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Chelsea not on list then or now

For all wengers good teams arsenal have only one more prem than pool

*Things that make you go mmmm that's interesting

Chelsea 6 league titles and 5 won in the Premier league era.

Top 5 top flight League titles won

1. Liverpool and Man United 20
2.Arsenal 13
3. Man City 10
4. Everton 9
5. Aston Villa 7

Top five before the Premier league in 1992

1. Liverpool 18
2. Arsenal 10
3. Everton 9
4. Man United,Aston Villa 7
5. Sunderland 6

Ange it is

Six games two draws and 4 defeats so far as Nottingham Forest manager.

Tonight beaten at home by Midjylland and Forest fans were chanting "Sacked in the morning"

Owner has got rid of a popular manager and the supporters haven't taken to his hand picked replacement at all.

Kildare's Daniel Flynn has retired from inter-county football at the age of 31 having made his debut for the Lilywhites 13 years ago.

Defending CL champions PSG with a late winner away to Barcelona.

We had enough of chess.

The adjustment of the hooter system gave us a form of chess at the end of halves during some matches in the All-Ireland series including the final.

Could the hooter be changed to be like the ladies game where the hooter just ends the half? At times its great drama when a team wins possession and are within a score but what happened at the end of the first half in the final isnt great for anyone. I also dont like the hooter only being used in tv games. All games should have the same rules.

Hooter system was that way during the league and was probably better than what we got with the tweak but the FRC jumped the gun after what happened in the last play of Westmeath v Meath game.

Yes all games should especially when fine lines can decide promotion and relegation.

Next Permanent Man United Manager Paddy Power Odds




For the interest for Tiempo 66/1 is the odds on Roy Keane and other bookies have him at 80/1. For comparison it would be like placing money on Louth to win the football or Wexford to win the Hurling All-Ireland in 2026.

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TG4 a little too focused on coach Stephen O Meara in the stand.

Is that the lad who was in Irish News article the other day?

That's him, I posted up the full piece on the rules thread yesterday.

Not a good weekend with some of the decision making by VAR. 

Looks a full house! Better set up than All-Ireland day!

Official attendance 74,512

TG4 a little too focused on coach Stephen O Meara in the stand.

We had enough of chess.

The adjustment of the hooter system gave us a form of chess at the end of halves during some matches in the All-Ireland series including the final.

The big rules debate: Stephen O'Meara discusses his opposition to FRC's work
Stephen O'Meara is a Dublin native currently coaching with Lavey, having been involved in six All-Ireland finals since 2017 as an analyst. He has been a staunch opponent of how the FRC has gone about changing Gaelic football over the past year. He debates the whole topic with Cahair O Kane

Cahair O'Kane: Is Gaelic football a better game now than it was 12 months ago?

Stephen O'Meara: To my eye, the answer is no. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Even if I did think it was a better game and a better spectacle, for me fairness is at the core of any game. I think the fairness of the game has been massively diluted. We've created a game which guarantees very significant unfair calls weekly. The integrity of the game is being comprised. The basis of any game is to start from a position which you can naturally defend. You don't start a game of chess with your pawn the far side of the other player's. We've created 4 or 5 scoring dynamics that I believe are completely unnatural and run against sport as a concept. Is it more entertaining? I don't believe it is. The data is showing we're seeing more phases proportionally of set defences than previously. There's positives to that but on the whole, we're seeing a version of basketball. Ultimately my answer is no.

CO'K: That puts you in a very small minority. Every small bit of data we have, polls, the FRC surveys, attendances being up, suggest the majority feel it is a better game.

SO'M: That statement is an unsubstantiated statement that the mainstream media, particularly RTE, and the FRC are putting out.
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The big rules debate: Stephen O'Meara discusses his opposition to FRC's work


CO'K: The FRC's report contains surveys that say upwards of 90% saying they enjoy playing it more and watching it more?

