players but imho, Alvarez is a little bit overrated because of how successful the teams he plays for (City, Argentina) have been lately. Good teams also seem to have no problems shutting him down. Nunez came into a transitional Liverpool team and has done fairly well. Sure he misses a lot of chances but he creates a lot of them himself and his ceiling is like 25+ goals/season if he improves his finishing which Alvarez is never getting to in goal contributions.

Both are really good players but imho, Alvarez is a little bit overrated because of how successful the teams he plays for (City, Argentina) have been lately. Good teams also seem to have no problems shutting him down. Nunez came into a transitional Liverpool team and has done fairly well. Sure he misses a lot of chances but he creates a lot of them himself and his ceiling is like 25+ goals/season if he improves his finishing which Alvarez is never getting to in goal contributions.

Pretty sick deal they managed to pull, capped at 140k/week which was probably the highest earning players salary 15 years ago but now the best players are on like 2.5x that amount.

Headline seems clickbait. They rejected a loan move that would involve them paying a part of his wages. Not sure why they would want to continue to pay his wages beyond January lol.

Refeering is like a decades of near minimum wage work at lower leagues before you get what barely classifies as a middle class income at top level. Even without the abuse, who would want to be a ref? No wonder there is a shortage of refs.

Stats should be put into context. United & Liverpool were average teams when Fergie & Klopp took over so Haag having a better winning record at the start is unremarkable.

But it also means that he’s done a better job than Mourinho, Moyes, Van Gaal, Ole so far. United fans should just calm down & give him time. It’s not like they have Guardiola waiting in the wings to take over.

Personally I feel like these days (Veterans Day as well) are just subtle war propaganda. They send hundreds of young poor kids to their deaths in places like Iraq & wave away their complicity with a day of pointless gestures. But you do you, I’d have no problems wearing it.

When it’s against you… I’m not talking about Pochettino

What a misleading title by OP, its not really an independent panel but just 5 people hired by EPL where there’s an obvious conflict of interest.

He turned down Saudi in the summer to stay at United. He even shopped himself around pretty much every CL club and was close to joining Chelsea until Tuchel said no. Saudi was never his first option. He went to Saudi because he isn’t good enough to play for a top club anymore.

People do it in retail because they have no other choice. It just creates a self fulfilling circle where anyone competent in retail leaves so you only have incompetent people in retail who trigger angry abuse from customers.

Keep in mind that referees basically start at minimum wage too, refing kids games and Sunday leagues where they still get abuse despite the fact that these games have literally no stakes attached.

I find it ridiculous how low (relatively speaking, compared to how much everyone else on the pitch and the manger make) they are paid. Apparently its something like 60k base + 2k/match. So they make like 100-120k/year. This is after years of officiating in lower leagues for less than half that salary.

If they are were paid something like 300-400k/year or even more, there would be no need for them to go to UAE and officiate games there. I also suspect it’d attract better referees - after all who wants to spend years referring for what like 30-40k in lower leagues and for a shot at 100-120k/year when they are will into middle age?

It’s not like the EPL can’t afford it. Just increase their salaries and ban them from moonlighting and you remove this conflict of interest.

Because he’s not that bad lol. If you want to see bad, watch Mustafi play.

Usually both players are holding each other. However in this case, it was clearly only Hojlund holding Rodri. Still surprised to see this call as they’re never called, either by ref or VAR.

There’s a shortage of genuine world class goalscorers who can play centrally. Arsenal, Liverpool and even City pre Halaand worked around it by distributing the goals through the team. Chelsea have just punted on one mid striker after another. Jackson seems the latest in a long line of average strikers stretching back to Morata.

People overestimate the impact of diet and lifestyle and underestimate genetics & just plain luck when it comes to injuries. Some people just have extremely resilient bodies and some people people bodies just can’t take the stress.

As a software engineer, I’ve seen people who take frequent breaks, maintain good posture, do yoga etc struggle with RSI and others can sit on a chair for 12 hours with almost no breaks and be completely fine.