The Rolling Football Thread: Season 2025/26

[DuncinToffee]

"Football is a game of mistakes. Whoever makes the fewest mistakes wins."

I like Eddie Howe, but I’d also like to take Isak off your hands… 😉

I do wonder if he’s actually somebody we want though, excellent footballer but throwing an epic tantrum too, who’s to say he won’t do it again if he doesn’t get his own way…

Virgil Van Dijk did didn’t he - and it took until January to make the move but in the meantime he did play for Southampton

Taking Liverpool out (becuase I am fairly certain there would be a complaint if they had crossed the line) the closest I can think of is Berbatov (and there was a complaint)

this is doing no one any good at all and he certainly is going to be reintegrated for the first 2-3 matches

I don’t dislike Eddie Howe as an ex Cherry but he must take some blame alongside Isak and the owners

Sadly I think he would do it again if Real Madrid or Barca came knocking in a couple of years. There was no inkling until this point that he wasn’t happy at the club and no one expected this of him. He will always have question marks over his attitude now.

I think Eddie has been put in a very difficult situation and has had to balance throwing Isak under the bus against the interests of the club. He tried to protect him initially saying he had sent him home from the Celtic preseason game and that he hadn’t travelled due to a thigh strain but then Isak disappeared off to Spain to train and it became clear he wasn’t going to collaborate in the facade of everything is ok here, we’ll deal with the situation professionally.

I think Eddie may well have got some things wrong. But I don’t envy the situation he has been placed in.

Ah. We've goaded and baited you by having the temerity to disagree with you.

I see.

Whereas you posting your laughing emojis at reasonable comments isn't at all goady.

Fair enough...

We need a RW/RB so I will leave you all fighting for Isak

He is not in my FPL either.

If anyone has him in FPL they are mad!

I don't reallly follow transfers so making my FPL team was interesting. 'he plays for them now' was muttered a lot

I was also thinking about who may or may not be playing for Chelsea. I've decided to leave out any Chelsea players until I see who is actually going to start the season.

Still haven’t done mine! Have to reset password and haven’t got round to ir

the new defenders rules as well don’t help as it means you need defenders who have the ball but don’t concede

This is just so, so lovely ❤️ Chelsea's players have agreed with the club to give an equal portion of the club’s $15.5m Club World Cup bonus fund (around $500k per player) to Jota and André's family, even though neither ever played for Chelsea.

But I don't understand this. Surely their families are already extremely wealthy?

That's what I was thinking! I'm sure they've received several million from the estates.

I mean I'm very sorry for what happened to them, but I don't think money was their problem.

It's not about the money. It's a way of letting the families know that they care and a gesture of solidarity with them. Pedro Neto was very close to Diogo Jota and dedicated the CWC to Diogo and André. He said beforehand that he wanted to win it for Jota: "I just want to leave a message that this final is for him and his brother." That's why the Chelsea players agreed to count the brothers among the players amongst whom the winning bonus was to be divided. It's an unexpected and lovely gesture of respect and honouring them.

I think fair play to the Chelsea squad, it’s a decent thing to do that they didn’t have to.

Just read this article. Really good write up and gives quite an insight into training etc. As someone who plays football and can barely take in the simplest instruction from my coach without it being broken down and repeated several times I’m in awe 😂

https://archive.ph/BkF9h

I think it does maybe highlight an issue though because with the very special club and very special team it seems to possibly say he should be grateful to play for them.

and IMO there are no clubs that are anymore or less special than any others - some like Newcastle/Leeds/Leicester are one club cities and that can give a different feeling in some respects than others and they do have a stadium with a amazing atmosphere and great fan base but that doesn’t make it anymore special than any other club

and taking sentimentally out of it football(ers) can be mercenary with the desire to win trophies and play as high up in your career as you can even homegrown players like TAA and Mbappe move on to do so.

and added to that some like Luis Diaz strive to get the most money they can whilst doing so - the need to outrun humble and poor beginnings but maximising earning potential whilst they can. It is the ethos at the heart of the Saudi league

and you can see from his perspective he has probably reached the limit of what he can achieve at Newcastle in terms of winning a trophy and his wages and wants to move on because he isn’t a sentimental man and for him it is his career and his job.

If he does move now to Liverpool will in 2-4 years he want to move on to either RM or Barca or to the Saudi League (if they will have him) yes possibly and so what

because at the start of the last season you could see Salah and Van Dijk staying and TAA leaving because the only thing I think that does keep them is family - children settled within the school system for whom a move abroad would be tricky and even then there are workarounds (Colleen Rooney highlights this a lot with both the move to Washington and how it worked with Plymouth).

Though Isak had handled this incredibly badly (and hasn’t handed in a transfer request though can you?) Newcastle need to let him go if a reasonable fee agreement can be reached as destroying his career by keeping him on the bench isn’t a good look

🤷🏼‍♀️ I think every club is special to its fans. Some players will buy into that, some won’t, and that’s ok.

But yeah, hand in the transfer request if you’re that determined to leave.

Yes of course to it’s fans but I think it is easy sometimes to get caught up in the fact that transfers to players. I mean most talk the talk when they arrive but it is for the most part platitudes designed to win over fans because it is a job.

and I think in this situation emotions have run far too much and that has been forgotten.

and it works both ways footballers are at in reality to clubs trade able commodities (how many deals do we see of homegrown players to satisfy FFP)

i think players need to be very careful when they are a new signing to a club and not make grandiose statements about how they love it etc, unless they are very very clear how that comes across to the fans. Especially how it comes across when they leave.

We had a young lad at Gladbach, came up through the youth squad, got given a chance in the main squad, did well (a champions league season so he really got given a fantastic opportunity) and swore up and down that he was one of us etc.

And then, big rivals, Dortmund snapped him up. And when he was roundly and soundly criticised (some of it far too far over the line, to be fair) and booed and whistled when they came to play us it was all "wah wah you're all so mean to me" and "be kind he's only young". But - meh. He KNEW how the ultras would react. Better to take the opportunities you get, play well, make neutral banal statements, then when you go off to a rival - you may not get the awful treatment. (again, some of the abuse went too far, but most of the complaints from the Gladbach and Dortmund higher ups was about booing him in the stadium)

I think there’s ways and means isn’t there. Everyone knows football is a business and even if a player ‘loves’ a club, if they get a better career opportunity it is understandable that they wish to take it. But going on strike, refusing to train or play matches and generally acting like a giant (multimillionaire) man baby to force it through at the detriment of the club that you’re contracted to who pay your not insignificant wages, ain’t it.

No it isn’t but at the same time Isak behaviour can’t stand in isolation the club haven’t handled it the best either - the fact clubs were after him this summer can’t have come as a shock so they should have been prepared
G
I can’t see reintegration happening or being the best move for player or club so it is how to extract now with the least future impact because IMO this will put players off

and I know he has a contract but the ECJ isn’t ever going to hold that means a player can’t leave IF a fair market value bid comes in and as I said FIFPRO are just dying to have a test case on this.

so in reality it comes down to what a fair market price is - and that is where it gets contentious again. And his fitness I think knocks 10/20 off for me, the handling another 10 so 130 for me would be fair but others want more!

I come back to ‘put in a transfer request then’.

https://www.stevenmather.co.uk/litigation-solicitor-blog/39525/alexander-isak-transfer-saga-an-analysis-of-the-potential-sports-law-issues/amp/

really nicely sums it up - as someone who works in the fringes of law (and did I degree) it is fascinating how this could go although I can see how horribly stressful it is to be involved

love big Dunc ❤️