SO'M: They haven't taken a Delphi poll. I believe it's unscientific. For the money that's gone into this, €50,000 would get a scientifically significant Delphi poll, and the GAA hasn't produced one
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CO'K: Would it tell us anything different?

SO'M: Oh, of course it would. I haven't done, and none of the people in my circles have done any of the GAA surveys. I don't want to contribute to something that's wholly unscientific. A Delphi poll, they have the information and skillset to get a random selection of society. When you ask people to come to the poll like the FRC, it has no scientific validation. Those polls have been deviously and meticulously worded that there's no middle ground option on a lot of them.

CO'K: I have to pull that up. Here's one: Gaelic football is more enjoyable to play at club level. The options are yes, no or no difference. That's not deviously worded, that's black and white?

SO'M: Well I think it is. The key question not in that poll is 'do you think this is the best version of what we could have got?' There I think you'll get a majority saying no.

CO'K: People say this is a hybrid version of the game but Gaelic football as it was played between 2014 and 2024 was not Gaelic football. The dynamic had been changed by coaches. The only difference here is that other people have changed the rules.

SO'M: I agree 100%. To give a soccer comparison, this happened with the Italians between 1986 and 1990. They made one rule change, they banned the back pass and it had a seismic effect. I blame the coaches of good teams for allowing football to go the way it went. Coaches like me were at the centre of it. Every team I'd coached until Lavey were in the bottom half, if not bottom quarter, of their championship and you couldn't go out playing expansive football. I was huge on using the goalkeeper. But I think the FRC avoiding a debate is scandalous. The GPA not surveying their players is scandalous.

CO'K: The vibe is that players are enjoying the new rules?

SO'M: That's not the vibe I'm getting. We're running in different circles.

CO'K: That's just asking players around games, I haven't had anyone say they're not enjoying it.

SO'M: It's all he said, she said. Three inter-county players rang me last year and said fair play, you're voicing what we think. That was 12 months ago.

CO'K: In 2024 the only 10 minutes of a game you got were the last 10. The rest was about sucking all the life out of a game?

SO'M: What's the solution to that? The back pass to the goalkeeper!

CO'K: You're in opposition to kickouts travelling beyond the arc. If you bring it back to the old D, it takes away the incentive for a team to press the kickout and you're back to the game you had last year?

SO'M: I don't have a fundamental opposition to kickouts going long, it's more the butterfly effect of what's happening. We've essentially copied an indoor game of basketball and taken it to an outdoor sport. We're so early in the evolutionary stages of this. Things I worked out with a pen and paper in 20 minutes are going to take four years to come through, which is bizarre because they're simple mathematical constructs. Donegal U20s this year played Tyrone. The 2024 Armagh-Galway final, it was 0-15 to 1-13. Total phases, Galway 32, Armagh 28. That's low. Donegal-Tyrone U20s in normal time, 60-minute game, Donegal 25 phases, Tyrone 29. A 60-phase match over 70 minutes versus a 54-phase match over 60 minutes.

CO'K: Statistically phases are still down 12% on last year in terms of length?

SO'M: You have to separate average and mean. There's a lot of very quick phases off kickouts. I think phases are actually longer, that's a suspicion, I don't have the data.

CO'K: 1v1 throw-in?
SO'M: No issue with 1v1 but starting a game where you've a 7v6 I'm fundamentally opposed to. Get the other two midfielders to stand on the same side.

CO'K: 3v3?

SO'M: There's merit in 11v11 but how they've got there is wrong. Telling a player to stop tackling on the halfway line is wrong. Eight or nine tweaks on the rules as they stand would make it better. The 3v3, yous should have 10 seconds to get it right on kickouts.

CO'K: That's completely unrefereeable. A lot of what the FRC have done well is they've made it refereeable?

SO'M: I would disagree with that.

CO'K: Referees are saying it's so much easier to referee. They've always made mistakes and always will, that's not a reason to not have new rules?

SO'M: They've now multiplied by about 10 the amount of key, black-and-white mistakes they're making.

