Chelsea have bad case of ‘gout’ while Liverpool are signing ‘flying pork barrel’ again
Chelsea have a rich manâs disease while Liverpool have made an astute signing that smells of Shaqiri.
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Chelsea have gout
I have experienced the effects of gout on four separate occasions. Gout is an affliction of oneâs own causing, and in my case, I caused it well. Liquid breakfasts, lunches, and dinners have been speedily inhaled. The pink, tender flesh of a variety of Godâs greatest creations was endlessly devoured. An aversion to any type of heart-rate-spiking activity not induced by ingesting another of Godâs greatest creations has left your pal swollen and sore. And without a hint of sympathy. Quite right too.
Throughout English history, gout has been a sign of success â a sign of richness, both financially and dietary. Gout was an indication of nobility and grandeur. Poor people couldnât afford gout. If you had a complete range of motion during the 1700s, you were a nobody.
I embraced gout. I knew the risks, and I lived the rewards. I wore it as a badge of honor, proudly refusing socks no matter the season to flash a bulbous ankle at any potential nubile conquest on a momentâs notice. Much in the same way, a man of higher insecurity and lower class might casually roll up a sleeve to subtly reveal his hidden gold Rolex.
Any good medical man will tell you that the type of sustenance that begets gout, like some twisted photosynthesis, is not required for the body to operate at optimum levels. Gone are the days we insisted meat must be consumed daily to remain in fighting shape. Certain modern-day hippy quacks will even swear a morning gin routine is bad for you now (make up your minds!). But gout is about excess. Too much of a good thing will render you limping and hobbling down a slow, painful road of existence like an elderly duck, before finally buckling under the pressure imposed from within like a stuffed Moulard.
Gout has set in at Stamford Bridge.
It is unmistakable. Dish after dish of rich, unnecessary cuisine is being flown in almost daily from all corners of the globe, with no expense spared.
âI feel like Portuguese today.â
âHave you tried the Felix, sir?â
âYes, once. It danced briefly on the palette before ultimately under-whelming.â
âItâll be better this time sir, I promise. We have a new chef.â
âVery wellâ.
The struggling blue leather belt wrapped snugly underneath the hulking waistline of Stamford Bridge is now succumbing to the need for a few extra courtesy notches to be chiselled out.
âIâll take the centre-back and another left forward. Hold the striker.â
This era of carefree gluttony has been laid out by its hungriest dinerâa 220-pound flank steak of a man raised on the affluent suburban plains of Bethesda, Maryland. Everybodyâs favourite, Todd Boehly.
Some of the courses served up to Big Loud Todd this year have seemed ludicrously unnecessary, even for him. A dessert from Leicester?
As is usually the case with gout, itâs not all gravy. Sure, some putrid pleb might be impressed with the flagrant obscenity on display (cash flashing is all the rage these days), but all that spending and all that eating will catch up to BLT one day. And there are signs that day is already upon us.
The bloated gut of a 43-man squad has pushed Toddy Bâs creaking belt to its dicey limit. Players are spilling out over the edge, violently firing the buttons from his hand-tailored, six-hundred-dollar shirts across the room like a bar shootout in a Western. And think of the heart! Lads born in blue, worthy of a testimonial at twenty-one, are being ripped from the Clubâs chest without a second thought. Left ventricle? Shanât be needing you! Adios, tricuspid valve! Iâm sure Connor Gallagherâs new Mediterranean diet will be better for him in the long run anyway.
Even now, with the familiar steel kitchen doors closing on another transfer window dinner service, Boehly is still perusing the Petit fours.
âIâve never had a Sancho beforeâŠâ
But there is hope. Gout does not have to be permanent. Make the required nutritional alterations to intake a gentlemanly two and a half thousand calories a day (two thousand for all you greedy gals out there), holster the sauce, and in only a few days, improvements are noticeable. Hell, even during my most savage bouts, a few weeks of clean living had me skipping like a schoolboy once again.
