Cornish Steve

A Beto blocker or a Romey blocker?

Those gummies paid off, Bill.

Everton 2-1 Wolves Danjuma

Week 2 is best forgotten, despite dunlop's 10-pointer. Onward and upward.

I'd repeat my earlier comment. If we secure this guy, it will have been an excellent transfer window. Any chance we can still show Maupay, Gbamin, and Gomes to the exit?

We have DC-L, Chermiti, Danjuma, Maupay, Dobbin, and Cannon. Would you include McNeil and Harrison? I'm guessing we'll end up with one more.

You started it about a week ago by joking about potential new players with funny names.

These awful puns are a severe pain.

Bill - have you ever considered these?

Personally, I would say this is good business given the circumstances.

Allowing Saudi Arabia to buy their way into the Premier League and to set up their own league is, in my opinion, a big mistake. Surely, with this kind of thing going on, we should be banning their involvement. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-66545787

Here in Georgia, not even the governor has the power to pardon someone. Only the parole board has that authority.

Villa 1-1 Everton Maupay

A 10-pointer in the first round, although definitely not wanted! Congrats anyway to Boston Toffee for taking an earlier lead.

After all the caution, it would be foolhardy to ask too much of him at this stage. The safe and consistent option is to play Maupay, but it's just not working for him right now. Why not give Chermiti the chance to shine and pull DC-L on after an hour?

Clearly he's not willing to compromise on the huge wages he's on.

This is excellent news. Drag them along until the window deadline, so they fail to focus on other targets, and then declare that Onana's not for sale. There's a silver lining to everything.

Come off it, Bill. If you want to talk about Beto, get over to the Gnonto thread.

Lonergan then.

My MOTM is Dobbin. He never put a foot wrong. And I'm hoping to make a serious point. In order to have an impact on the game, players must take risks. Yes, Iwobi was sometimes caught in possession and sometimes made wayward passes, but he was also voted MOTM by most people. Dobbin never put a foot wrong because he had no influence (and didn't even play). We should be looking at overall impact and not counting mistakes.

I'd really like to know just how much money was riding on United not winning last night. Did the betting companies profit from the referees' decision? By tracking profit/loss associated with controversial decisions, it should be relatively straightforward to determine whether or not there's a correlation.

I do: He failed to score.

Yesterday's decision against Wolves was so blatant. I fail to see how such obvious manipulation is anything other than corrupt. One official might be hopelessly incompetent, but not a team of three with video evidence right before their eyes.

While nothing has been proved, there's so much smoke around that there might well be fire. Yesterday's decision not to give Wolves a penalty, even after a VAR review, smacks of corruption. Do we honestly think betting companies are major sponsors without being tempted to influence games, usually through officials? Then there's all the jiggery-pokery surrounding the big clubs who inflate their revenue through marketing deals involving owners' family or other such shady means (that no major business corporation would ever allow). Will Saudi owners of Newcastle use the ultra-wealthy Saudi league to give their English team an advantage? I'd feel a lot better about all this if an independent commission - a real one and not a powerless placatory committee - looked into the possibility of corruption in football. I'd also like to see a ban on all sponsorship or other involvement in sport by the betting companies. It's too much of a conflict of interest. https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/66506026

I shouldn't laugh at the names of others: My last name has been butchered and misused all my life.