African Nations Cup

I love a good technicality but **** me that's embarrassing.

 

Considering his history of kicking off and playing the jester when he doesn't get his way, we would have to be strategically retardded to even entertain a single thought of exploiting this loophole, if it has indeed been presented to us.

Oh......

 

Fark me, just how desperate have things become behind the scenes?

They clearly feel like he's 100% off in the summer and they don't care what he thinks.

It feels like everything is imploding

 

Let’s not stretch the imagination here. That’s a big assumption.

I’d say it’s clearer that we well aware that he’s our talisman, more so without Sarr, and have no viable replacement whatsoever - so are floundering and throwing all options around despite the level of ridiculousness.

No chance Dennis stays. The club just know they will need to spend money and can’t get away with Fletcher for a month. All comes back to the dreadful summer squad-build.

 

Hopefully we agree with Nigeria to drop the dispute in exchange for him joining the squad late after the rearranged match (which I think will be midweek next week). It seems wrong to deny him the opportunity to represent his country at a major tournament.

 

What rearranged match?

 

Not announced yet but some of the FPL accounts on Twitter who track fixture rearrangements v seriously think there is a good chance that one of our postponed games will be rearranged for next week.

 

I doubt Nigeria owe us anything. They are already delaying African players departure due to a goodwill agreement. Doubt there’s anymore juice to be squeezed. It’s desperation and nothing more and I’d laugh us out of court.

 

It won’t be. I imagine local authorities will need far more notice.

 

You’d think. But I think the PL has shown itself to be not particularly concerned with notice of late. There will be matches next week (given the fact that some of the teams with rearranged matches don’t have many midweeks left due to the EFL Cup or Europe there have to be). Hard to say whether our matches will be among them.

 

PL might not be bothered. But the police and health authorities will be and I don’t think you can circumnavigate that. There won’t a game next week that we don’t know about.

 

You may be right. But I suspect that the authorities’ usual baselines around notice will have to be a little more flexible than usual given the volume of postponements.

 

The Athletic, in their article 'Explained: How and when the Premier League will reschedule its postponed fixtures' seem to believe that they will primarily be played in two midweek slots that occur in April and May.



Aside from that, it will come down to midweek slots opening up from the about two weeks onwards as teams drop out of their various cup and European competitions.



We, of course, have an FA cup third-round match-up we're almost certain to lose on January 8th.

 

Don’t forget that most of the country, including many working in police, health and local authorities, will be on holiday until next Tuesday. Not sure the necessary decision-making processes will be in place.

 

Is he "clearly excited" ?! How do you know?

It didn't seem much of a big deal that they refused to call him up before.

 

Agreed , In the interview on hive live a few weeks ago he looked completely ‘unbothered’ about playing for Nigeria. They may have changed but it’s possible he’s not that fussed and would rather focus on his club career .

 

Call me crazy but I have a feeling Emmanuel would like to play for his country.

 

Not even him m8. Who is Dennis Blessed? Never heard of him. Is he relayed to Brian? Also he says ‘proud’ and that doesn’t mean excited. Also that looks like an Eagle which clearly means Will Hughes has got to him.

 

Palace at home next Wednesday 5th has come up in my wallet today - I thought Spurs was next but …….

 

Jesus, so that will in fact be without Dennis and Louza for a start - another guaranteed loss, given there's no chance we'll get players in and ready to play on time that early in the window, even if we do end up miraculously having the required best Pozzo window ever™️.

 

Maybe clever thinking by Duxbury - forfeit the spuds game taking a 3-0 loss and play palace behind closed doors to avoid more covid issues and make the players think it’s a training session so they play without pressure

 

Sorry, where are these bits coming from?!

 

Wishful thinking on my part as not looking forward to either game atm

 

So? He's probably obliged to say that.

 

Blessed is his replacement signed from a Belgian 3rd division club. He’s not going to play for us, we’re just going to send him to Nigeria as Dennis’ doppelgänger. Meanwhile a youth player called John Smith will make some impressive performances for the first team throughout January before inexplicably retiring from professional football.

 

Obliged by what/who?

 

Even if he felt differently he's not going to publicly tweet "it's a bit annoying to be called up to by the national team" now is he?

 

So why tweet anything then?

 

Imagine playing for his country is a huge deal for him, and probably he'll do his career a world of good going and scoring bucket loads against the dross that he'll come up against till at least the semi finals.

He owes us fark all, and all it will do is sour relations with a country that we seemingly scout in regularly, and have a fair contingent of players from at present.

I do admire the club now going big time with burning bridges. On top of several clubs that won't do business with us domestically and abroad, we're now targeting Football Associations

 

The only possible way this has any benefit for us, or lack of downside, is if Dennis secretly absolutely hates the idea of playing for Nigeria, considers it a massive chore, and actively wants us to play the bad guy to block him from going; something he will reward us with by scoring double his usual hatful over the period he would otherwise have been enjoying international glory.

Any other scenario, even if it's just 'now I've been called up it's a new opportunity I have to explore/nice to get recognition from my country' would mean that he is varying degrees of pissed off and quite likely misbehaving/underperforming as a result of our silly little games. From his interviews and appearances in club-related media so far, he doesn't seem incredibly like the kind of person to take that well to being told what to do at all, at any point, to be perfectly honest.

Any attempt to pretend otherwise is, frankly, facile.

 

Now with the agreement over players going after NY day, the AFCON may not be quite so much of an issue. I think we'll only be without players for a couple of games. Unfortunately for us, these are Newcastle and Norwich. Two games we cannot afford to lose. Probably will have to win them both.

I've looked up Nigeria's fixtures and their last group match is 19th January. If agent Troost-Ekong continues his Watford form for Nigeria, they could well be out of the competition by then.

Players could potentially be back in time for the match against Norwich, but I admit that's extremely optimistic.

However, unless some of those rearranged fixtures are made during AFCON, and I would hope the EPL will be sympathetic to rearrangements while AFCON is on, I think we might be ok.