But itâs a choice. Itâs in your own hands. If you donât want gout, you can be rid of it and live a painless, healthy life again. But if you canât help but dip that greasy claw back into the cookie jar one more time, be prepared for a life of kidney failure, heart attacks, and strokes. And thatâs before you even consider the poor brain. Depressionâs unwelcome icy shoulder tap is never far behind, while chronic stress and anxiety can leave you a whimpering ghost, foetally curled in a rarely checked, dark corner, questioning the simplest of your own thoughts.
âMaybe we really did need Mike Penders.â
And donât get me started on the open sores.
Thatâs the decision our friend Todd has to make. Itâs not too late. Trim the fat, shed a few pounds, fix the heart, and we all live a long and happy life together. However, as Monty Python so memorably demonstrated in The Meaning of Life, some greedy men will always find room for one more after-dinner mint. After all, itâs only wafer-thin.
Matt and Hunter
TRANSFER FEATURES FROM F365:
đ What every Premier League club must do before Fridayâs transfer deadline
đ Predicting ten players Premier League clubs will regret selling this summer
đ Five Prem transfers to save deadline day include Man Utd signing No.6, Branthwaite to Liverpool
Maresca courting trouble
Marescaâs nauseating servility to his Clearlake overlords may end up hurting them in court.
Heâs said: âAll the players who in this moment are training apart will NOT get any minutes in case they stayâ.
A barrister would argue this is a threat. That regardless of how severe a putative injury crisis may come, no bomb squad player would ever play, even if technically needed, in retaliation for having remained on the payroll.
Not clear yet how much of a tactical genius this âalmost-Pepâ is, but law school material he ainât.
Radu Tomescu, Taiwan
Chiesa = The Flying Pork Barrel
With his pedigree, Chiesa could easily have the same impact and allow some rotation/injury filling at Pool. Or even the equivalent of what Trossard is doing for the Gunners right now. It would also give Liverpool a back-up front three of Gakpo, Nunez and Chiesa. That ainât too damn shabby.
And if it fails completely and utterly? 12mil is literally nothing in the game these days. Citeh spent 100mil of the then-Queens finest pounds on Grealish who doesnât get a game for club or country 2 years laterâŠ..so yea, this one is worth the gamble compadres.
Patricio Del Toro
âŠCanât lie, wouldâve been made up if Anthony Gordon had done a Melwood lean (well, AXA lean nowâŠ) last month after giving the dirty PIF Toon a shimmy and the slip.
But if Iâm even remotely circumspect about our transfer dealings (and you can be sure Michael Edwards et al absolutely are), it wouldnât be reaching to say that Chiesa in and at a tidy ÂŁ11M snip is cool, shrewd business. Liverpool are somewhat left wing-heavy in terms of the squad so to have someone who can now legitimately deputize in spells for a certain Egyptian makes the most basic of sense.
To me, this is a seemingly Shaqiri-like signing in terms of fee, optics and pedigree, and I believe Chiesa goes on to fashion a similar impact on Merseyside, which means exciting and occasionally game-changing substitute appearances between cup starts and perhaps the full 90 against some of the leagueâs lesser lights. Of course further injuries are the risk, but Mbappe could snap one tomorrow couldnât he.
As it is, the Italian should be one of the first names off the bench with an eye to saving Salahâs legs, while injecting his own quality and hopefully resurrecting some of his form of years past. Itâs low key. Itâs logical. I quite like it.
Eric, Los Angeles CA (That big Georgian goalkeeper incoming isnât too shabby either. This Means More gets derided sometimes but maybe the clubâs true tagline should be Consistently Doing More With Less. Thatâs a belter, you love it.)
Chiesa: A poem
Off to Liverpool, Chiesa went,
From Juve, 10 million pounds spent,
But the Kop may recall,
Joe Coleâs rapid fall,
And soon all this hype will relent.
