really wish this narrative about BPL clubs not caring about EL would die a quick death, because afaict it's just not true. every time i watch those games (especially key ones / in the KO stage) they're playing ~their best lineup, and losing. again, the only teams i can remember straight up tanking EL are the ones who fluke an entry through the cups and need all hands on deck to fight for their BPL survival.

if the argument is something like "ok, they're playing ~their best players, but they just don't gaf and can't match the motivation of their opponents blah blah blah" then lol whatever.

Some care, some haven't in the past. Care not the right word but weak lineups and not just the ones scrapping. The thing about European competition, ideally it's where you should be looking to play your strongest line up so just blame uefa for creating an incentive weak competition. But there is a case for some % not playing their strongest (or close to it) line ups which =/= don't care but it means it's not a priority. Narrative is usually 100% or 0% but there is a case for a % in between which is true.

Italian clubs and fans said/hinted the same thing for years during their bad times in the EL and yeah it's often played way up compared to reality.

Yeah I just found it as well. Really great reading stuff like this and statsbomb and stuff like that. Such a breath of fresh air from the crappy narrative driven **** that is peddled by, regrettably, the most visible outlets.

Everton threw the kitchen sink at the EL last season, clearly to the detriment of their EPL performance. The stated reasoning was that we worked hard to gain entry to the competition so it would be absurd not to give it our best shot, which was an admirable attitude if slightly dishonest. Bottom line is a club like Everton is ideal for the Europa, as they're never getting relegated but they're also never seriously competing for a CL place either (sure, Everton have actually competed for CL places occasionally in recent years but it's never considered a realistic target), ergo there's very little to lose and a potentially huge upside to gambling a good deal of player / team resources on the EL.

Few English clubs that qualify for the EL will be as perfectly placed as Everton were last season to take a serious shot at it in the knowledge that it will cost them a significant amount of EV in the league.

icentive weak for english clubs, so like 5% of the competition.

(I know that's not really the point here, but the general english belief that everyone in europe thinks that EL should go annoys me)

Seen you guys earlier in the week discussing smart phones. Have no idea what is +ev here. Is it a fish move to get the Samsung Galaxy 6 on 2 year contract with 3gb data for £31 a month? I'm a total ass with phones working out what is best value.

I was seriously considering buying the Red Mi Note from China for £100. Great specs and good reviews.

Thanks.

Am already paying o2 £25 a month just couldn't be arsed changing.

EDIT been recommended giffgaf £20 a month all inclusive. I think I'll just go Chinese.

If you buy a phone on contract, you pay more for it throughout the term of the contract.

It's how phone companies make extra money. £31 x 24 = 744 - I can't see that deal on o2? I can see £41 for 3gb which is a further £240...

If you're sticking with o2 - personally i find their internet rubbish which is key for me - you can get 4gb of data with giff gaff for £15 a month, tesco do 3gb with more minutes for £15 a month too. Depending on how much you use you could get a cheaper one still.

VM who piggy back from EE do £12 contracts for 2gb so it really depends on what you need.

Phone is £350, brand new unlocked.

£15 x 24 = £360 = £710 total, so although not greatly cheaper it's better.

A) You can upgrade when ever you want, so you can go out and get that lovely iphone 6s
B) Traveling is easier as you can use local sim cards as your phone is unlocked.
C) You can chop and change your contract to suit your needs.

my very limited knowledge. Go with the Chinese phone. The $$ difference to buy a well known brand which just has a tiny bit better build quality is not worth it (it is noticeable when you first use it, but really isnt worth the 400£ extra and you get used to it). Whether its the latest iphone or xperia or samsung Galaxy, theyre all pretty much the same and those smaller asian market phones can also offer the same specs for 1/4 of the price (onePlus is alright aswell, . same with ecoo, same with your red Mi Note phone probs. OnePlus two coming out soon).

Decent thing about my phone (ecoo) was that it could take two sim cards. One philippines sim and english sim card which i quite liked

Oh one last thing, if you buy chinese phone, tell them to wrap it up as a gift item. Otherwise there is a £20 import charge which you will have to pay when it gets delivered to your door

Some teams start caring once they actually progress in the tourney, but its just a fact that the majority of teams have put out no marks at the early stages and dont GAF if they get knocked out. If those teams somehow scrape through to the point where there is some actual serious cup ev, they do start to care more.

Upto now, with a few exceptions the narrative has been totally and completely true. Spursday night football has been full of who hell he squads put out by EPL teams.

Cheers Burns. Think I will go for the Chinese one and get a giffgaf sim rather than getting tied into a contract.

dunno if real but wouldnt surprise me given that consty's mole knows the team about 2 days in advance

no tekkers, milner, clyne, skrtel, lovren, lucas

So, who's favourite for the 3rd place trophy this year?

