The January Football Thread

[Ian]

It's January, and along with the never-ending avalanche of football which is going to smother us all (there's a Premier League game on every day until Friday, when we then launch into the FA Cup. It never stops.) there will also be a torrent of transfer rumours because as the window swings open, Fabrizio Romano emerges from his burrow and prepares himself to utter his terrible catchphrase.

I was looking at a list of worst January transfers (it had the usual suspects, Alexis Sanchez, Torres/Carroll, etc.) and spotted a picture of this fresh-faced young go-getter:


So yeah, happy new year, lads.

[The Merse]

Boro had some corkers in the days of batshit local paper welcome photos https://twitter.com/football_ldn/sta...Ww0cqi_8BEcXeQ

[Waffdon]

The league must be absolutely dreadful this year for Spurs to be in 5th place. Absolutely dogshit

[Gray Fox]

Liverpool have had either their joint, or outright worst PL era start ever and yet are still right on top of them. Everyone else is bickering amongst themselves while Arsenal lol away down the road.

[Waffdon]

Presume Villa go 2-0 up here and throw away their lead like every other Spurs game.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Spurs are rancid. We should pass them before the end.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

That pass from McGinn

Lovely finish too.

[Gray Fox]

That was well worked.

[Waffdon]

What a touch and finish that is.

Will be a travesty when Harry Kane breaks the PL scoring record winning nothing in his career

[Jimmy Floyd]

Unai Emery is such a likeable manager. Hope he does well there.

[Gray Fox]

What a touch and finish that is.

Will be a travesty when Harry Kane breaks the PL scoring record winning nothing in his career

Dont you dare disregard the Audi Cup like that.

[Waffdon]

Just clocked the first goal. Of course it comes from a Lloris mistake. How he hasn’t dropped yet I don’t know

[niko_cee]

Presume Villa go 2-0 up here and throw away their lead like every other Spurs game.

This is your answer to your earlier question about how Spurs are where they are in the table, they've burgled the points to take them from 10th to wherever they are through a series of inexplicable comebacks.

Not entirely dissimilar to their North London neighbours whose run of deflected/miskicked/goalkeeper fuck-up 'assists' must surely run out at some point.

I think the fact that in normal times we'd be coming up to Christmas in the league has distorted a lot of perspective. So much time to go and the real grind usually only starts towards the end of February.

[Ben]

Gerrard was/is shocking, isn’t he?

[Waffdon]

This is your answer to your earlier question about how Spurs are where they are in the table, they've burgled the points to take them from 10th to wherever they are through a series of inexplicable comebacks.

Not entirely dissimilar to their North London neighbours whose run of deflected/miskicked/goalkeeper fuck-up 'assists' must surely run out at some point.

I think the fact that in normal times we'd be coming up to Christmas in the league has distorted a lot of perspective. So much time to go and the real grind usually only starts towards the end of February.

Yeah, Spurs could/should have lost 5 in a row. Lost today and against Liverpool whilst also being 2-0 down to both Brentford and Bournemouth in the 2nd half. Also were behind 3 times in the Leeds game before winning 4-3

[Waffdon]

Jorginho as the lone midfielder to any team with pace

I don’t know why managers keep letting it happen. They’re just so open any time they lose the ball on the turnover

[Jimmy Floyd]

That goal was like something from a women's game in the 1980s. Bizarre.

[Spikey M]

Chelsea and Spurs should do a manager swap. They both have managers determined to play football that relies on their weakest areas.

[Jimmy Floyd]

A good amount of seethe going on here about not much. Any fanbase outside London and Manchester basically exists on a seethe footing nowadays.

[Waffdon]

Koulibaly really isn’t suited to this league whatsoever. He looks so scared.

[Waffdon]

I do feel bad for Potter for having to try and pick a winning team within this Chelsea squad that won’t make your eyes bleed. All their good players are injury prone and the rest are the most ‘safe’ players imaginable. Eye bleeding stuff, they look so easy to play against on the break. Forrest should get something out of this.

Potter will probably bring Aubameyang and Ziyech on rather than someone younger to make it an even worse spectacle.

[Jimmy Floyd]

There was a foul in there on Pulisic, shouldn't have counted.

