The Rolling Football Thread: Season 2025/26 - thread 3

[DuncinToffee]

Previous thread

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/sports/5429011-the-rolling-football-thread-season-202526-thread-2?page=40&reply=150096583

Ah fair enough.

IIRC Beckles was MOTM when he came on against us so as an outsider I'm surprised he's been frozen out unless they're lining up a transfer for him?

I didn't realise Simkin had been recalled - hope you get someone new soon!

(can i just say how much i love these footy threads. Because elsewhere i get a lot of "stfu you probably don't even know what offside is")

Interesting that now he can't benefit from the grift, Blatter is all for pulling the world cup from the US. Hmmmmmmmmm

For me, i was just about OK with it being in Russia - i didn't buy merch or contribute any money in any way to FIFA or whatever. Just watched on Free TV or my regular Sky channels. And my "reasoning" was that at least Russia has a well established football tradition.

Qatar? That is when i just stopped. I didn't watch, didn't participate in anything at all. And it will be the same for this one. I still watch the Women's world cup and internationals, but the minute they start down this grift route, it's off too.

Updated

DuncinToffee- Everton
MrsMitford3 - Arsenal
Tarkan- Arbroath, Rangers and West Ham
TheSleepingGiant - Tottenham and Gillingham
JasonTindallsTan - Newcastle
Cuwins - Brighton
Brightbluesomething - Newcastle
Scoobydobbydoo19- Bradford City
MustTryHarderAndHarder - Arsenal
Hellohah - Manchester United
Tiswa - QPR, Arsenal, Tottenham, Portsmouth, Liverpool
TheNewGaard - Arsenal
Brefugee - Borussia Mönchengladbach and Sheffield Wednesday
Fandango52 - Tottenham
LetsGoFlyAKiteee - Chelsea
Burblish - Liverpool
Itstheyearitstarts -Arsenal
Kirkbert2 - Huddersfield and soft spot for Leeds
ivyleafgeranium - Leyton Orient
TheBabyFatmoss - Crystal Palace

Thanks so much @DuncinToffee for putting this together!!

It's a great community-⚽❤

edited to add I have a nostalgic soft spot for Wycombe but luckily nostalgia based as hard to watch!!

Exciting in the champions league

although it does irritate me that at the moment if results stood now IMO Man City and Chelsea have a better draw than Arsenal and Liverpool!

Who would they all play?

At the moment (according to FotMob) Arsenal would be banded with Leverkusen/Dortmund/Juventus

Liverpool are in the same bracket as Barcelona

Whereas one of Man City or Real Madrid could face Club Brugge or Qarabag

Oooh, yes, I agree that seems slightly unfair to come top and end up with one of those 3.

would much rather City drop out of the top 12!

@Tiswa It's like when Liverpool topped the group stage last year and were rewarded with...PSG. 🙄

It is ridiculous- Newcastle could at the moment get Qarabag Spurs get Club Brugge and Liverpool or Man City get Barcelona

and even more unfair (and I do expect Barca to score actually to remove this issue) is that one of 3/4 would get Barca the other Napoli or Copenhagen

it should reward Arsenal frankly with an easier match than those - yes I think they would win it but they aren’t easy

Dear Gianni Infantino: remember your inappropriate and inaccurate quip about Brits being arrested at World Cups? You may have noticed that this week your countrymen have deliberately attacked English fans in Naples, including by stabbing. I suspect you're not going to mention anything about that though, are you. Fucker.

My heart rate after watching us against PSG is through the roof! Brilliant battling performance by our lads. We’ve found our passion and PSG were embarrassingly bad at times. Not looking forward to yet more qualifying matches though.
Also that Benfica keeper! Wow.

OMG, the end of the Benfica v Real Madrid match was unbelievable! Benfica's keeper scored a header in the last act of the match to put Benfica into the play off round on goal difference! (Plus the cherry on the cake is that Real Madrid had two players sent off in injury time for being dicks - ha!)

I wish Newcastle had also made in into the top eight, but well done Arsenal, Liverpool, Spurs, Chelsea and Man City!

And knocked Marseille out (who I have to say suffer in my mind due to Greenwood) so that was goo as well

and I love a goalkeeper goal

Yes, those brave Italians, bravely sneaking up behind people, and bravely stabbing them in the backside.

No wonder they have such a reputation for bravery...

SKYTVADDICT Lincoln City season ticket holder. Not for us it wasn't 😉. I very much enjoyed that game.

I think our chances of automatic are gone now so I hope you do it. I have a soft spot for Lincoln for obvious reasons. The tribute last night was class.

I feel like Lincoln are flying under the radar a bit because of Cardiff but they are ruthless and I wish that we (Huddersfield) didn't still have you to come to our place! 😂

Great battling against 12 man PSG (again) at the Parc de Princes by Newcastle. The ref was an absolute horror show giving PSG another spurious handball penalty against us which Nick Pope did bloody marvellously with and booking Elanga for a coming together that saw us awarded a free kick 🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️ amongst many other baffling decisions. So pleased for Joe Willock scoring tonight, he’s had a tough couple of years in and out the team and he seems like a decent kid so good for him. Dan Burn, well, there isn’t really the words for him, 6 weeks out with a punctured lung, first game back plays 94 minutes and drops a MOTM winning performance and gets an assist.

Shame that ultimately the point means nothing but I couldn’t be prouder of them after that display tonight. Typical of my utterly ridiculous football team to go toe to toe with the European champions in their own back yard after dropping a generational stinker against Villa at home just 3 days ago.

Also, other UCL thoughts, Benfica’s final goal from the keeper, absolute scenes, had visions of Jose doing his hamstring like Klopp did running to celebrate that. The fact that the first person he picked up to celebrate with was the ball boy made it even funnier 😂

The fact that they knocked out Marseille in doing so was even better. Mason Greenwood should be nowhere near a professional football pitch. Scumbag.

And I have to be honest, when I first saw the team Howe had selected I was aghast - or at least thought he wasn’t putting out a team to seriously go for this game (fair enough as we’d already made the play offs at a minimum) and after the first ten minutes I said to Mr JTT ‘this could be a cricket score here, they’re all over us and we haven’t a clue what we’re doing’ but boy did we turn it round and absolute props to that mad hotch potch selection of players for putting in that performance.

I love that we are united on this thread in our loathing of Mason Greenwood. I was RAGING when Liverpool played Marseille last week and the TNT commentators were creaming themselves every time the rapist had the ball. Fucking Ally McCoist even praised his "swagger" - WTAF?!

@JasonTindallsTan You can definitely be proud of your team tonight. Please don't play like that on Saturday, mmmkay, especially as we only have one centre-back... 😆

I was so disappointed at McCoist as I generally think he’s one of the good guys, but that is not it Ally.

oh don’t worry @burblish that type of battling away performance is reserved for the UCL only. You’d probs beat us with 8 men on the pitch at Anfield. It’s not, shall I say, our most fruitful hunting ground.

Good draw for Newcastle the blue side looks better than the silver

No more holy shinity for us as Grealish looks to be out for the season.