Pretty sure I linked that very same article last year, too.

any brand/model you recommend? going to buy a new one this week

lol so the bandit/oafk coalition of lolbrit slappies is doubling down and slapping both ends now

what financial advantages did athletic bilbao have when they played man utd off the park under bielsa and what massive financial advantages does sevilla enjoy over spurs/pool when they won UEFA cup again?

sevilla fans winning UEFA Cup 2x got to enjoy intense matches, emotions of being a fan, winning over adversity and a team that plays hard and well, with technical but also strong players and mostly, GLORY. btvditw fans got to what, laugh at how bad other btvditw clubs are every week?

yea. as a blitw fan you can be fairly confident that every week will present a new and exciting opportunity to take the piss out of a group of over-entitled self-aggrandizing wankers as they watch their team get torpedoed yet again by ~stoke. tblitw generates a niagara of delusion and paranoia in its resident GHWs as they scramble to blame the refs/biased media/corrupt FA for yet another dismal performance

in the other leagues the GHWs always win. how does an FC bratwürst fan take the piss out of a buyern GHW? he can't. must be unbearable

cliffs: claude videos > sevilla's dynamic interbranching decision-nodules

No wonder Liverpool don't do well if the team is being forced to stay at Novotel :/

Samsung actually does have quite a big spec advantage over most other android phones, IMO. The processor used in the S6 is the exynos 7420, which is one of the best mobile phone processors you'll find on the market. It is markedly better than the snapdragon processors you'll find in other devices in the same class.
One caveat to that statement, I have yet to use the LG G4 with the Snapdragon 808 hexacore processor, so I can't really say much about that one in particular. Initial reviews that I've read, however, say that the G4 is still prone to the same lag that makes it very hard to use the LG G3 as a daily/work phone. Benchmarks don't look great either, but I have no personal experience with it, so take it for what it's worth.

Cliffs: The S6 (although I am not keen on the edge for design reasons) is a tremendous phone and (probably) the best android phone on the market right now.

i mean in the last few years i've seen football threads turn into accounting threads and knock-off wannabe football club but 100% authentic money-spinning time waster arsenal fans variously adopt moral high grounds and now ive seen spursfan brag about SUFFERING A MINOR FINANCIAL LOSS ON MANY MANY DUD PLAYERS

like i really dont give a f that berlusconi made or lost money cos f him, when i hunted glory i didnt even know who he was and i certainly dont give any flying trees whether laporta or gaspart or bartomeau or that guy that did the funny business with neymardad gets on with socios or having anti-madrid rah rah rah. afaik they all skinny hairy blokes in paella stalls

im down in australia most of the time and i just about elbowed a teammate in the temple for sprouting off about scousers and mancs whatnot ghw nonsense. tho i do sorta respect the seriously anorak adult males like this city fan in full kit i saw getting a packet of smokes @ 7/11. like full on photo-worthy - shirt with club jacket in shorts, says he goes back every year and never missed watching a game for like 8 years

yeah seriously it must be pretty awesome to be a Sevilla fan.

Your club has developed some amazing national team players that eventually you had to sell to bigger clubs. But you have won a sick amount of trophies, watched some great football, saw some real quality players make their break into the big time, and you still reload with characters like Ever Banega, Kony, etc. Plus the weather.

Supporting Sevilla must be 1000x more fun than supporting Spurs or Plop.

Cool story bro, but wtf has this got to do with the fact that EPL teams on the whole giving a low priority to the Lolropa cup? I never attached any value statements to that btw. I never said it was a good or bad thing, I also never went close to any arguments about finance etc.

Yes there have been exceptions, I even support the most recent EPL club to win it btw. On the whole though EPL clubs have not cared that much about Europa with care increasing if cup EV is approached.

Anyone denying this is the slappy, that you are so quick to let fly with the insults once again demonstrating you have the intellectual capacity of dog vomit.

i dont really want to recommend a specific phone as i dont have enough knowledge about it all. (and incase you dont like it when it arrives, ill feel bad). I just pick up small things from my brothers who went from being phone nits of always having to have the best phones on the market, to suddenly trying these cheaper phones from foreign markets.

second cliffs: For the average user (which im guessing you all are given you dont know that much about phones)...the difference will be negligible to your eyes. imo. But if youre nitty with this type of stuff and really care and money not really an issue, then heh sounds like he knows what hes talking about and prob should go with gs6

i should add that on my previous post i said "same specs", i should have said those asian markets can offer similar specs.



edit: You should look into this phone which is comming out soon. will be £230

https://oneplus.net/2

Lurker popping in, but I cannot recommend the Vodafone Smart Ultra 6 enough. It's a more budget option at £125 (locked to Vodafone but you can unlock it online for £4), but most people don't use the extra power all that much, and it is a hell of a lot of phone for your money.

Obv it won't stand up to the Samsung for brute power, but at £200 less I'd make sure you really think you need that extra power. I've found it great for everything I need, but I'm not a super heavy phone gamer (mainly just Hearthstone and Football Manager, both of which run fine).

Bloobird