Seb Stafford-Bloor
@SebSB
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German Football correspondent, The Athletic. https://t.co/Pg56eNdNPF
Hamburg, Germany
Joined June 2010
A €40m agent commission for Haaland. €40m. That figure attracting so little attention just shows how normal it has become.
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Danny Ings to Villa is wonderfully old fashioned. No saga, no noise, just… bang - there it is on Ceefax.
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It’s so interesting to hear a player talk about a teammate like this.
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Someone somewhere is presumably complaining about “North Macedonia celebrating like they’ve won the Champions League”.
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Dean Smith becoming the first coach to take charge of successive Premier League matches against the same opponent is going to make for a sensational pub quiz question in ten years.
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8 years at Tifo is coming to an end. Wonderful times. But i’m going to work as The Athletic’s German football correspondent from now on.
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A really good way of attracting young people to football might be to ensure that they can afford to actually go. Maybe try knocking a few £££s off ticket prices first?.
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This has been one of my consistent moans over the years, so hopefully it doesn’t come across as sour… but stoppages that occur in stoppage time need to result in time added on.
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Being unable to field the team you want isn’t the same as being unable to field a team. The PL has made such a mess - and expect this to happen a lot more now.
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Nothing but love for Denmark. What they did at this tournament deserves so much admiration.
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Harry Kane will likely be the only England player who started the Euro2020 final not to feature this weekend, so holiday/rest doesn’t really cut it as a justification.
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That’s what football is all about: standing around in baffled silence, waiting to find out whether a rule may or may not be correctly applied. I’ll never forget where I was!.
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This is utterly bizarre. But it's football, so it's all completely normal.
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Not thinking that Mason Mount is a really, really good player is an incredible position to take.
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Think that’s a perfect Tottenham win in a weird way - it shows all the problems that need solving, but without dropping points in the process.
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Can’t think of a better series of World Cup performances than Sofyan Amrabat’s last three games. He’s been extraordinary.
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If you pay £14.95 today, you’ll be paying more tomorrow. Like replica shirts, like tickets, like tv subscriptions, like absolutely everything else in football.
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Tottenham can just about cope without Romero, but take Bentancur out of the team at the same time and the drop in passing quality is hard to ignore.
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Marko Arnautovic’s boots, commemorating his zero goals, zero appearances contribution to Inter’s European Cup win.
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This will be used against Klopp again and again. In any game in which an opponent suffers an injustice, the other coach will ask for a replay.
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The Juventus board resigned when this first came out. In November. Spurs blindsided in March.
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Two types of PL fans in this world: those who know that Luton will beat their team 1-0 at Kenilworth Road next season, and those who assume they’ll win 5-0.
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Stat from UEFA: Richarlison ran 12.15km tonight, more than any other player and a km more than any other Spurs forward.
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Quite strange not to punish a PL head-coach for angrily confronting a referee after a game and then questioning that official's integrity on TV.
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It’s so strange to be proud of this kind of ignorance.
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It’s very, very sly. English football is on its knees, and a couple of the wealthiest clubs are teasing rescue cash in exchange for unimpeachable primacy at the top of the game.
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I make that Richarlison’s best game for Tottenham. Everything he did was at a really high level. Defensively, too.
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Here’s Jon explaining how Barcelona are still able to buy players.
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What a waste, though. All the good achieved at Brighton tossed away for that.
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Steven Bergwijn leaves Tottenham with an amazing moments-to-minutes ratio.
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Kieran Trippier, La Liga champion. That's one of those cool stories that football throws up every now and again.
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This isn’t tactics or team-selection. It’s what happens when you give footballers an excuse not to show up.
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Ron Atkinson on MUTV, discussing United's form: "It's the K word, isn't it - confidence.".
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If you’re not going to outspend your rivals, which Tottenham aren’t, then you can’t just waste six months of a season waiting for a disinterested coach to leave.
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Is Wenger Out still a thing and, if so, where can I join?.
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Tottenham should release that video again in which Daniel Levy talks incredulously about receiving criticism.
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I do miss the calm neutrality of co-commentators. It feels like it’s a thing now to have that fan dynamic and it’s… I don’t know, not really for me.
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PSG are the “Kendall Roy’s birthday party of football clubs”. @larssivertsen, on Guardian FW.
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Understand why Chelsea sponsors will now consider jumping ship or act like they’re thinking about it, but what did they think they were aligning their brands with before?.
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That was so badly officiated that it’s difficult to even enjoy a win. An absolute circus - and Brighton’s non-penalty in the second half was as bad a decision as I’ve seen this season.
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The impending clash between ten Hag’s attention to detail and a group of Manchester United players who think that they’re better than they really are is going to be… draining.
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He was entitled to take them down. I know football doesn’t work like that, but it’s true.
BREAKING | Burnley have sacked manager Sean Dyche, The Athletic understands. More from @adjones_journo & @David_Ornstein.
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Kane sent a group message to the Tottenham squad to say goodbye, but he’s planning on coming back in the next weeks to see players and members of staff.
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Right-back at Tottenham has arguably been among the worst recruited positions in the Premier League over the past five years. The wastage has been extraordinary.
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Spurs have got ten days to find someone who can pass a football forwards. Have to do it. Have to.
