Grapeviney

Messi's penalty hit was poor, didn't look at all confident on the approach. Great effort from the Icelanders, but can't help but feel like we also deserved a point today. Agree with Fos that there was one camera angle which showed we got a touch on the ball on the French penalty, and agree with others that the hand-ball could easily have been a red. VAR aside, thought we played pretty well after a nervy start and should approach the remaining group games with confidence. Very jealous of you @Diamond_Jim - the Aussie support looked and sounded strong!!

Hard not to feel sorry for Karius.. How do you recover from that? It’s not like anyone’s ever going to give him a chance to redeem himself. I also get sad when they show the kids in the crowd at the end, tears running down their faces. Reminds me of me in ‘88, with red and blue face paint running down my face and all over my clothes.

The quarter-by-quarter scores from all 12 premierships, pictures of the 10 greatest MFC marks and goals, and the names of every player who played more than 100 games for the club, along with their signatures. Usual logo stuff.

W0o0-h0o0 !! Great comeback away from home after another sleepy, sloppy start. Spurs will need to be on guard against Juve doing the classic Italian 1-0 smash-and-grab job in the return fixture, but as you say, the away goals puts them in the box seat. With the league titles wrapped up in all the 5 major Euro leagues except Italy and maybe Spain, the remaining CL matches this round and beyond are all the more enticing, and I'll definitely be tuning into to RM v PSG tomorrow morning. Also interesting to read today that there's been a slump in broadcast revenue in EPL rights in the UK, following years of massive increases. Didn't realise that British broadcasters are only allowed to show 200 of the 380 games live, a restriction apparently aimed at maintaining high attendances at the grounds.

Spurs should have had a bagful, Macca, they botched plenty of gimmes, but Arsenal never looked threatening. In fact, they looked disinterested most of the time. Champions League returns this week, with plenty of good fixtures as highlighted in one of your earlier posts. I’m quietly confident about Spurs’ trip to Turin.

Jimmy? No-one called him that. Pretty sure it was Jimbo, or if not that, Cooky.

I haven't read the Wolff book, nut, but I came to exactly the same conclusion you did about sources / facts / quotes / opinion from reading the extract at the time of its release. There is a real art to that style of 'reportage' (if you could call it that) - creating something out of nothing and making it seem solid - but it leaves the door wide open for criticism about accuracy and truth, and also leads to questions about motive and bias. Also agree about the Broome book - a pretty good historical account.

Fascinating read here about Israel's attempts over the years to assassinate Yasir Arafat, an extract from a forthcoming book about the history of Israeli intelligence agencies and their targeted killings. What stands out is the moral tussle between senior military / intelligence / government figures, and the lengths to which some of them were prepared to go to, to get rid of the PLO leader, and how they were thwarted by others who thought the collateral damage (such as shooting down a commercial plane) was too high a price to pay. Really looking forward to the book as the article reads like a thriller and seems to be meticulously researched, with multiple sources giving their perspective on how each event unfolded.

I was kind of lucky, Macca - not only did they get one of their largest crowds for the season, but they were on song, too. Rooney actually put Everton ahead about 10mins in but was ruled off-side. From then on it was all Spurs and they could have finished with 6. The Barcelona game was much less of a spectacle, and while it was good to see Messi score, they never had to get out of 1st gear. I should add, the tour of the Camp Nou and the Barca museum is superb. You can go into the visiting team's rooms, walk down the race (which has an adjoining chapel!), sit on the bench and visit the press box. The trophy cabinet, obviously, is enormous, stretching the entire length of a large room. One of the best exhibits was a huge glass case with dozens (maybe hundreds) of little squares, each labelled with a highlight from Barca's history; you touch the square you want to see and it brings up a larger box that shows that particular goal, or game etc. I caught the first half of the match at Anfield, but had to leave for the airport at half-time unfortunately so missed the exciting finish. City's loss leaves the door just slightly ajar for United, but for the rest it'll be a battle for CL spots. Hammers have really turned the corner since Moyes took over, a mid-season revival along with Palace and the Cherries. It's been an interesting season in every respect except for the actual title race itself.

Some shots from the Barcelona v Levante game. The official attendance was listed as 56,000 but I reckon they fudged it, just as they do with crowds here, as the stadium seemed to be less than half full. Had amazing seats, sitting at about half-forward on level 2, which gave a great vantage point for the action. In the second half, the top row of seats in the stand opposite me took on this ethereal glow from the setting sun, and my cousin, who was sitting in the stand opposite, snapped the magnificent final shot in the series below. Seats at the Spurs - Everton game were also sensational, albeit this time at ground level, and I was within spitting distance of the Everton bench. Great atmosphere where I was (there were hundreds of Koreans sitting near me going crazy for Son, who was on fire) but not as good for viewing the match as the upper levels, where you get a better idea of space and distance etc. The thing which really struck me was how congested much of the play is, in comparison to what you see on TV, where it seems they have oodles of time and space to move the ball around. At both games I was one of the first in the ground so I could just sit there and soak up the enormity of it all!

Had to settle for a brace, but it’s hard to complain about a 4-0 thumping in front of more than 76,000. Was an unforgettable night, my seat was so good I was basically sitting on the bench, and could hear Poch and Sam Allardyce yelling out instructions. Spurs fans lament the lack of atmosphere at Wembley compared to the Lane, but coming from the much larger ‘G, it seemed intimate and the vibe all night was amazing. With Barca winning 3-0 last weekend, the whole trip has been a dream come true and I’m glad I came. Will post some pics when I get back to Oz. ⚽️⚽️⚽️

This really needs to be fleshed out a little more. Where is the appeal to 'families'... I mean 'hard-working families'... I mean 'hard-working Victorian families.'.. or perhaps 'hard-working Victorian mums and dads'? "As we go forward, we want hard-working Victorian families to join us on our journey as we strive to realise our core values of being a successful and sustainable club into the future." Or you could scrap all that and just borrow from Julia Gillard: "We are us!"

