The College Dropout

Aye Mount at Liverpool seems a shout.

Their issue is the lack of trophies. There’s no reason why that can’t achieve what Arsenal are doing or even what Liverpool have done. With the right investment it’s possible. Levy doesn’t care for all that.

This is another factor about a "slow revolution". You can't have too many 200k p/w footballers on your books without starting to challenge. If things go well, Isak & Bruno will be 200k footballers. Botman 150k.

Hasn't managed to stay fit for 2 years. Huge red flag tahat.

Aye the kids actually in Brazil. It's not like every signing comes out the blue. Most have a decent amount of links and rumours, rumours of bids before we get concrete news. It's at the point that if we are persistently linked to a player that there is some truth to the rumour.

Isak linked for a long time. Gordon was linked. The Brazilian boys linked for some time.

Aye. But it's also clear Spurs is a commercial operation designed to fill Levy's pockets. I think Levy has done a tremendous job but he doesn't care for cups and such. Relatively speaking. This is a type of Glory Era for Spurs and they've won less than they did in the 80s. They've won nothing while Arsenal have hit a relative nadir and stil won trophies. Conte was right in his rant. Arsenal win trophies. Even in their nadir, they've won 2-3 FA Cups. Spurs even in a period of ascendancy - have only been to what, 2 cup finals? Lost both. Loser DNA. Eventually that will be a big hurdle for us. We aren't used to winning. We don't know how. As a fanbase we don't know how to support a team that wins.

Jack Colback has 200+ PL appearances. He hides from the ball. Shirks responsibility. Doesn't want the ball. Doesn't try to do anything substantial with it.

FWIW Butt looked like a talented player whose legs had completely gone by the time he came to NUFC. But he had more ability than McTominay for me.

I agree. Just trying to place where STM ranks McTominay in the homegrown Man U CM's rankings. Prime Nicky Butt was a v. good player. Terrible human being mind, been arrested more than once for domestic abuse.

There's lots of deals as good as Bruno done on a yearly basis from a finance perspective. You can name half a dozen from Brighton easily. It's known that you don't often get great value for money for PL transfers. There's greater value (and risk) from abroad and different leagues.

Conte thought he would be in the title race. 4th is not a bad position for them to be in at all.

HBA fell out with multiple managers in his career. To only blame Pardew is incredibly short sighted. TBG is one of them. He’s talking stats I’m talking talent.

Spurs players. Well the defenders can’t play that daft high line. That would be an AVB appointment imo.

Where would you rank him? Darren Fletcher level? He’s behind that imo.

Tom Cleverley won the premier league and played a fair amount. Never been a top 6 player. Ever.

In every profession people shirk responsibility. In football, it is most obvious with central midfielders. It’s obvious when they don’t want to get on the ball. Also stylistically. I don’t want us to be that type of team.

Colback definitely hid. By hide I mean he didn’t make himself available for the ball a lot of the time. He wouldn’t show for it. And when he got it, played it safe and didn’t show for it again. Tiote (RIP) always showed for the ball and tbf the opposition let him. Colback didn’t. Moussa Sissoko for all the criticism. Wanted the ball and got on it. Jenas as a player, didn’t show for the ball enough, demand to be on it and push his passing. Scott Parker never hid, he just wasn’t particularly talented. Gini was very talented but even at Liverpool he was criticised for hiding. He also didn’t demand the ball enough. For all his technical limitations Henderson never hid

Someone said Gary Neville was more talented than HBA in another thread. Can you imagine?

For all the criticism. Nagelsman has looked useless in Europe for most of his career and has struggled in the league in relative terms. But I agree witrh everything said about what Bayern has done to German football. And that whole model. Even Real and Barca realise that they need each other. It hasn't even really helped Bayern in Europe. 2 CL's in what, 16 years? I think. German club won the Conference thing. That's it.

Hell on Earth or Infamous though?

I said if Isak hit the ground running and had a bit of a purple patch we could do it. And it looks to be happening. Need to get back to clean sheets mind.

You think Paul Dummett could fashion a career as a winger if he had the right mentality? ASM could fashion a career as a fullback if he had the right mentality,

Good enough on the ball to become an all-time midfielder? Sweeper / Libero days - aye. And even those, were converted central midfielders - they became Sweepers as that became the most important role in the team. Today that player is Rodri and would primarily play in midfield.

Yes. In warfare, defending a position is significantly easier than making ground and seizing a target. The hardest thing is seizing the target. Generally attacking is harder than defending in football. Breaking down the different aspects of attacking in difficulty is.. difficult. Because aspects of attacking are difficult in different ways. I don't think Lewandowski is a more talented footballer than Benzema for example. But Lewa is a better goalscorer. A lot of that is down to mentality. Benzema is more talented and a better overall player imo. But to play along. Hard / diffiicult = diminished chances of success and the greater skill required to succeed. Scoring 20 PL goals a season, is more difficult than spotting a pass that cuts out 3 players 20 times a season. The great thing about football is that it's a team sport with a wide variety of active roles that require different talents, skills and expertise. And therefore requires different types of people. Pep's football requires not only a lot of footballing ability but also requires a certain personality profile and aptitude to change. Talented but pliable unless so talented Pep will work around you (Haaland & Ribery for example). I think the best Rafa team would require less talent but arguably equally as pliable a personality type. Carlo could deal with more talent and less pliable than them both.