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Liverpool will have none of that experience/leadership qualities in the dressing room if Hendo leaves now as well and the midfield begins to look a bit light again after 2 good additions

They would need to bring in an experienced leader. However, moving experience on at the right time is something that City  (Silva, Kompany, Aguero) and Ferguson did with United (Stam, Beckham etc). I would rather sacrifice one good year of Henderson at the top level for bringing through the likes of Bajectic for next 5.

This will likely be an unpopular opinion, but referees have been feeding this beast for years, by turning a blind eye during matches, and accepting post-match apologies deliberately feigned to ensure a more favourable report. And now they can no longer control the beast.

Now they need to take control again, which means getting together and forcing through a new code, along the lines of:

1. personal abuse from player or mentor - immediate red card.
2. more than two instances from the one side - match abandoned.
3. abuse from supporters - registered as a complaint with their CCCC.  Every second complaint sees the reversal of a home match, or a requirement to play with no spectators for a match.

And re no. 1, suspensions should work on a multiplier level and carried over two seasons. First offence, 1 match ban. Second instance, two match ban, and so on.

Perhaps more importantly, they need to police this from within. If they find tgat one of their own is being lenient on personal abuse, then sanction him.

One season of learning and heartache for players, mentors and supporters would clean up football forever.

This kind of approach seems necessary. Personal abuse should not be tolerated at any level.

Agree with this.

One simple change I would take is the AFL approach of moving the ball forward 50m rather than 10m (14m?) for any mouthing or backchat from players. You very rarely see it in AFL because it is such a huge penalty.

Players might soon keep their mouths shut if every transgression is likely to give a shot at goal. If the players/coaches are not constantly guldering that will reduce vitriol in the crowd.

Saudis sniffing around Thiago. This could be a disaster.

He is one of the best players to watch in the league but unfortunately I dont think his body is up to the PL so this might be the best move for both parties. Only 1 year left before they lose him on a free so if they can get daft money (£15m?)from the Saudi's to put towards a long term alternative so be it.

4 of us went to the Errigal on Ormeau road on Saturday.

3 Drinking & 1 driver. 3 x Guinness and 1 x 0.0% Guinness was £23.80.

£5.95 for a pint, 0.0% was the same price.

Think its about 50p per pint beer duty.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/woman-abandons-daughter-5-majorca-30375138

Unbelievable

As a result of privatisation NI Electricity is now owned by ESB. The loyalist workers in the power stations in Carrickfergus and Larne who were able to bring the place to a standstill in the 1970s at the drop of Paisley's hat must love that

Its actually worse than that for the  Little Englanders in the North.

NIE own the power networks. There are three main power stations in NI, ESB have owned Coolkeeragh for decades and Kilroot/Ballylumford are owned by a Eastern European company. SONI who operate the Transmission Network are owned by Eirgrid, another ROI Semi State.

Always good when Jim is panicing 

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/jim-allister-urges-dup-minister-to-take-control-of-ni-electricity-amid-monopoly-controversy/41970043.html

Yeah they played Moortown in the championship final that year. A win meant they were promoted and a loss meant relegation. It was definitely a golden era for the club at that time winning Junior and Intermediate within a short time of each other.

A lot of the smaller clubs are suffering numbers wise at youth level you can see that at u8/u10 go game blitzes. Even at older age groups where teams are playing 11 a side. I think in 15-20 years the landscape of clubs in the county will change and there will be more amalgamations and mergers like Dregish and Newtownstewart have done recently.

I think you are right on this. Its really hard to keep youth going when you have maybe 10 kids at training, even if you can herd 15 for the matches. Its more enjoyable for the kids as well to train in decent numbers which is why the youth amalgamations work well. However I would wonder how it works as you move up the age groups and the clubs "split" again as to whether the deemed weaker clubs lose players (say those with family ties) to the stronger club when you get to minor/senior level. If kids have trained together for years my guess is that is more likely that better player may want to move.

Messi heading to Inter Miami.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/65832658

Just missed out on being coached by Phil Neville.

Can you f**king imagine that "Leo, let me show you what I want you to do. When Gary was at Valencia he did this.........."

By any chance would anyone know of any availability for one ticket for the FA Cup final?

