Conference League is a place where dreams are realised. So many of football's best stories come outside of the elite. This is incredible for Olympiacos, but this competition has become something very very special already. It matters.
This is really horrid. Not only is it relatively common knowledge that Jadon Sancho was at a funeral today, but also even if he doesn’t know that, taking your frustrations on losing a game out by lashing out at a 21-year-old who didn’t play is incredibly weird behaviour.
🗣 Thomas Frank: “They [
#mufc
] didn't have a chance before their first goal. That's why they pay £72 million for Sancho who wasn't in the team.” [BT Sport]
What a story for Aleksandar Mitrovic 🇷🇸
12 months ago he missed the penalty that meant Serbia missed out on the EUROs, in a year that he was dropped by Parker for Fulham.
Tonight he scores the goal that sends Serbia to the World Cup, whilst he’s scored 20 in 17 in the league.
Over 19,000 toys were thrown onto the pitch at the Villamarin last night for children who elsewise might not get anything for Christmas.
Every year it grows. It’s one of Betis’ and football’s best traditions. Muy bien, verdiblancos 💚🤍
I don't think I've ever been so firmly in Peter Walton's corner. How on earth are they arguing that it's not a pen? He's knocked it past him and been taken out 😂
No word of a lie, this is one of the most ridiculous atmospheres and frenetic games that I have ever experienced. This place is absolutely electric. It’s a pressure cooker.
HT: Porto 1-2 Sporting
Shouts out the Sunderland fans btw - best we’ve seen at the Cottage in a long while. Lot of movement in the home ends today with lot of people in the Riverside but was an incredible atmosphere down in the Putney End 👏
Can finally tell ya that you’re looking at the new host of UEFA’s
#UELBreakfast
show for the
@EuropaLeague
🔥
A decade ago a kid from West London fell in love with the
#UEL
. Now hosting its newest show. My heart is so full. Chase your dreams. 🧡🖤
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again but this could turn out to be the signing of the summer. Ceballos is the real deal and if he gets regular minutes, he’s going to be a star. Pure silk, ball on a string. Arsenal NEED to have a purchase clause on this one.
Veiga and Rice are very different players but this makes more sense to me for City. Bringing in a player who can thrive in the spaces outside the box, with an excellent ability to strike from range, comfortable on either side of the two 8s, and with a ridiculously high ceiling.
EXCL: Manchester City have entered the race for Spanish talent Gabri Veiga after pulling out of Declan Rice deal. He’s one of the options now being considered at the club. 🚨🔵
#MCFC
Liverpool and Chelsea remain interested but City also informed now.
Release clause: €40m.
If Leicester sign Tielemans and Perez, and keep hold of Ndidi, Ricardo and Chilwell—there’s a very good chance Harry Maguire won’t need to move to Manchester United in order to finish 6th in the Premier League next season. 🤷🏻♂️
When Drake said ‘Playing Danny Rose instead of Ashley Young gives you both a natural left-footer on that side and counters the pace of Juan Cuadrado somewhat’ I felt that.
Been thinking a lot about midfield trios recently and trying to work out what my favourite currently-playing three would be. I’m going:
Frenkie de Jong
Thiago Alcantara
Stefano Sensi
If you don’t respect the Europa League, it won't respect you.
A reminder that in the last 10 years, it has been won 7 times by teams who started in the competition rather than those who drop down from the Champions League.
#UEL
“Football is the most beautiful sport in the world… I messed up, and I paid. But the ball does not stain.” - Diego Armando Maradona
The thin line between genius and madness fascinates us all, but it’s what makes art, what makes greatness. RIP, Genio.
—European Champion
—Scored Winner vs. World’s No. 1 Nation
—Ended Juve’s stranglehold on Serie A
—Serie A Midfielder of the Year
—Serie A Team of the Season
26th. They think there has been 25 players better than Nicolò Barella in 2021.
Mauricio Roberto Pochettino, with his Espanyol tattoo, said he could never manage Barcelona. He’s basically managed to find a loophole, hasn’t he. Fair play.