Oliver, London
Darwinâs Law
Confirmation that Darwin Nunez will only get an international 5 game ban for the crowd fight when with Uruguay, and Tottenhamâs Rodrigo Bentancur only a four-game ban. Seemingly mitigation given because there was a genuine threat to the safety of their families, who were attacked. (that, and that half the Uruguay side seemingly stormed the stands, so any substantial ban could have risked the entirety of their national team).
But bloody hell, I was expecting a lot longer; Something akin to Cantonaâs season in the stands after Crystal Palace. I wonder if LFC were too, in that Slot has focussed on Jota to date.
Letâs hope Darwin emerges from this properly focussed, and hopefully tactically up to speed with what Slot wants. With his deleting his socials and the strop with Jurgen, Iâd feared he was off and that would have been a great shame. He may never be the star striker LFC hoped, but heâs absolutely proved quality enough to get 20+ starts a year for a top side, as well as being a more than effective agent of chaos from the bench.
There are players you just get an irrational fondness for, and Darwin is one for me, alongside Sturridge and Vlad Smicer. I think their smiling has no small part in that. If Darwin has the same impact Smicer did for LFC, iâd be okay with that. Get your head down and learn Darwin; You could be a game changer during the winter fixture congestion.
Tom G
Signals are just things you want to see
I enjoyed the mail from Minty, LFC about Cityâs upcoming â115 chargesâ hearing. Seeing as the hearing hasnât taken place yet, I think Mintyâs belief âthere are definitely signals that give you a sense for what the outcome might beâ, are more âwhat Minty hopes will happenâ rather than a portent of what will be.
As for Richard Masters not being at the Etihad in May being significant, well Mr Masters wonât be deciding the outcome, an independent committee will. So thatâs about as relevant as me seeing Cityâs board members smiling at the Gundogan press conference and concluding that itâs a definite signal that City will win the case.
And as for drawing parallels with what happened to Forest, yes, Minty is (in his own words) speculating, because the two cases are entirely unrelated. And Iâd like to remind Minty (again) that the Premier League wonât be deciding the outcome.
Minty also appears to be confusing âLord Pannickâs desperate last throw of the diceâ with Cityâs stance on another entirely unrelated case, the one regarding the new APT rules. (Unless of course Minty has found Lord Pannickâs case notes that were negligently left on the bus, in which case heâs right and Iâm wrong).
Finally, wanting to know why if City ARENâT guilty then why arenât they demonstrating their innocence, well from what I can gather the plan is to do exactly that in front of the independent committee, âŠwhen the case is actually being heard. Like they did at the CAS hearing.
But other than thatâŠyes, âdefinite signalsâ.
Michael The Bert
Bruno blasphemy
Just read Matt and Hunterâs mail on phasing out Fernandes. Bruh?!? That is the most ridiculous load of guff Iâve ever seen. Perhaps if we had a much more competent midfield and oh an actual player who puts the ball constantly into the net (I heard they call them âstrikersâ) then creativity and spark (chiefly orchestrated by the guy you are suggesting we phase out) wouldnât be at its lowest ebb.
To think this team would work better without Fernandes is blasphemy, Mason Mount (lovely fella and workhorse) is not who we need right now. Just another good player in the wrong place/ time (think Fabregas at Barca). What we do need is a striker who wonât constantly get tweaked (twanged?) and wonât put his body in the wrong place at the right time (think Nani f***ing up that Ronaldo goal), a defensive midfielder (thank the gods Ugarte is signing) and a central defender who is not another Maguire impressionist or 2nd to Eric f***ing Dier. Letâs save the crazy talk for when we beat Liverpool this weekend.
Philip, Lagos (Long time F365 reader since they had the La Liga section called âSpanish thingâ)
TRANSFER FEATURES FROM F365:
đ What every Premier League club must do before Fridayâs transfer deadline
đ Predicting ten players Premier League clubs will regret selling this summer
đ Five Prem transfers to save deadline day include Man Utd signing No.6, Branthwaite to Liverpool
