How do Man Utd get away with their sidelines? There's a very steep drop just before the perimeter fence.
It's always been very tight in Terryland too, Jimmy Nolan broke his leg colliding with it years ago.
Printable View
How do Man Utd get away with their sidelines? There's a very steep drop just before the perimeter fence.
It's always been very tight in Terryland too, Jimmy Nolan broke his leg colliding with it years ago.
Pats have played alright. Melia should have had a hattrick and didn't hit the target any of his opportunities.
Their keeper is in shambles and definitely should have been sent off for carrying the ball outside the box, couldn't believe the linesman didn't flag for it. Really poor officiating.
He wouldn't get sent off for handling outside the box...
Can really see why Pats have struggled this season, they're in danger of getting caught on the counter as the opposition have real pace up front when they get their act together.
Pats need to take a lead for the 2nd leg or it'll be more regrets
Keeper clearly looked to be outside the box with the ball in his hands. Hard to believe the officials missed that.
Santa Coloma of Andorra 3-0 up away to Borac Banja Luka (last 16 of the Conference League last year) at halftime is a bit mental
I’m only dipping into Pat’s game on UEFA but they look fairly dominant on the match tracker. Goals always an issue for them.
On a side note. Finnish football continues to slide. Clubs getting beat home and away by sides from the Faroes. HJK taking a battering.
https://www.camel1.live/home
A good streaming site for watching games, if anyone's interested
1-0 thanks to a Keena penalty. How he is not starting is beyond me.
Pat's finally got their goal in the end. Eerily similar game to the Shels one Wednesday. Loads and loads of possession and pressure and eventually turned that into a 1-0 home win against teams that really don't look like they are up to much.
Of all the talk of the league's progressing and standards, etc, I think we can really see it in this round of Europe. I've been watching LOI games in Europe for a long time and you can clearly see the LOI has gone up a level vs the competition.
Part of it is obviously due to the changes in structure of the conference league and there being only the smaller teams in the first round, but our teams do look like the dominant side in ties which used to be 50/50s.
Would be a disaster for either side not to progress after being so much better than the opposition in the home leg.
Poor results for Armenian's this evening are great for our Europa league spot in 27/28 also.
Thank Jaysus for that. Melia had 3 great chances and Baggley with another one or 2. Didn’t get that bit of luck with McClelland’s cross hitting the bar too. Baggley who has had more than his fair share of bad games this season was man of the match for me tonight, excellent all night. More confident they can get the job done over there next week, looking forward to the trip over
Hegelmann were comfortably the worst side we've played this season I thought, but in keeping with how we've been playing of late it felt like a penalty was the only way we'd actually put the ball in the net despite our dominance. Can only hope we don't live to regret it next week.
Side note but a nice, albeit initially confusing moment was a couple of Hegelmann players at full time went around to applaud the home fans as well as their own. They got a nice reception back after some skeptical looks at first!
Yeah they didn’t seem up to much. Having obviously watched recent Pats matches and saw the inability to break down defences, their game plan was to come and be compact and hit long balls to the Cameroonian number 11 up top but he had very little impact and couldn’t make the ball stick long enough for them to get bodies up and around him. The Brazilian number 15 Leo Ribeiro looked head and shoulders their most talented player, he’s got a serious turn of pace about him and will certainly need to be kept a leash on next week. They didn’t/couldn’t get the ball to him enough for him to hurt Pats tonight but there were a few flashes from him to know that he looks a serious player if given time on the ball. As for the rest of them they looked pretty ordinary players.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jack B
Comical moment of the night for me was when they were on the break on what was looking like a dangerous counter attack from a Pats corner and 2 of their players ran for the same ball and ended up running into each other and falling over allowing Pats to regain possession and start another attack :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by yurt
Melia hasn't impressed me at all, can't see how he could be a Premier League player. Noonan and Elding have looked far better IMO. What do Pats fans think?