I think Jay Stansfield is good enough for a Championship loan, but the emotional draw of going back to Exeter and wearing his dad’s old number is so powerful. Must be feeling incredibly proud right now, and so he should be. Feels like the right call. Go well, Stanno. Shine on.
Aleksandar Mitrovic is a joke.
This isn’t just ‘Championship Mitrovic’, this is something different. This is a man finding his peak levels in a system that suits him, with a manager who trusts him, in front of fans who love him.
Aleksandar the Great 🔥
In all of this, I’m constantly amazed by the concept that the Juventus board yesterday watched them lose & fall behind a team in Atalanta who are running a club beautifully on a far tighter budget and thought, ‘what we really need is to lock them out.’
The neck. The audacity.
Am watching Real-Atleti not Chelsea-Everton but amount of Havertz slander on here makes me laugh. 21-year-old in a new culture, after being at the same club since he was 11, and then getting COVID and only now getting back up to speed. Relax 😂
Tears in my eyes. That is absolutely massive, Fulham. Character, class, calm. We hadn’t seen this side come from behind yet, we hadn’t seen them do it without Mitro scoring yet. Now we have. The surge continues. The belief grows. Marco Silva’s Black & White Army x
@sportbible
Fulham have been in the Premier League for 15 of it’s 30 seasons.
For context: Leeds 14, Palace 13, Norwich 10, Burnley 8, Wolves 8, Brighton 5, Brentford 1.
Short. Term. Memories.
Let’s have it right. Fulham are 4 players short, and have come out of this window basically level financially after surviving in March and selling the player the entire system was based around. We might have kept JP, and I’m grateful, but this window has been a shambles at
#FFC
Love Kamara, hate Kamara, like him or loathe him; whether you think he shouldn’t ever play again or should start next game—if you’re racially abusing him you can get absolutely out of this club and don’t look back.
#FFC
Mitrovic has done a silly today, but he’s been’s Fulham’s talisman since he arrived at Craven Cottage and his passion and commitment to the club is unrivalled.
If you think you deserve some sort of apology, give your head a wobble.
I am still just thinking about how good Kenny Tete was tonight. Unsure if just innate bias but I thought I was watching one of the best full-back performances I have seen in a long, long time this evening. Sensational.
Hatate and O’Riley bolstering Ange’s midfield this window for a combined £2.9m is big thinking from Celtic, both short-term impact and long-term value. More smart business out of Parkhead.
Celtic moving close to signing Matt O'Riley from MK Dons for £1.5m. Ex Fulham, very talented player, linked with a number of clubs in the Championship and across Europe. Story here, with
@peterrutzler
:
Also, whisper it quietly (scary) & clearly gone under the radar in the Haaland mayhem (reasonable) but Julian Alvarez could turn into a long-term Premier League great for City. His ability to be in the right place at the right time is uncanny. He's going to score a lot of goals.
This is an unreal signing for Arsenal. Got it all defensively and will put goals on a plate for the front men with those low crosses. Brilliant attitude, natural leader and incredible workrate. Think he has the potential to be as good and as impactful as Andy Robertson has been.
Legend doesn’t do him justice. A model professional, a warrior on pitch, an ambassador off it. Fulham’s heart for almost a decade.
Took the rough with the smooth, bounced back from every setback—through ups, downs and so many CB partners, Ream was the rock.
Thank you,
@timream5
Difficult to put into words how much I love
@joebryan
. Not only did he score one of the most iconic goals in recent Fulham history, but also has spent every moment here with grace, wit and wisdom. Thank you for everything, Sir Joseph. Enjoy the sun-soaked Riviera.
I’m a very happy boy. Mitro off the mark, Fulham playing our own way and it working, Palhinha smashing up stuff in the middle. Go on the boys. Can’t ask for more than that. 🖤🤍
Fulham relegated. Brentford promoted. Chelsea Champions of Europe. Ireland haven’t scored a goal in a calendar year.
Only those who suffer truly learn to love.