CO'K: I don't think that's fair.

SO'M: That's what's happening. It's the multiplication of it, why would you do it?

CO'K: Because it's good for the game, the game is so much better?

SO'M: I'd argue if it is. The 11v11 has merit but you might as well go 13v13 and just have a set full-back and full-forward
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CO'K: You're just back to the game you had in 2024 then. 50m penalties?

SO'M: They're bringing it back into kickouts, which is mad, but a 50m penalty on disturbing a free, absolutely [in favour of].

CO'K: So you're essentially opposed to the 40m arc?

SO'M: Let me explain why. Beauty in the eye of the beholder, I don't believe football is entertaining. I've been at half of Derry championship games this year and I've found two-thirds of them boring. I was a big advocate of radical rule change, I'm not looking to go back to that. Equally, Lavey played Loup last year in the group stages, it was 3-16 to 2-11. As coach of Lavey, my philosophy was we're an athletically superior team, we pressed all over the field, it was end-to-end, it was as good a game as you'd ever see.

CO'K: But so few games were played that way?

SO'M: And I blame the coaches. I think it was changing.

CO'K: I don't. Why would you get rid of the 40m arc?

SO'M: A friend of mine is a French marketer, we were talking about it in the park in Malahide on Monday, and he's never watched a full game. I said they're trying to incentivise front-foot, kicking football and there's a three-point goal and two-point 40m arc. This is a high IQ guy who's never watched a game and he says 'surely you'll just delay the ball to kick for two?' Voila. That's the problem and that's what's happening.

CO'K: So put in a four-point goal?

SO'M: It would have to be more than 4. We are slowing attacks down to go for 2 points. The scoring system has disincentivised kicking the ball forward and looking for goals.

CO'K: How, then, are attempts on goal up 45%?

SO'M: That's because of the 11v11 defence.

CO'K: Kicking the ball is not efficient so nobody will do it?

SO'M: If they want to go back to kicking football, statistically, it's a one-pointer and an eight-point goal. I'm not saying we should, that's data analytics
.
CO'K: If you make the goal worth 8, that it makes it more defensive, so who's kicking the ball in that scenario?

SO'M: What I'm saying is they want a kicking game but they've disincentivised the value of a goal. The value of a goal needs to be higher.

CO'K: Kick-passing is not efficient. There's space there now to kick it and it's incentivised by the new mark rule. But teams will always run a 95% ball rather than kick even a 60% ball?

SO'M: Dublin, Kerry, Killarney Crokes were still kick-passing. The tweet I put up showed the 2013 game, those scores could not happen now. When Kerry got a kick-off against Armagh, they kicked from 2 to 5 to 10 to 15, it's the only one I've seen this year. The 1-2-3 scoring system is mathematically ridiculous. I don't think the two-point arc is necessary. 1-2-3 massively disincentives kicking the ball down the line for a fast transition. We're seeing fewer kickouts going long than at the start. The press of the short kickout leaves space out the back. The kickout arc squeezes the centre. Most teams are going zonal. When you win a kickout against a zonal formation, there's nowhere to move it forward to. You end up with triangle passes, slow phases and shooting for twos.

CO'K: If you take away the 2-pointers, teams won't shoot from distance. You get a deeper-lying defence, more space in the middle third to keep the ball, and a worse game. The arc is what's stretching defences out?

SO'M: A butterfly effect would make that to be a minority play. It would still happen. If you get the old kickout and remove the arc, any quick transition will be met with a quick kickout and teams don't get set the whole time. Teams get set on every kickout. If you have a quicker, shorter kickout, you can get faster transitions
.
CO'K: Remove the arc, the pressing team drops off?

SO'M: Hands on ball is everything, giving teams like Armagh and Donegal the kickout was giving them a score
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CO'K: There was more going after the kickout between 2022 and 2024 than previously, but coaches were still questioning if it was worth the energy you'd expend to go after it.