If a 17 year old with 14 senior league goals in his career and man of the match performance against Istanbul Basaksehir hasn’t impressed you at all it’s probably a good job you’re not a scout ;) Himself and Noonan have scored the same amount of goals this season. Elding has 2 more than both but is also 2 years older than Melia and 3 years older than Noonan and was nowhere near at the level of the either when he was their age. Melia has struggled for form recently but that will happen with a 17 year old, there’s no doubting his abilityQuote:
Originally Posted by TVFBLOCKF
I think the tough patch he is going through will only benefit him. He is only 17 and has the talent to have a good career. If he can go to the highest level will only be revealed in time.Quote:
Originally Posted by 2 Year Contract
As you said we’ll see what level he ends up at in time. Despite his transfer fee being a record for a LOI player, it’s peanuts for Spurs so it’s definitely worth the gamble for them. Worst case scenario they develop him to a level that they sell him for a slight profit on what they paid as they did with Troy Parrott, although that was a good bit more than just a slight profit, but the point still stands that they benefited from signing him despite him not cutting the mustard as a first team Spurs playerQuote:
Originally Posted by D24Saint
Controversial statement maybe but i think Melia got his transfer off the back of a few good performances and as someone said a punt from Spurs...i suspect he will disapear on loan to some lower league clubs and end up back here fairly soon.Quote:
Originally Posted by D24Saint
Hopefully im wrong but he has never impressed me and ive been watching him playing against Rovers underage teams for the last 4 or 5 years
The last time he played a game of underage football was in 2023 when he was 15. The game I mentioned above against Istanbul Basaksehir, he was 16 years old and gave non stop problems to the centre back pairing of Leo Duarte, who AC Milan had spent 10 million quid on before he moved to Turkey, and Senior Ghana international Jerome Opoku. He also ran Roberto Lopes and the rovers back line ragged several times last season. Surely those examples are more relevant than the handful of games you saw him play between the ages of 13 and 15.Quote:
Originally Posted by sbgawa
Spurs have signed him as an academy player, he will no doubt go out on loan to lower league clubs as is the norm with most academy players, such as Josh Keeley going to Barnet and Leyton Orient and doing well. The likelihood of Melia or Keeley for that matter making it as a regular in the spurs first team is very very slim but they can still make a good career of it in England or elsewhere off the back of doing well in those loans. The problem for young lads in academies over there is that picking the right club(s) to go on loan to can be an absolute minefield that can make or break their career, so there’s a lot of luck involved
I think you missed my point, obviously i have seen him play the senior games my only reference to the underage stuff was that he was never a standout at underage and while he has shown some good form at senior level nothing spectaculer that other players hos age and younger arent doing as well. Hes Irish so i hope he does well but i am still mystified as to how Spurs picked him out as worth the money.Quote:
Originally Posted by 2 Year Contract
Worst case scenario is he doesn't make it and gets released on a free back to Ireland surely?Quote:
Originally Posted by 2 Year Contract
He scored 10 goals in 22 games for the Ireland U17s, if that’s not standing out I don’t know what is. On your point about him not doing anything that other players his age and younger are also doing, Michael Noonan aside (who’s also worth just as much money as Spurs paid for Melia if not more), can you name the other lads aged 17 or younger that are playing as many minutes as Melia in the Premier Division and scoring goals at that level? There are none.Quote:
Originally Posted by sbgawa
Suppose so, again though it’s peanuts for them so it’s not a financial risk in the slightest even if that were to happenQuote:
Originally Posted by pineapple stu
Statistics are great , 10 goals in 22 appearences for the under 21's or put another way 14 goals in all under age Irish appearences in 39 matchs and 14 goals in 65 appearences for PAts.Quote:
Originally Posted by 2 Year Contract
Better players at his age i would include 3 from Rovers all younger and have the potential to be better by the time they are 18......Kovalaskis, Ozhianvunu and Noonan, appearences harder to come by in a league winning team be fair but they are consistantly around the team and Kovalaskis imo the best of the lot
Cathal O Sullivan in Cork 7 goals in 47 appearences as a midfielder springs to mind, im sure others could think of some 16 and 17 year olds in their own teams.
Im not against Melia and wish the kid the best, me saying i cant see it is my opinion but ive been right and wrong about players before.
Palace booted out of the Europa League, despite many claiming last month that UEFA were only targeting small clubs with the MCO rules
They're out of the Europa League but will be playing in the Conference LeagueQuote:
Originally Posted by Burnsie
I never said there wasn’t players his age or younger that have the potential to be better than him. I said other than Noonan, no players his age or younger are playing anywhere near the number of minutes in the premier division as he is and scoring goals at that level, which is a fact. You can disagree with the facts on the Ireland underage goals if you like, but it’s fairly obvious that a striker scoring at that rate was obviously rated highly at underage level, as the top goalscorer for any underage international team would be.Quote:
Originally Posted by sbgawa
As Melia, Noonan and Elding are all strikers which is how the conversation started, that’s why I was referring to scoring goals, given it’s their primary function in the team. Ozhianvuna (170 minutes of league football this season) and Kovalevskis (75 mins) look great prospects and again, will probably be sold for big money by LOI standards, but they are not strikers so they can be excused for the no goals part but they’ve also not played anywhere near the minutes of Melia or Noonan. Cathal O'Sullivan again, he’s a winger/attacking midfielder but isn’t a striker and despite being closer in minutes played to Melia (1410 mins vs Melia’s 1671 mins) hasn’t had anywhere near the same impact in terms of end product at premier division level compared to the first division last year - 0 goals and 3 assists. He’s also 18, so as I said in my previous post in response to Melia doing nothing that "other players his age and younger aren't doing as well", other than Melia, Noonan is the only player of his age or younger playing that often and scoring goals. For goalkeepers, defenders and midfielders, lads that age just don’t get anywhere near the minutes that Melia and Noonan are getting, let alone excel in doing their job in the team as well as the two of them do, and that for me is very impressive for kids of their age.
