i see...

the thing though. if you can get 1 billion chinese interested in their own domestic league, it's a massive audience-- and in their own time zone

so... perhaps a long-term gamble

didn't know inter milan was chinese-owned! at last, someone to compete with the qatari petroprinces.

I can definitely see the Chinese government blocking tv coverage of foreign leagues to increase audiences for its own. If they can block google, they can certainly block the Prem.

I don't think it'll be long before most of the big teams in europe are either Chinese, Russian or Arab owned, which'll probably be when we see the 1st £1bn player.

after the brexit, more like 2bn :D

hey, 3 ties for 1st place at the prem and one is liverpool!

klopp! who knew?

and mkhitarian @ man u nothing or yes? damn greyhound should never have left dortmund

just googled and oh look

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/footba...taryan-9164293

damn you, prem :mad:

Mkhitarian is a real talking point: his agent says he's unfit; Mourinho agrees but insists there's nothing physically wrong with him, suggesting he's mentally unfit. Who knows? I do think Jose's lost it, though. He used to be able to rely on results as justification for his toxic personality and negative style of football but Man U are all over the place. Some of his recent statements make me think he's angling for the sack.

On the £1bn player thing, Real are now paying Bale £600,000 a week and his buy out clause is set at £900,000,000, so it can't be far off. If Messi was 5 years younger I'd say he'd be the 1st but it'll probably be someone who's yet to really emerge.

bayern hoffenheim ended 1-1 and it was a really fun game. it's great to see bayern NOT wiping the floor with the opposition. hoffenheim has been making a lot of progress lately and they remain undefeated for the season-- they're aiming for their first champions league adventure ever.

dortmund 5 hamburg 2! 4 goals by aubameyang. that was a spanking. hamburg last in the table.

Chelsea today. Honestly one of the best 90 minute performances ive ever seen in the Prem.

ah shit, they got conte!

no wonder

i have to start watching that team

also (just googled) sorry h8kurdt!

It's tempting to balance it by saying Everton were awful but they weren't. It was just one of those performances where everything clicks perfectly. You see that in bits of games a lot but hardly ever for the whole 90 minutes. Whether they can do it consistently is obviously the real test.

They really were. I'm not as mad as some as the fans on a forum I go on are, but it was a shocking performance by Everton.

Jagielka needs call it quits. God knows what's happened to Mirallas, and so on and so on. Either way, Chelsea were incredible and my pre-season predictions are slowly coming to light. Save for the one where I said Man Utd would finish third.

I honestly don't think any team would've stopped Hazard and Pedro yesterday. I can't stand Chelsea but credit where it's due. It reminded me of that Champions League final between Barcelona and Man U. United fans could (and did) pick holes in MU's performance but it was ultimately just a masterclass from Barcelona. I do agree about Jagielka though.

rb leipzig (rb is for red bull, ha ha) is the new dortmund. young, fast-attacking, high-scoring, and currently 2nd in the bundesliga. right now beating mainz 3-0 at halftime.

HEY IT'S TIME FOR HALFTIME PANCAKES

--

pancakes were great, and with a 3-1 victory bayern and leipzing share 1st place on the table (bayern ahead only by goal difference)

lazy sunday mornings are the best

Aren't RB Leipzig the team everyone's meant to hate for undermining the whole fan-ownership thing?

riiiiiiiight! they're satan himself!

they're fun to watch though

next year they'll probably be pilfered by bayern and chelsea and west ham etc

The way west ham are playing, RB are more likely to be poaching players off us than the other way around. Already looks like Payet will be off in January.

... although after Payet goes, im not sure anyone will want who's left.

i thought you had all that new tv money!

We can afford to buy loads of players but I don't see any decent ones coming within a mile of us while we're languishing around the bottom of the league. Add to that a new stadium which is a complete vacuum in terms of atmosphere and becoming a magnet for football hooligans (you're likely to see more police there than fans at the moment) and it's fair to say that, right now, we're an absolute disaster-zone of a club!

ah shit, lives of the nouveau rich!

wait wait... it's TOWIE all over again-- yes?

damn.

don't know what to say. i thought the olympic stadium would be a boon but you saw it right. hm...

sorry man. my condolences. everything changes though. you were languishing near the bottom just 3 or so years back yes? more or less? then you went up. so this slump can't be forever.

so they didn't make the tickets cheaper to fill up seats? or did they make them so cheap that even the hooligans can afford them and now the hooligans scare everyone else who could go?

you've been?

Haha, Towie, fuck yeah!



Where to start? The stadium is a disaster. It was never built for football. The way it's laid out and the security can't handle football fans. Plus it's in a location that makes it impossible to segregate rival supporters when they leave. The result? Fighting at almost every match there.

On the pitch we're crap, but crap in a way that I largely accept. We're traditionally a lower mid-table team. Some times it goes well and we creep into the top half; other times it goes bad and we get relegated, but standard for us is between 10th and 17th. I like to hope that we'll turn a corner and improve but it somehow wouldn't feel right if we did.

so mainly the stadium sucks and the rest is as usual.

can't they remodel/reroute?

and are there "safe" seats? you know... the ones where one can bring the family?

eta: i don't know if i'm attracted by that creature or repelled. i mean that ass looks well positioned, but will the pancake and silicone and botox collapse if i touch it? and the hair looks... very chemical and... missing in patches? i'm having confused feelings, like... "mmmmmmmm.. nope... mmm-mmmm... nope..."

!!