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News Thread for the 2016-17 Season

Leicester won't repeat and Hull will struggle to get 10 points. Beyond that, who knows.

Villa ain't winning the Championship. Of that, I'm absolutely certain.

As for the EPL, I think you can group them as so ...

Top 5 contenders
Man City
Man United
Tottenham
Arsenal
Chelsea
Liverpool
West Ham
Leicester

That's everybody I think has a legit shot at a top 5 finish of some sort. West Ham and Leicester are long shots, but after last year I'm not writing them off. Personally, I think City or Arsenal will do the deed this year. If pushed I'd go with City.

Everton, Palace and Southampton are all teams I feel confident will end up in the middle. Everybody else is either a wild card or a relegation contender so far as I'm concerned, although I do see Hull and Burnley bringing up the rear. I mean ... figure out Stoke in your spare time. I have no idea. They could be decent if they get some of those wide guys firing, but looked like garbage most of last season. I'm just not doing the work on the likes of them and Sunderland, Bournemouth, Swansea, Watford and West Brom. As currently constructed any or all of those could finish 8th to 12th or 18th. God only knows. I do think Middlesboro has the best shot of the promotion boys to stick around. That's a solid if unspectacular side sort of like Watford was last season.
 
Leicester won't repeat and Hull will struggle to get 10 points. Beyond that, who knows.

Looks like I might be half right. Hull are already 1/3 of the way to double digits.


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Looks like I might be half right. Hull are already 1/3 of the way to double digits.


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Yeah. Keep your powder dry on that one. They still only have 13 guys and the emotion of opening day won't last long.
 
Former FIFA President Joao Havelange died in Rio today. He was 100. He served as FIFA president from 1974 - 1998. In many respects, he's the father of the corrupt FIFA culture that his successor, Sepp Blatter carried on. In 2013, a FIFA ethics court judge said his conduct was "morally and ethically reproachable". He was allowed to resign his honorary presidency as punishment. He also served on the IOC from 1963-2011 and resigned days before he was expected to be suspended on claims that he took a $1 million kickback.

http://www.espnfc.us/blog/fifa/243/post/2930913/former-fifa-president-joao-havelange-dies-at-age-100
 
Many have implied that Havelange was the one who taught the IOC to be corrupt on FIFA's level. Personally, I think it's the other way around. The IOC has ALWAYS been corrupt and Havelange just adapted their practices to the soccer specific environment.

Rest in pieces, sir.
 
Many have implied that Havelange was the one who taught the IOC to be corrupt on FIFA's level. Personally, I think it's the other way around. The IOC has ALWAYS been corrupt and Havelange just adapted their practices to the soccer specific environment.

Rest in pieces, sir.

No question, the IOC taught him every thing he knew about corruption.
 
Landon Donovan to un-retire and re-join LA Galaxy. Galaxy axe DeJonge to avoid the DP tag and clear up budget for the move, which will pay Donovan the pro-rated league max for the remainder of the season. The deal does not extend beyond that. He's 34 years old and has been out of the game for only 21 months. Worth noting that the Galaxy will be without Gyasi Zardes and Robbie Keene for the rest of the season.

And no. Before somebody gets silly. This does not mean he'll be joining the USMNT for WC qualifying.
http://www.latimes.com/sports/soccer/la-sp-donovan-20160908-snap-story.html
 
England's Big Sam Allardyce in some hot water over "sting" operation by the Telegraph that caught him saying some fairly shady crap about third party ownership rules and throwing shade at former England staff and some players, not to mention being a rather obvious shill for hire target. Apparently the FA have called him in to discuss.

Looks to me like most of this looks bad but could be explained away ... IF he had some good will banked up. But he doesn't, being new to the job. Time will tell.
https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...-fa-investigation-after-undercover-sting-live
 
Before anyone this side of the Atlantic starts in on the Klinsmann for England nonsense again, note that speculation about his involvement in the England job was proven to have come exclusively from his agent's camp. Love him or hate him, the US is stuck with him through the next World Cup .... unless he wants to weigh in with his own recipe for ginning the third party ownership rules.

Jurgen? Thoughts?
 
Speaking of the USMNT management tree ... Bob Bradley has had talks with Swansea about their soon to be vacant management job. While Bob never really suited my personal tastes for national team management, there's absolutely no doubt that he's a stand up human being and a cracking club team manager ... one who has now cut his teeth in the lower levels of Europe. Swans could fare a LOT worse.

http://www.espnfc.us/swansea-city/s...meet-with-former-us-coach-bob-bradley-reports

Then again ... I hear Big Sam is back on the market and looking for another relegation zone survival job to salvage his rep.
 
IMO Southgate won't get it and of that list I'd be surprised if the FA don't at least take a run at Eddie Howe.
 
IMO Southgate won't get it and of that list I'd be surprised if the FA don't at least take a run at Eddie Howe.

I think it would take a lot to pry Howe out of Bournemouth, at least at this stage, hometown team and all that. The question he has to ask is if he's ready to be out of coaching club football for several years. I'm a little surprised that Sean Dyche isn't on that list. I've seen his name bandied about before too.
 
I think it would take a lot to pry Howe out of Bournemouth, at least at this stage, hometown team and all that. The question he has to ask is if he's ready to be out of coaching club football for several years. I'm a little surprised that Sean Dyche isn't on that list. I've seen his name bandied about before too.

That list is absolutely just the English press barfing up their last list from the previous search and assuming it's correct-ish. Otherwise Klinsmann wouldn't be within five miles of it, because his agent basically admitted to reporters that he himself had generated the speculation linking Jurgen to the job.
 
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