Hedgehog

Probably 😂 but history has shown us that teams will do whatever they can within the rules to get an edge. Look at City’s rotational tactical fouling they’ve got away with for years for example.

Yep - people don’t realise what they’re asking for

You can’t stop what we’re doing unless you completely nerf set pieces by e.g having a completely different physical threshold for attacking vs defending

Yep, they should do that. And then you can’t defend set pieces in the same way - what do you think happens next?

This feels like something which sounds good in theory but would be a horrendous shit show in practice

I think City’s decade-old “innovation” with tactical fouling has been far more ruinous to the enjoyment of watching football than us being good at set pieces.

I don’t recall the rules book-changing outcry we have gotten over something actually against the rules/spirit of the game.

It’s weird.

You are going to get games that suck ass regardless unfortunately - they just turn into 0-0 games instead.

Counterpoint - Villa are actually shite and have been riding the wave all season to this point

Two isn’t it!

He was ‘walking by the studio’ and they pulled him in 🙄

Yeah I guess the point (as a response to your original point) is that the offensive fouling is a response to defensive fouling - if you remove both you still get a hell of a lot of set piece goals, maybe even more.

As I said though if you can’t defend on the edge physically it’s another advantage to the attacking team so you just see more set piece goals as a result.

The defending team benefits disproportionately from the reluctance to call fouls, imo

This works both ways though - if you start calling the offensive fouls you also call the defensive ones and we end up with a lot of penalties, or people stop defending physically and we have a bunch more set piece goals.

Pick your poison

Remarkable that Chelsea’s recruitment team spent so much money on the collectively the most braindead group of players known to man.

West Ham were more than competitive yesterday despite the scoreline

I think they have it in them to put something together. Forest I’m not so sure.

Please let it happen

If you think about it, the title is ‘functionally’ over because City will definitely win every game

He is strong and a good finisher but his technical level is not there imo.

He’s being vastly overrated at present because the goals are going in.

I mean it obviously depends how it happens

If city win every game from here on out then there’s no shame imo

If they let city win it with less than 80 points there is some shame

I think carrying on as we do like almost all are welcome to compete because sport builds bridges, brings people together etc etc is a form of sportswashing in all honesty.

The same reason Nottingham Forest were third around this time last year

Looks to me like Wolves very much still give a fuck

😂 thanks, hopefully won’t end up in a battle to even be in the competition

Forget it - not interested in engaging any more, enjoy your weekend 👍

I’d be 99%+ confident they won’t move Chelsea

Christ the dishonesty and deflection here is really disappointing tbh

I expected better.

We’re busting out ‘arch rivals’ now 😂

You can’t seriously tell me the two finalists in those seasons had even close to equivalent runs. Come on now.

And because Chelsea are already playing there despite being in the same situation

They might make an exception to avoid clashing broadcast slots and given it’ll be 71 hours 45 minutes

It can’t because Chelsea play their second leg Tuesday same as us

I think that’ll be the way too - avoid the Sky/TNT clash

We would be at home before the City game FWIW