[Waffdon]

Haaland might break a record against this Chelsea side in a few days

[Lewis]

I didn't realise David Moyes' West Ham were right down in the shit. What has happened there?

[Waffdon]

Gallagher, Aubameyang and Ziyech triple sub. Forrest must be shitting themselves.

[Giggles]

Haaland might break a record against this Chelsea side in a few days

If you go too hard on the jinx it doesn’t work.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Imagine making a double sub where both incoming players have their socks above their knees.

[Waffdon]

Not really. I’ll be genuinely surprised if he doesn’t score a minimum of 2 down to his physicality alone

[Jimmy Floyd]

The Irish forward, Limerick O'Bammion (as Carragher would have it), is rubbish.

[Giggles]

The Irish forward, Limerick O'Bammion (as Carragher would have it), is rubbish.

If it was some Ghanaian you’d have every ug and bug down to a tee. Be better.

[Lewis]

If it was some Ghanaian you’d have every ug and bug down to a tee. Be better.

[Jimmy Floyd]

You're white so you can't be a race victim I'm afraid, that's just how these things work.

[Waffdon]

Conor Gallagher is Chernobyl of footballers. He’s playing in the top league with no technical ability whatsoever. Gets by on running.

[Giggles]

You're white so you can't be a race victim I'm afraid, that's just how these things work.

Even if that were true (it isn’t), it doesn’t make you any better.

[Waffdon]

Chelsea with and without record with Reece James must be pretty special.

4 wins and a draw with James under Potter. 4 wins, 3 draws and 5 losses without (2 of the wins were in CL)

[Jimmy Floyd]

Such a stupid performance by us, and similar to others this season having gone ahead in that we Southgate it and allow the opposition to dictate the tempo. Carragher (despite his pronunication of Aubameyang) is right to say that this is the softest Chelsea team for a long time, you can't have people like Jorginho and Koulibaly playing in England, these guys are slow-tempo footballers who don't like it when the pace picks up.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Chelsea with and without record with Reece James must be pretty special.

They read it out the other day but the striking thing was that the Chilwell difference was even starker. Chilwell was 82% wins with him to 36% without him or something.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

You're white so you can't be a race victim I'm afraid, that's just how these things work.

He's so precious about Bottom Ireland too.

Quite funny considering the disdain he has for pretty much every other nationality, especially ethnics.

[Waffdon]

They read it out the other day but the striking thing was that the Chilwell difference was even starker. Chilwell was 82% wins with him to 36% without him or something.

Stupid from the Yanks to allow Tuchel another transfer windows. He’s absolutely useless at building a team. They’ve spent so much and will have to spend a hell of a lot more - no manager in the world is getting anything special out of the current team. Ziyech, Aubameyang, Jorginho, Koulibaly, Azpilicueta and probably Pulisic all need to be let go and replaced just off the top of my head.

[Jimmy Floyd]

I don't know why they spaffed so much money on these Koulibaly and Aubameyang contracts. Felt like an approach brought in directly from American sport where there's a limited pool of experienced top players so to win you need to compete and pay well for their services. In football there's a massive global player pool and there are a lot of people you can turn into decent players so why spend so much money on those two.

[phonics]

Nothing better than opening up the old Twitter app and seeing Conte is yet again crying.

[Don]

I didn't realise David Moyes' West Ham were right down in the shit. What has happened there?

His fate was sealed the minute Paqueta was signed, what a move that was for both parties.

[Waffdon]

PSG started with 4 central mids in a diamond against Lens and the latter have absolutely bullied them so far in their midfield 2.

[Davgooner]

Unai.

[Gray Fox]

PSG started with 4 central mids in a diamond against Lens and the latter have absolutely bullied them so far in their midfield 2.

The lad who scored for them is the one they took just before Newcastle got him, no?

[Waffdon]

Aye.

[Gray Fox]

Second half of this Glasgow derby has started with a bang.

[Ben]

Trash quality as always but there’s the usual needle so all good fun.

[Kikó]

It's been better quality than I've seen recent times. It's one of the few fixtures that hasn't changed in my lifetime in terms of style of play and atmosphere.

[Gray Fox]

First half was barely League 2 quality. Neither side could string 5 passes together. Much better since the break.