SO'M: Coaches who thought that were failing in data analytics because in the old rules, it was worth going after them all the time.

CO'K: Teams that came up against Shaun Patton got ripped in pieces at times.

SO'M: I can tell you statistically that's not correct because I worked with Donegal for two years. We had this conversation, Donegal get shots off on 80% of occasions they get the kickout off on the D. Whatever you think you see, the value is getting hands on the ball. That's a fact. My analysis, which Donegal went with by 2022, was that unless it was a 90% ball to midfield, they were better going short.

CO'K: That's feeding my point, teams are so good at getting the short kickout away that it's not worth chasing them, and you're back to the game you had?

SO'M: Donegal-Derry 2022 Ulster final, Derry had won their first five kickouts and scored 1-3, Donegal were pressing 4-4-4, I radioed to Declan to push a fifth man into the full-forward line and the question back was 'what if we get caught over the top?' The maths was even if we concede a goal on every three long ones, we'd still be better off than letting them go short, because we're conceding over a point per short kickout. Teams should have been pressing. Donegal-Derry last year, Derry were right to press up on those kickouts. They just got hit with three set plays, a bit of luck and the goals. The value was pressing up because Donegal would have scored 5 or 6 of every 10. It was a flawed concept to give up kickouts at any level. The type of football Corofin, Dublin, Kerry, Mayo played, you cannot play it with the 40m arc.

CO'K: Nobody was playing it anyway?

SO'M: Ah they were. Dublin, Mayo, Kerry, every game between that trio in the last 15 years by my recollection. I didn't see the rainy final [2015] but every other game at that time was played like that. We've aimed at the lowest common denominator and we've taken away from the highest common denominator, and with better constructed rules we could have achieved both. It's not my love of short kickouts, it's the butterfly effect of what the arc has caused. The two-point arc, the data people in basketball are saying it needs to be 2.5 rather than a 3. If there's going to be a subsidised score, when you make it explicitly more value than the one-pointer, it evolves to where you don't want ones, you only want twos. That's going to evolve, I'm sure it is, to a point where it's only easy ones or shoot for twos. The subsidised score should be 1.5, means a defence can't sit back. If you get to the point where players won't shoot from 35 yards because it's better value to recycle and kick for two. They got it wrong. They haven't done proper data analytics. A two-point 41m shot versus a one-point 39m shot, it makes no data analytical sense in terms of what you want to reward. It should be 1.5 and a goal should be higher.


CO'K: I still don't fully understand your objection to the game? It feels like when you drill down into the points, you're not against this, that or the other, and you almost agreed there a four-point goal is a solution...

SO'M: Well I've made it very clear! Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I don't necessarily think more scores makes better football.

CO'K: Nor do I. The best game I've ever been present at was Derry-Galway this year, which was phenomenal. Everyone in the ground was buzzing. The place was on fire. It was electric, end-to-end, physical. That was the game the rules helped create.

SO'M: If I thought that's what we'd get every week. Every game hasn't been like that.
CO'K: But there are no set of rules that would do that. The middle portion of the season gave a pretty high proportion of games that were better, exciting and entertaining...

SO'M: The All-Ireland final was boring, and the two semi-finals. The quarter-finals, Armagh-Kerry was decent. In summary, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I'm seeing a higher proportion of set defences than previously, I think we could have got better. And I'm seeing a lack of capacity for quick transition, open space, kicking football.

CO'K: Is football a better game in 2025 than in 2024?

SO'M: The quarter-finals on, no. Better than last year? Absolutely no way. I haven't seen the two standout games in Derry this year. I've been bored to tears watching two out of three games in Derry this year. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And I think it's gonna get worse.

CO'K: We'll agree to disagree.
SO'M: I'd a feeling we would!

3/1 Liverpool win... they have so much possession just not getting the breaks

Got the breaks with Palace wasting some big goal scoring chances. Those odds tempting as Liverpool sure improve 2nd half.

Another international break coming up which is probably the time to sack him and bring in a replacement.