Who knew Harry Maguire was a GAA fan 

[As someone said earlier, it's the parents who are the problem 99% of the time! I have friends who turn into different people when it involves their own kids!! Usually becoming the people they once complained about themselves!]

Our primary school tournaments are competitive, and we have a competitive league and a non-competitive league that run on the same day. We openly call it our competitive team and our development team. It works very well and every child that wants a game of football in P6 and 7 can go! There has to be some element of competition involved as children love competition from they're no age! They'll even race to the front of the dinner line if it means they win! A middle ground and common-sense approach is the best scenario. For underage games up to maybe u14 I would like a competitive half/quarter/third or whathever, of football and then a half where the score doesn't count and everyone can get a go!

As someone said earlier, it's the parents who are the problem 99% of the time! I have friends who turn into different people when it involves their own kids!! Usually becoming the people they once complained about themselves!

This. Parents should be f**king banned from Underage games. I have coached for a few years but as soon as my own kids are out of youth I am done with it and it is solely down to the parents. At U12.5 We had a policy that every player got at least a half. That did mean that better players got more game time as they usually stay on for the whole match. Looking back that might have been unfair as it meant the same players tended to get swapped out for each other  but we decided it would be too difficult to try to give the same game time for everyone and we wanted to avoid the situation where we had 4-5 weaker players coming on en masse near the end, significantly weakening the team and frustrating the rest of the players.

on one memorable evening before the game I had one parent complaining about the lack of game time her u12.5 son was getting   and threatening to take her son to a different club. I wouldnt have minded except she was going to take him to a larger club. To top it off, I went for a pint in the clubrooms afterwards with a couple of mates who have sons in the team and they were griping about us not playing our strongest team. They got a pretty colourful response on it. 

As a Villa supporter, i think it should have stood as a goal.  Konsa does make an action to play the ball, albeit a poor one. I'm not as keen on the calls for a red card for Mings though.  I thought a yellow was right.

I would agree with both points on this. I see very little difference between the Mings incident and the Jota high foot against Spurs and I did not think that was a red.

I ordered a part from a dealer for my car at the beginning of February. It was paid for at that time.
To date the part has still not arrived. 3.5 months later. They say they have not got a date of delivery yet.
Anyone know what my rights are in this case? Want to go in there and demand my money back but fear they ll give me some gib about not being able to refund

It's maybe went on backorder with the dealer. It's happens a lot. What part is it you need? didnyoubtry the internet?

How did you pay? If by credit card you can go don the line of Section 75 claim with your bank and the money will be refunded back onto your card as a breach of contract. i.e. non-perfromance. I would tell the dealer you are going to do this first as if it is a bespoke part they might challenge it.

Who is to blame here. Surely Sinn Fein can get more done on this??? F*CK we hear more about casement than this road!!!

The people to blame are the 'Alternative A5 Alliance' group. They have furstrated and delayed the process at every turn with a succession of legal challenges etc and the blood of every victim who dies on that road is on their hands. Let there be no doubt or confusion or muddying the waters about that.

Who is bankrolling this group? Legal challenges cant be cheap, even for your normal "landowner"

[They'd even brought Rhys Williams back from loan to cover fifth choice]

Phillips was halfway out the door in January until Konate got injured right at the end of the transfer window. They'd even brought Rhys Williams back from loan to cover fifth choice.

He's gone this summer.

See above comment on Phillips for Willliams. 

I expect Liverpool to let Gomez go in the summer. Konate/VVD will be 1st choice next year and if Matip stays and  Van Der Berg/ Koumetio return from loan thats probably the plan with maybe one more. Not sure if Van Der Berg/ Koumetio are the level although DeBerg was doing well before a serious injury at Schalke.  If not they will probably spend decent money on a young backup for VVD for a couple of years.

Gomez has all the attributes to be a top centrehalf but is just too prone to ball watching. He needs to move on for his own sake.

Europa or Conference would be good for giving games to Kelleher and other second XI lads

Kelleher would be very foolish to stay on at Liverpool.

He's far too good to be a back-up, even at Liverpool's level. There's no reason he couldn't be a starter at any number of Premier League clubs. If he stays he'll piss his career away.

Like Nat Phillips. I see he is 25 now and not sure why he has not moved on from his own perspective. Never going to be a starter at Liverpool due to his lack of pace but good enough to start for (other? ) mid/lower table teams. My guess is Liverpool priced him out of a move