Thank you all for your good wishes. I don't think I have the skills to be a professional gambler at all. 



The Premier League has started with quite many goals after the World Cup break. Except the Chelsea match, all the matches ended over 2.5 goals. Arsenal's comeback against West Ham in the second half was amazing. I watched especially Nketiah's goal over and over again.

Alonso says that he enjoyed his time more at Alpine comparing to his experience with McLaren. Alpine were quite competitive from time to time in the latest season. There were times Alonso were able to fight among the drivers who were racing for the biggest teams. Maybe the power of the car wasn't much of a help mostly against them but it was still a good job for him.

Now he seems happy about not being teammate with Ocon from now on. However he shouldn't forget that his new teammate is going to be Stroll.    I still remember Stroll's dangerous defending against his teammate Vettel in the Brazil GP.

I wonder how Napoli will return after the World Cup break. They have one of the most comfortable matchups in the Champions League on paper. Frankfurt have done a good job so far of course. They have kept the Bundesliga and Champions League very balanced and this has been the key to the successful run. However it feels like this is the end of the road for them. Because Napoli are not like their opponents in the group stage. They are even a more challenging team to beat now.

If Napoli don't lose momentum despite the break then they should be able to crush Frankfurt in this matchup.

https://www.capology.com/club/barcelona/salaries/

I've checked the current salaries in Barcelona on the website above.

Frenkie de Jong is currently the biggest earner in the team indeed. He must be really comfortable at Barcelona now. It is true that he wouldn't even be very unhappy even if he doesn't become a regular in the starting eleven. However Xavi seems eager to have him there as he is happy with his performance. Barcelona were thinking of selling him to make their finances better before. But now it looks like they don't want such thing anymore.

https://www.hltv.org/news/35306/top-20-players-of-2022-introduction

There is a top 20 players list to be announced soon in CS:GO.

I'm putting XANTARES and s1mple to the top already.    As for a comparison between them I think XANTARES is one step ahead. He is like a beast really. Years are coming and going but XANTARES is still able to maintain his quality. Everyone knows "XANTARES peek" very well, right? So I think he is the best rifler as well currently. s1mple seems like he has lost a little from his skills recently but he is still such an amazing player of course. But in time, I think m0nesy has the potential to leave s1mple behind as an AWPer in the future. m0nesy has been under the spotlight for some time too as you know.

It is really interesting news to me. Because Gakpo was called with Manchester United for a long time. They were in talks with PSV to sign him as well and Gakpo was already willing to join Manchester United. Recently I saw that PSV were expecting to see a bigger offer than 50-60 million euros from them.

However I have learned that Liverpool have signed him for an amount like 40-50 million euros in total. This is a really cheap deal for them that's for certain. Gakpo is a quite skilled left winger. However there will be a really nice competition between him and Diaz for the starting eleven.

https://www.sport.es/es/noticias/barca/cambio-estrategia-jong-80367335

It looks like Frenkie de Jong will be staying at Barcelona.

Because the source says that Barcelona are no longer interested in selling him. I was waiting for this to be honest. Because he started to be a regular member of the starting eleven again after Manchester United failed in their attempts to sign him last summer. The player himself wasn't even seeming eager to leave the team to join them either. I think he is happy now as well. Manchester United missed a really big opportunity. However Barcelona must have demanded 20 million euros more or something like that from them. It was a quite big difference to think over for Manchester United.

As I have been unemployed for one week officially, I have the chance to follow the NBA matches closely. Every bad situation in life can have a good result. I have started to allocate more time for myself. Frankly, you can catch some high odds on live betting after favourite teams get behind their opponent by score. I tried to give you some examples below.



I don't know if this is valid for every time or only for the last a few days. I'm thinking of quoting this post in the coming days. 



I know how much successful you are with high-odd bets. Did you make any bets on Arsenal yesterday? 

I think it has emerged that it is much better for the World Cup to be organized at the end of the season considering the national leagues. I think football lovers will need some time to concentrate on the national leagues again. By the way, don't UEFA need to make an update in their club ranking criteria? Real Madrid are at the 6th position although they have been the most successful team in European cups in the recent years.

https://www.hltv.org/news/35289/astralis-sign-buzz

I've heard about this news recently.

MistR was playing as a stand-in for k0nfig before as you know but his time has ended. He has returned to the development squad. After that Astralis have signed a deal with MASONIC's 19-year-old player Buzz. He can be called as an okay player for now considering his performance in 2022. According to the news, Staehr and sjuush were also stronger options but they couldn't manage to sign any of them I'm afraid. Both of them are better players than Buzz on paper. But we don't know how big Buzz's potential is for now as well.

