80

Great times But yeah, there was often an element of patronisation around for us then. Even when we were flying, journalists would often pester Robson, asking about how old he felt and why doesn't he go and put his feet up in a garden shed. He was in his late 60s. Funnily enough, when Alex Ferguson hit that age, I don't remember him receiving the same treatment.

It's obviously ridiculously early to be talking, but you feel like this boy has a big future. Lovely balance, great attitude, good family etc. Even if he wasn't signing for us I'd take an interest.

Tend to agree. Don't think Southgate knows how to do what we've been doing lately.

Definitely not. 01-03 was overrunning teams but... We didn't send tremors through the game like we have lately.

Yeah, but being excluded from seeing a picture goes with the territory when you're blind, right? Which is what we're discussing. You want to change imagery to adjust the territory blind people want to engage with, but don't want people to adjust the territory women want to engage with. I feel like you'd have a different attitude to this if someone was calling a footballer a black bastard.

The family section as it stands isn't much of a family section... There's plenty of naughty language there, if that's the concern. It's also in a relatively crap part of the ground if you want to see other aspects of the game. Just find it ironic that a woman feeling excluded from 90% of a ground because it's a passionate sport isn't a problem, but the blind feeling excluded from the finer points of a visual depiction is!

You're worried about our crest's appearance excluding the blind and also think a woman shouldn't mind you comparing Howard Webb with the contents of her knickers

I don't necessarily think football should be an inclusive and welcoming place. Probably the best thing would be to have stadium segmentation e.g. a genuinely enforced family area. Maybe in the Leazes while the Gallowgate is a gloves off standing zone, for example. I hate the idea of swearing and hostile conduct being eliminated from football. I also consider it cultural theft.

You apply this logic to racial epithets?

I would go for Almiron because of the context and highlight reel, but Trippier is a very solid shout for it as well.

These sorts of displays, I don't like so much. Too stagey.

I would expect it just means performing actions that reduce your team's xg e.g. receiving the ball with your back to goal, being blocked and playing a pass back to deeper midfield to retain possession. Rather than actively increasing your opposition's chance of a goal.

If he had any brains or class, he would've done some sort of video by now sending himself up, clipping the goals and saying Miggy had really stuck his comments up his arse or somesuch. Personally, I'm happy he keeps quiet, as I think it keeps Miggy burning. Hattrick at the Etihad anyone?

Depends what they have made of Karius in training, I guess. Would be nice if the problem is already solved.

I think Maxi presents a quandary of his own, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. He deserves full credit for his efforts to improve his all round game before his injury. On your point about the strength of our right, I think a Targett-Maxi left affects that as Trippier having full license to push up and orchestrate our midfield and attack is based around him being able to almost abandon the rear, knowing a) there's three at the back, and b) the right sided offence is based around controlling possession and coordinated movements rather than higher stakes dribbling and unpredictability.

Hopefully so. I like him a lot as a player. Instinctively I don't like people talking about Burn as being a fixture in our back 5, but I can't argue with the results either.

Figured this was worth a bump as it's fair to question where things are going with Matty right now. Given the way he left Villa, he's pretty committed to playing every week so you wonder how he's feeling right now given the formation we play seems to have changed. On a related note, is it just me or does he look to have lost quite a bit of weight since he came back from illness? Given he wasn't exactly stocky beforehand. I wonder if it was harder on his body than we realise. They said it was a bad bout for him.

Yeah but Trossard is 27, he's not exactly geriatric. And a decent chunk of our older players are those we're imagining might be replaced sooner rather than later anyhow, so that picture could change pretty quickly.

a) I think they do believe that, and b) there's nothing wrong with leavening the squad with more mature players e.g. Trippier's what he is partly because he's not still 23.

All things considered, I can't complain about Mehrdad calling in that small favour...

I avoided club football for about 10 years but watched England in tournaments. A year prior to going to Madrid, I saw him in the 2018 world cup campaign and he was England's player of the tournament for me. I thought he was magnificent. It was the only real time I saw him play prior to coming to us, but based off that I was very excited to have him sign, and he's only exceeded my hopes since then. I've seen him speak a bit about his time at Spurs and it sounds like the club was on the turn in his last year there, through losing Dembele to injury and such. It does sound like it was a formative time for Trippier though, in terms of him absorbing what was going on and adding to his understanding of the game. So it probably meant he was well-primed to then make the most of his experience at Atletico, which we're now benefiting from.

I'm not holding it against him as I believe he's giving it a good go, but I suspect he's protesting a bit too much about now being happy and settled up here. Time will tell, hopefully it all works out for everyone.

I actually thought so too, but was confused as the flight of the ball seemed so sweet. So not sure basically, and especially not sure if it had much of an impact.

A little nervy for this one somehow... Hope we don't miss Joelinton too much.

Just posted this on the Howe thread, but hadn't seen this one where it probably fits better: Not really thread worthy, so I'll say it in here. I hope we keep Howe's no dickhead policy permanently, even if that slows our progress or sees us win a bit less than we otherwise might. Thanks to the lucky situation we're in with PIF, we can afford to set some standards around how we conduct ourselves as a club. I never want the feeling we have with our current staff to be sacrificed, it's invaluable. -- I picked Bruno by the way, just as he has everything.