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When Pochettino’s full-backs used to get the ball, you could feel the pace of Tottenham’s football increase. When Conte’s wing-backs receive it, they drop down a gear.
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I’m a Tottenham fan who lives in Hamburg and who is about to take a train to Dortmund. It feels like I’m about to complete some perfect triangle of footballing misery.
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And this one. Mauricio Pochettino looking out from his technical area, Spurs-Palace, 2016.
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Pochettino also asked whether he’ll be supporting Arsenal against City tomorrow. “No. Why? Never.”.
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I'd say. a couple of Pochettino's players should be particularly ashamed of themselves in light of that.
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Don’t think I’ve ever heard a manager be praised as much in the aftermath of a 5-0 defeat as Frank Lampard has been.
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Just cannot get on board with treating one of your own players like that.
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To give him his dues, Fraser Forster’s spell was the best run of backup goalkeeping Spurs have had in years.
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Antonio Conte's rescaling of achievement might be his most annoying habit at Spurs. No doubt expectation in football needs management, but he makes everything sound so difficult that it's a wonder that the team bus even makes it to away games.
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Telling fans to 'get behind their manager' when they have legitimate issues with their club's ownership is like telling them to know their place. It's really, really patronising.
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The “should have sold Harry Kane for X” argument only works with the assumption that Tottenham are actually good at recruitment. Otherwise it was just an opportunity to lose a prolific goal scorer and waste a lot of money on players who aren’t as talented.
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There’s something unjust about the cameras panning around the Barca players and a coach who’s about to get sacked, while the real architects of that result get to cringe in private.
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Daniel Levy's out of moves at Tottenham. There's just no faith or credibility left and there doesn't even seem to be any ownership of the past few years and the many, many bad decisions made.
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Moussa Sissoko is one of few players who won me round. There was a real spirit to the way be fought for his career at Tottenham and that was something to admire - and rare, too.
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Pancho Arena, home of Puskas Akademia and adjacent to Viktor Orban’s childhood village, might be the most decadent 3,800 capacity stadium ever conceived.
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So, so much heart in that Tottenham performance. What a tonic after all that nonsense.
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So many of these Tottenham players need to go. They don’t even need replacing, they just have to be sent somewhere else.
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That month of not hearing anything from Jose Mourinho was pretty great.
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Really had some great times watching Dele Alli play for Tottenham. And even deep within his malaise, there wasn't another player at the club who could have tucked that pass around the corner for Lucas' hat-trick goal in Amsterdam.
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If Christian Eriksen wants to play again, then I’d want Tottenham to be the kind of club to help him with that ambition in whatever way they can.
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This is probably why it's time up for the current decision-makers at Tottenham. They should be offering one of the more attractive jobs in Europe and nobody seems to want it - and that's probably not about the stadium, the PL or the playing squad.
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Mauricio Pochettino would make an amazing Borussia Dortmund coach. Not sure it's quite right financially, but as a personality he'd be ideal.
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It’s ridiculous that a Kane-less, midfield-less Tottenham knocked this City team out of the Champions League. It seems like some absurd fever dream now.
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I don't think I've ever watched as much Premier League football as I have this season and yet I can barely recall any of it.
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Steve Bruce has to learn to do something else with that group of players. From the moment they took they lead, Newcastle were just waiting to lose - and against a really fragile opponent.
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What a horrible, spiteful game Leeds against Everton is. It’s fantastic.
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Jack Grealish has been covered by others, but I do find England’s lack of curiosity quite hard to understand. He’s continually asked to ‘prove’ himself in ways that other players aren’t.
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From the league that tried to bring you £15.99 pay-per-view games, here come the postponements two hours before kick-off.
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Dier is also, you know, pushed in the back and fouled prior to the handball. If only we’d spent 6 minutes instead of 5 poring over that footage.
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If Man United don’t make a coaching change now, then what are they really waiting for? This isn’t a process, just a never-ending boom and bust cycle which has reached a new low.
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An absolute Draxler of a decision.
💥 Excl. News #Asensio: Understand he’s on verge to join Paris on free deal. It’s almost a DONE DEAL. #PSG. ➡️ Advanced negotiations now.➡️ He will sign a contract at least until 2027. @SkySportDE 🇪🇸
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Conte should go today really. His points aren’t without merit, but his performance doesn’t really entitle him to make them.
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Think the PL need to be a little clearer on what warrants postponement, because otherwise lobbying to have games called off when key players are injured/suspended is just going to become a semi-regular part of the weekend.
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Kulusevski is a gem of a player, though. Quite similar in dynamic to the effect that Bale had on AVB’s team in the sense that his were always the most dynamic and destructive touches, and without them the football would be really bland.
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Isn’t the stadium shiny, though. Doesn’t it look lovely in the sun.
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Tottenham’s capacity to do that kind of thing early in important games is amazing. Genuinely amazing.
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The decline in Tottenham’s fitness over the past few years has been alarming. 59 minutes, everyone knackered.
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That’s what process looks like for Tottenham. You can see the flaws and the areas that need investment, but there’s actually an idea to this team.
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It's quite silly that a week has now passed since Conte's post-Southampton moment and Tottenham are still yet to clarify his future.
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Passing! Shape! Attacking! Shots! Goalkeeping! Football!.
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I reckon Mourinho *might* have been right not to open up against this Liverpool team.
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