It was a very efficient match for Liverpool. I'm saying this by ruling out Nunez of course. 

Because his performance was again quite poor as it was the same against Manchester City in the EFL Cup as well. He wasted two big goal opportunities today. I'm pretty sure that Klopp wouldn't have chosen him to the starting eleven if Firmino wasn't injured. Firmino is expected to return in early January but let's see. I hope he comes back as quick as possible. He has been much better than Nunez so far. It looks like Nunez still needs time to collect himself. He isn't even close to his performance at Benfica.

This is a thing that I really don't understand.

Just why would any team be very willing to spend insane amount of money for a player who didn't have an extraordinary performance before? Coutinho's performance was good at Liverpool maybe but it wasn't unique. Barcelona were so hyped about him to pay that much of a money - it must be like 135m euros. Now he isn't worth anything after a terrible run in his career. There have been many players like Coutinho so far. Some teams are just so generous to take the risk.

Game 1:  31, 31'
Game 2:  31, 31'

It looks like Monaco's strong times are long gone now.

Because they don't have a squad as strong as in the past first of all. By saying "in the past" I'd like to mean the 2016/17 season especially. They had such an amazing lineup back then. Mbappe, Lemar, Fabinho, Bakayoko and so on. The team chemistry was amazing at the same time. Maybe Leonardo Jardim had a big effect on the team with his management style as well. But that lineup was really something impressive. That was the season they won the title as well. To bring back those times, they obviously need a big renovation.

Ferrari indeed have the potential to prepare the fastest car on the grid now. This isn't the thing they didn't do before. The beginning of last season was just like that. But we all wonder how consistent they would be later on. Because they gave big hopes to Tifosis after that solid start but disappointed them in a short time after.

This time they could find Mercedes as a very strong opponent in the title race together with Red Bull as well. This would fire up the competition even more so Ferrari don't have the luxury of making big mistakes.

I really appreciated Galatasaray's impressive football in their attacking side. In the absence of Icardi, Gomis did a very nice work. This guy is 37 years old now but still trying his best to be helpful for his team. He scored two goals and two other attempts by him hit the goal post as well. Galatasaray wasted so many goal opportunities so this score would have been even worse for their opponent.

Istanbulspor were really weak in defense by giving big spaces to Galatasaray. They were bad at defending corners as well. But still somehow they were almost equalizing the score in the last seconds of the match. Emir Gultekin wasted an absolute goal chance which saved Galatasaray from losing two points. Galatasaray still need to deal with the defensive issues indeed.

Philippe Coutinho was signed by Aston Villa with really nice hopes. However his time is running out here as it seems now. Because Aston Villa look like ready to sell him in January transfer window.

It has been only one season since he joined the team. But his performance in this season is even worse now. He has 0 goals and assists. He doesn't look like he is even close to his much better times anymore. I still remember his times with Liverpool. He was really productive and Barcelona signed him by paying a tremendous transfer fee. Aston Villa signed him for 20 million euros and he hasn't lost much from his market value yet. It would be the best for them to sell him quickly.

Yeah maybe you are right.

Because Outsiders' surge in performance was so sudden that I bet most people weren't expecting that kind of a success in the Major from them. But their fall after that was at the same speed as well. They couldn't do much in the Blast Premier World Final. If they qualified for the finale in that tournament at least then I would have absolutely expected them to regain their lead in ranking. Heroic are really consistent for now but let's see how far they will be able to go like this.

Of course unexpected teams have a chance to be champions in European tournaments like the Europa League or Europa Conference League. We have witnessed this before as you have said. However I think this is still limited to some teams. I wouldn't expect to see a team having not even an average level of squad making it to the title.

Frankfurt had an average squad and they combined it with a strong team spirit very well. That was why they managed to be the champions in the previous season. But we don't see this kind of incidents very often still. Mostly we see teams above average reaching the title.

It looks like Caglar Soyuncu has finally found a club for himself. Atletico Madrid are about to sign a long-term deal with him and he is expected to join them by January as well.

He has been in the subs at Leicester for a long time. He was actually one of the mainstays of Leicester defense before. But after some time, he lost his place in the starting eleven suddenly and couldn't take it back still. Brendan Rodgers made a statement on this topic like his training performance wasn't at a satisfying level and that was why he has been in the subs. He might be right because I haven't heard any other problem behind it. However Atletico Madrid have 4 four centre-backs now. There will be a quite big competition for the starting eleven then.