Ilya

Vialli, Zola - for the early (for me in England) years; there was no other team I could possibly support when I came to England in 96 with Chelsea being what they were back then Drogba for 2012 Ramires for that goal against Barsa - dunno why, just stands out for me as the most wonderful football moment

The funniest thing about this is the nickname. Beaver Warrior - hahahahaha... The second funniest thing is where someone slips up and - trying to come up with an embarrassingly old age - says 40. "I'm gonna insult them with how old they are. What would be a good, somewhat exaggerated, really old age? When do people get properly decrepit and senile? Around 40, right?"

That's no way to talk about Mr Abramovich.

I hope this one doesn't happen.

While it would, of course, be preferable - comrade ;) - if all them lot got paid as much as nurses and primary school teachers - but in the world of top level football, if anything, I am always amazed by the fact that top managers do not command the transfer fees and not quite the salaries of the top players. Surely top manager is more important than any individual player?

The Times do, in fact, say so today. But then again many sources say many things...

I am a little confused by all of this. Did he, or did he not get the 9M for the last year? If he didn't (because the club is trying to argue dismissal on the grounds of misconduct of some sort) - then of course there is scope for grievance. If he did - that's his salary for the next year. What other opportunity this summer? Weird. And all of this assumes that they were not encouraging him to find other opportunities (in order to get out of paying 9M) - and, instead, just kept pretending he was gonna be here next year until the day he was sacked. Which is possible, but rather dubious. I suspect there would've been hints along the lines of: "If you were to get an offer from PSG Sig Conte - we might just be OK with that"

It would be bizarre, imo, if they were not discussing specific players with him and actually asking about his personal preferences. He is the one who has to coach them, it is his vision and his tactics that these players will have to implement. But there's a difference between a manager who has some ideas / preferences, but is also capable of working within a budget and accepting limitations and a manager that throws a very public strop when he doesn't get the very best and most expensive players.

It's nice when strikers can do all those lovely things: hold-up, off the ball movement, making scrambled eggs, hoovering the flat... It's also nice when they just score lots of f***ing goals. I do believe Sarri is capable of magic and he may well turn one of the current bunch into scoring machines, but in the spirit of fantasy football type banter - would be nice to get a striker who has done the goal-every-other-game for a few seasons in their career...

/* Loud whisper */ Somebody should tell him that Juventus is a Turin club.

May be they just mean he looks good nekid.

Is it really so bad to develop a bunch of kids and when you see that they won't actually be good enough for a team that is meant to challenge for the title and occasionally, god forbid, for the Champions League - to sell them on for a few million, making a pretty decent profit? We are so used to silly transfer prices that 3.5M seams like we are giving them away. But it actually represents a solid profit on investment. And 10 of those buys you a player that is actually good. If you do this at scale - even a relatively small profit per player can add up. It's not like Boga or Kakuta are in danger of one day becoming the next De Bruyne... Obviously there have been some notable cock-ups with players that could be considered "young prospects we never gave a chance to and sold on"... :) But last couple of years it looks like we only sell the ones that are definitely not gonna make it big.

And he quotes the Nobel prize winning author as his latest favourite writer - there's a certain added element of European sophistication in having a manager who reads serious literature. If I had to guess, Mourinho's - for example - evening of leisure probably consist of watching Love Island, thinking "I would totally pull all the chicks if I was there".