Other midweek games May 18th

[Nineteenx]

It has been a culmination of plenty and you're not wrong saying Klopp is part of that too. It started with not signing a midfielder after Tchoameni turned us doen but that was due to him knowing his financial constraints.

I know I'm not wrong, he only dropped the Thiago and Elliott thing that pertinently didn't work at any point or look like working for us as too many of our other important players weren't seeing enough of the ball or getting involved in making the play as they always have or getting the ball in the positions they have always created from after TWENTY games TWENTY

He was also at fault for the injuries we suffered, it was his absolute insistence on the 'Proper pre-season' he always goes on about, in what was a much shorter break between the previous season and this one, squeezing far too many games in when the players actually needed a 'Proper rest' in that limited downtime that was the cause of a few of the injuries, practically all other clubs played a reduced pre-season because of the shorter break, Jurgen insisted on HIS pre-season on top of FSG's territory expanding games, meaning we played MORE

There were other mids we were looking at, one of our long term issues is Jurgen's persistence was Fab, because he's not a proper mid, he can only play the one role in midfield, it makes it difficult for us to sign other actual No6's like Enzo Fernandez for 9m for example, who are proper midfielders who can also play as a No8, that's been a hugely restricting factor for ages, plus he has elected to keep sick notes Oxlade and Keita and hand both lucrative new contracts to keep them at the club far long than they should have been too, again Jurgen's decision, that's not on FSG, he's given lucrative new contracts to players who continually left us 2 senior mids short, they're not going to sign 2 more while they're on the books and then there's his insistence Elliott is a top top player and fucking up Mo and Trent persisting with starting him, with Hendo available

[miller0863]

Wowzers.
98th minute Sheffield Wednesday goal takes the League One play off tie into extra time, with Peterborough having won the first leg 4-0

[Insidious]

Financially doped and utterly fucked sport. Unfortunately we'll have to get even more used to this.

Net spend of £254.8million since October '21 for Newcastle I think.

"This is fine" - someone, somewhere, presumably.

[Nineteenx]

Rather than the shattered way our squad crawled over the line at the end of last season

They almost all played less games than most Championship players have to play every season, a great many of them playing 46 or more games a season, IF that were the case, with the shorter break, Jurgen's insistence on 'a proper pre-season' was a fuck up as I called it out as being ridiculous at the time and have continued to - Konate picked up an injury in the meaningless fucking friendly he arranged v Strasbourg in the midweek between the Community Shield and our opening game v Fulham, fucking madness

Edit: And we hardly looked shattered absolutely dominating Real in the Champions League final only for our lads to spurn glorious chances, Courtois to make a few top top saves and Real's offiside goal, their first attempt of their 2 efforts on target all game, being allowed to stand

[Nineteenx]

It's not all his fault, there are a lot of staff who should have had a word, I think at times he's surrounded by too many yes men, the thing about a bubble like Jurgen, his staff and our players live in, their status quo, especially when things have been going so well, if everyone starts believing their own hype and rather than objectively looking what other causes of our issues might be, including the chosen evolutionary path, blindly plodding on along the same path they have decided is the best evolutionary idea ever

If I can find frankly alarming and damning stats that show our most important contributors to making the play over several seasons aren't seeing enough of the ball and recognise from patterns in and extracts of our play that even when they do get it, they are not getting it in the positions they need to, and that others, such as Nunez aren't being coached to make the right movements either and even the lame as fuck pundits on all sports broadcasters can see the issue on our right Jurgen caused and highlight it with detailed analysis on every channel, then the people taking millions as staff on our wage bill sure as fucking shit need to

Complacency, laziness and believing their own hype was absolutely rife in our backroom staff, absolutely rife, right the way through it including scouting and recruitment, there needs to be a fail safe somewhere to stop that happening again

After the 3-0 loss to Brighton, who we've seen can do that to even the best teams on any given day, and given ANOTHER formation change as well as throwing players back in he hadn't been playing expecting things to work like magic, like it's fantasy football, Jurgen's knee jerk reaction, together with all his staff as it seems obvious none spoke up, was that it must be Fabinho's and Hendo's fault his planned evolution with Thiago as a designated playmaker wasn't working, so he binned them off and instead played a rookie CB in midfield and Keita with Thiago and subsequently drew 1 and lost one (3-0 to then bottom side Wolves) in our next 2 league games before Thiago again cried off with injury

Let's all be honest, he has had a disaster, he needs people in his staff who will tell him when things are a shit idea or maybe to stop some of his staff influencing him

[Nineteenx]

Full time scores

Premier League

Newcastle 4-1 Brighton

Europe League Semis

Sevilla (3)2-1(2) Juventus

Leverkusen (0)0-0(1) Roma

Europa Conference League

AZ Alkmaar (1) 0-1 (3) West Ham

Basel (3) 1-3 (4) Fiorentina

So Roma v Sevilla in the Europa League final

West Aaaaaaaam v Fiorentina in the Europa Conference League final

[Insidious]

Will never happen, but it would be absolutely hilarious if Italian clubs had a clean sweep of the Champion's League, Europa League and Europa Conference League this season.

Inter, Roma, Fiorentina.

[Nineteenx]

Will never happen, but it would be absolutely hilarious if Italian clubs had a clean sweep of the Champion's League, Europa League and Europa Conference League this season.

Inter, Roma, Fiorentina.

It certainly would, Id like West Ham to win their final though, but absolutely want Inter and Roma to win theirs

Hmmm the massive underdog winning a Champions League final against all odds in Istanbul, I've seen this somewhere before........

[southernboy]

Well, I know where I’ll be spending my Thursday nights next season

I absolutely hate the Europa league, but it’s what we deserve, and it’s a lot more than we thought we were going to get a few weeks ago.

I really hope that our recent resurgence of form, doesn’t fool FSG into thinking that everything is okay in the squad.

[teesred]

Well, I know where I’ll be spending my Thursday nights next season

I absolutely hate the Europa league, but it’s what we deserve, and it’s a lot more than we thought we were going to get a few weeks ago.

I really hope that our recent resurgence of form, doesn’t fool FSG into thinking that everything is okay in the squad.

Couldn't agree more with all of that.
The Europa Thursday/Sunday schedule is shit and always seems to have a worse effect that Wednesday/ Saturday.
The last part is what concerns me most. I think we are going to be disappointed this summer,I hope I'm wrong but I don't feel confident at all.
Four players are leaving, two top class legends/servants and two absolute salary thieves. We won't bring four in to replace them though and there's the issue of the defence needing additions. Looks like Adrian will be staying too as he wasn't announced with the departures.