I wonder if Davies was benched today because Conte might use him at left-wing back for a minute, so Reg doesn't have to play every game whilst Sess is out injured. Just going on who played and who was subbed, I think he might rotate the wing-backs (bring in Davies and Doherty) and swap Skipp for Winks, and Bergwijn for Lucas. This is the toughest fixture we have in terms of recovery time, only two days. The rest of the fixtures in this run we have got, we have a little more time to recover between matches.
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This is dodgy as fuck. Some PL clubs have relationships with unlicensed bookmakers in Asia. I can’t see how it is allowed. It doesn’t take much for pressure to be applied to people within the game.
Opening paragraphs….
Follow Leyu,” says Chelsea captain Cesar Azpilicueta in a slick promotional video to mark a new commercial agreement between the European champions and Leyu Sports.
You would be forgiven for not having heard of the company, an obscure Asian gambling firm with little to no digital footprint outside of eye-catching sponsorship deals with Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain.
And listening to Azpilicueta’s instruction and following Leyu on the social media website LinkedIn only leads down a bizarre rabbit hole of fake profile pictures, deleted accounts and a seemingly non-existent branding agency.
It is a rabbit hole that raises serious questions for Chelsea — who help beam Leyu’s branding around Stamford Bridge, seen across the world — as well as many other European football clubs.
At a time when the spotlight is on football’s uneasy relationship with gambling, Premier League clubs including Aston Villa, Burnley, Everton and Southampton have signed deals with similarly obscure Asian betting companies.
These firms are often represented by untraceable individuals, which in some cases encourage users to expose themselves to cybersecurity risks in order to use their products. They also rely on “white label” arrangements, where a foreign gambling company strikes a deal with a third party in a jurisdiction friendly to gambling — often Malta or the Isle of Man — to provide it with a licence granting legal access to the UK market.
“Far too often, we have no real sense of the true ownership, source of wealth or consumer base of these so-called ‘white label’ gambling operators,” says Dr James Noyes, senior fellow of the Social Market Foundation think tank and author of a major report on gambling reform. “Yet we see them everywhere on squad shirts and the sides of pitches.”
One senior figure at a Premier League team has told The Athletic that clubs are “between a rock and a hard place” because the deals ultimately do not break UK law and provide desperately-needed cash during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Earlier this year The Athletic revealed how Premier League clubs may be “facilitating illegal gambling” in China through these Asian sponsorship deals. The Gambling Commission has also admitted to “concern” that some white-label websites may not have effective anti-money laundering controls or carry out “sufficient due diligence” on websites to ensure there are no “links to criminal activity”.
The Athletic’s latest investigation into football’s murky relationship with such companies shows:
- Chelsea’s bizarre interaction with a fake LinkedIn network and the photograph of a Hollywood actor
- Multiple other clubs striking deals with apparently uncontactable people who may not exist
- New details of Southampton’s controversial 2019 partnership with LD Sports
- How football club sponsors’ products potentially expose fans to cybersecurity risks.
Yeah I’m out of patience with the sponge now. Fuck him off
I'm not sure a 6-2-3 formation would work given the EPL laws of the game...
Looking forward to this one! Watched the boxing day game on my phone whilst family were round because some people apparently think Paddington bear is more important 
Only benefit is if we won today, Levy would've gone on holiday and turned off his phone for the whole of Jan.
Traore would have been absolutely useless today.
They seem to be giving his arm offside!?!,
What the hell has an arm got to do with giving a footballer an advantage
Utter bollocks!!!
You know full well if that was Ronaldo or Salah that goal stands.
Frustrating.
However, today's game reminded us of the technical deficiencies that runs through this team. There's bustle and effort and all that good stuff, but the ability to do very basic stuff, very quickly and with perfect precision is what separates Liverpool and City from everyone else.
And we missed Skipp.
However, today's game reminded us of the technical deficiencies that runs through this team. There's bustle and effort and all that good stuff, but the ability to do very basic stuff, very quickly and with perfect precision is what separates Liverpool and City from everyone else.
And we missed Skipp.
You gotta roll with it mate.