I’m going - and soon! Just bought premium seats at the Camp Nou for Barca v Levante on the 7th, and the same for Spurs v the Toffees 6 days later at Wembley, with a pre-game function, drinks etc. Pretty pumped, as I’ve dreamt about these stadia since I was a kid (albeit Wembley’s been totally refurbed since then, much like the ‘G). Hopefully Harry Kane can keep scoring hat-tricks for a few more weeks yet..

The Dortmund-Schalke game was a belter. Dortmund was 4-0 up within 25 minutes, only for Schalke to peg them back in the last 25 minutes and level the scores deep in injury time. Spurs again stumbled at home to weak opposition, while the draw at Anfield just helps City.

I caught some of the Switzerland - Nth Ireland match in Basel the other night and the pitch there was as bad as the one in Honduras. Hard to fathom in this day and age, especially in Europe. The North London Derby is on this weekend at the very respectable time of 11.30pm Saturday night on SBS. Incredibly, Optus have got yet another free trial going, which means at least half of the season to date has been a give-away. I'm actually weighing up a quick, bucket list soccer trip to Europe in the new year. I figure with Spurs playing at Wembley this season, it will never be so easy to see them live again. Would try to go to matches at San Siro and the Camp Nou while I'm over there. Anyone done such a trip and have any advice?

Fair enough dc, i just don't see the club's behaviour as predatory in the same way you do, although I definitely agree that ht shouldn't have been docked that amount automatically and without notification in a year when it's gone through the roof. But on point 3, that's a consequence of our improvement from no-hopers to maybes. The GFG was basically worthless in the past, effectively making it a donation to the club. Now it's a real product and its value is always going to fluctuate relative to the likelihood of the MFC making the granny. Let's just hope we get to use it in 2018.

It's not about fair or unfair, it's simple market forces. When people are forking out thousands of dollars for limited GF tickets off scalpers and resellers, as Richmond fans were this year, then $299 insurance premium + ticket cost simply becomes the total cost you pay for a ticket. You're paying $300 now to avoid having to pay $1200 in GF week, or the $450-$650 price tag of a premium membership. Whichever way you do it, you've got to pay somewhere along the way. There's no point pricing the GFG at $75 and having 25,000 members subscribe to it if you only have 15,000 tickets. Edit: If we do make a GF and the allocation is undersubscribed then we will know the club has got the price point wrong, but I'd be surprised. If anything, it may go up in the future as the team improves and a GF appearance becomes a real possibility.

I know, but the cost of the ticket is both separate and irrelevant to the GFG, and the price of the former has no bearing on the latter. You're effectively paying insurance against having to scramble for a ticket when we do make it. @Diamond JimDon't know DJ, I have no idea how the allocation thing works at all.

Only the premium memberships, AFAIK. A ballot system gives people the option to avoid the cost f the GFG but still have some chance of getting a ticket. And I'm not saying everyone goes in it, but the if the club gets 15,000 tickets, it could set aside 2500 for a ballot and the remaining 12500 go to the premium members with the GFG. Dunno. Just thinking out loud.

It's a tough one hardtack, because the new cost of it is no doubt much closer to its real value than the cheap add-on it's been the past, when we had absolutely no chance of making finals, let alone the GF. The club could have basically given everyone the GFG for free without any risk at all. But with clubs allocated so few GF tickets, it's a matter of supply and demand and this is the only way to control demand. An alternative might be for the club to use part of its GF allocation in a ballot system, where members pay a smaller fee to go in the ballot rather than the high cost of the GFG?

You can add money, which is probably at the top of the list. Not sure about other categories, but my membership has gone up $50 - pretty steep (more than 8 per cent) in a single year. As a result, I haven't (yet) bought the 2 additional memberships I usually do for my niece and nephew, who live in Qld and support Brisbane. Also, one of the consequences of relatively low GA ticket prices, and the ease with which you can rock up to a game at the 'G at siren time, is that people feel comfortable taking a wait-and-see approach on on buying membership. Would be interested to hear if the price rise is an across-the-board thing or just in certain categories?

Would love to see them play PSG in the Champions League at some stage, goals galore.

Thought we were probably the better team on the day but there were few chances at either end, and they were able to capitalise on what was really our only defensive lapse of the game. The riddle of replacing Kane continues to plague Poch - Llorente has failed to fire so far, much like Janssen last year. Son is quality but not an outright striker.

It's pathetic Macca, bloody frustrating - I think I'm going to write to them and complain and see if it can't be rectified. I've tried through TuneIn too. As you say, it's amateurish from arguably the number 1 comp in the world. You'd think that if the local rights-holder (in this case EON) falls over, there'd be some provision for it to revert to TalkSport as the principal rights holder. Did you watch our Cup tie earlier in the week? Not all that dissimilar to the PL fixture a few weeks back, except this time the Hammers were able to complete the comeback. The shift in momentum was huge after the break. Probably helped Bilic earn a stay of execution, although I see you dropped 2 points in the dying seconds last night against Palace. Was a good night on the telly last night, with the Man U v Spurs game followed by Milan v Juve and then Bayern v Leipzig.

Interesting that Optus are running another free trial, the second one is as many months. Must be struggling with subscriptions. And @Macca this might explain the mystery of the TalkSport on/off situation, as it’s definitely been unavailable this weekend, even through the website, presumably to protect the Optus promotion.