Anyways, off to enjoy the sun, here’s hoping all the young lads mentioned go on to play senior level for Ireland and we can get to international tournaments again, it’s the hope that kills you!
They’ll feel hard done by of course, but at least they’re still in Europe and will have a much better chance at winning another trophy in the conference league, which would secure another season of European football next year too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Buckett
They are still being facilitated by being allowed in the conference, it effects the integrity of that comp just to drop a side in to it because they fell foul of rules. I still think a smaller league club would be gone and that Palace have been thrown a bone, probably with an agreement that they dont use any EPL clout and challange UEFA.Quote:
Originally Posted by Burnsie
I think in fairness it's a reasonable compromise. It avoids the issue of multi-club ownership in the same competition while still recognising they qualified on merit
Wishy washy, apply the rules or change them. Yeah it rewards as deserved but its also an appeasment to prevent a fight UEFA dont want with someone who is resourced to fight...imo! A few high profile clubs falling foul and making a stink and things change. LoI cup winners would be swatted away and houts on issues with rules dismissed. Ban muticlubs (unless Dundalk get billionaire owners that own other clubs then just turn a blind eye!!).
I think there's no indication that LoI sides would be treated differently though.
The issue is about clubs in the same competition being owned by the same person. Relegating Palace to the Conference League sorts that. There was nowhere for Drogheda to be relegated to though.
Dont let facts get in the way of a persecution complex or conspiracy, no fun there. I agree really on this occasion, but there was plenty of facilitating clubs of much bigger stature in previous years. I still think it stinks and do you really trust UEFA to be fair and transparent if they want a quiet outcome that suits them if a top 5 league team is for the bin on ownership. Its a combination of half hearted FFP among oter things. Like if Delaney hadn't blotted his copybook when he did it looked like he'd have gotten Waterford through the rules that excluded them. I know he was a special case but how many more would be like him.....maybe none tbh!
I see textors stake is now being mentioned as 42%. It seems to shrink with every article written. In a few weeks it'll be sub 40% having been as high as 47% in some places. While his is technically a minority stake he also owns the largest individual stake which is likely why UEFA care. The next largest I've ever seen is ~10% markQuote:
Originally Posted by pateen
Could be wrong, but afaik there are 4 x Directors each with 10% (incls. Parrish), and they are in a group which Textor isn't part of. In fact, a while back Textor was trying/hoping to buy a controlling stake, which the others opposed, suggesting he wasn't in good standing with the rest of the Board:Quote:
Originally Posted by Another Bohemia
https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/foo...-b1234451.html
While his 47%(?) 42%(?) stake may not all be voting shares, but a different category?
All that said, I still cannot make up, my mind on this. Otoh, with a bit of foresight, Palace could have found a way to comply with the rules in the same way eg as Marinakis at NFFC, with his (entirely laughable) "blind trust".
Oto, it does seem harsh, since whatever the technicalities, Textor didn't seem to have the same control over CPFC as he did eg over Lyon. This latter argument may sway CAS?
Because that is exactly how it works. You're making it sound like they've got off lightly here or someone has done them a favour.Quote:
Originally Posted by Buckett
Somewhere along the way I learned that there are 4 owners with votes, Textor being one of the 4, but the other 3 always vote in a block together, so he never gets what he wants even thou he has been the one making major investments of late. It's a funny setup.Quote:
Originally Posted by EalingGreen
something like that, yeah.Quote:
Originally Posted by Acornvilla
Which is why Textor was trying to buy Everton a few months back - had fallen out with the other Palace Directors.
Linfield is anticipating a crowd of around 10,000 at Windsor Park for their Champions League qualifier against Shelbourne tonight. This is for the second leg of the tie, with Linfield aiming to overturn a 1-0 deficit from the first leg.