“Player welfare. Five subs. Giving players rest.”
All well and good - Pep makes zero subs vs. Fulham at the weekend, and now Klopp plays Salah and Fabinho in a complete dead rubber - Liverpool cannot be topped at the summit of Group D.
Make it make sense.
If Sarri plays CR7 wide left as suggested, then does Dybala get the nod through the middle at Juve?
Be very interesting to see how this pans out. Think Khedira, Mandzukic and Higuain’s days in Turin are numbered.
If you haven’t experienced the lows, you can’t experience the highs. If you’ve never been relegated, you can’t experience what it means to return.
Fulham are back in the big time 🖤🤍
Last November, we sat in the Emirates after Arsenal lost to Frankfurt. Emery was sacked the next day.
If you told us in 9 months they’d be FA Cup winners, and that Auba had signed a new contract, we’d have thought you mad.
Impossible to overstate how good a job Arteta has done.
If he didn’t know, he didn’t know - imagine he will apologise if that’s the case and that will be that. Just think using this example to try and highlight financial discrepancy, where Sancho was replaced by an academy graduate and therefore cost nothing, doesn’t really stand up.
Fernando Santos dropped Cristiano Ronaldo for Gonçalo Ramos and João Cancelo for Raphaël Guerreiro - and was rewarded with a hat-trick from the former, and a goal & assist from the latter. That's an incredible return for the manager.
🚨 POLL O'CLOCK 🚨
Which deadline day move do you want us to discuss on tomorrow's
#BRFootballRanks
?
1) Ante Rebic ➡️ Milan
2) Andre Silva ➡️ Frankfurt
3) Henrikh Mkhitaryan ➡️ Roma
(DW, we'll do all the PSG/Real drama in the main rankings!)
➡️
Last year Portugal leapt France into 5th, this year they're down to 7th. Think it's a good thing for everyone that 🇵🇹 and 🇳🇱 are getting closer and closer to the 'Big 5' - don't think it'll be long before we're realistically calling it the Big 7 in Europe.
It's so nice seeing Fabio Silva thriving again. An absolute monster at youth level for Porto, he's been written off as some sort of 'dodgy Mendes deal' after this Wolves spell, but still firmly believe there's an absolutely brilliant striker in there.
💥 Four goals in five games for Fábio Silva sounds brilliant, but it doesn’t even tell the full story.
𝐀𝐥𝐥 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 (🇧🇪 & 🇪🇺):
2 starts
3 substitute appearances
4 goals
1 assist
A goal every 62.5 mins
A goal contribution every 50 mins
🔥🔥🔥
Eintracht’s run in the knockouts - Real Betis, Barcelona, West Ham, Rangers - is the real deal.
They have beaten the favourites, knocked out the Copa del Rey winners and a truly excellent West Ham side - and then won one of the hardest-fought finals of recent times. Sublime.
Important to remember Lookman’s been our best attacking threat this season by a distance. It’s a fucking terrible penalty, no question, but let’s not kill the lad. He’s already earned more than that and we want him to bounce back. He’ll be devastated.
#FFC
Scotty’s at the wheel,
Tell me how good does it feel?
We’ve got Cairney, KMac and the Twins,
And a total of no away wins.
We won it one time don’t you know,
Intertoto.
It’s genuinely absolutely disgraceful that Fulham have had five away Boxing Day games in a row, just to accommodate Chelsea playing at home. Pure, bare-faced favouritism from the FA. Sort it out.
#FFC
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. This is not ‘Championship’ Mitrovic. This is a man on fire, a man loving fans being back, a man playing to his strengths and on his own terms. Do not doubt him.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Fulham are always a much better side when Bobby is on the pitch. Our best finisher, and an absolute handful. Most underrated player at the club.
My heart broke in 2013. My heart broke in 2019. It broke again tonight.
Even the knowledge it’s coming doesn’t take that pain away - the final embers of hope being extinguished.
And yet, we start anew in August. Back at the Cottage, back on the road, back believing. COYW.