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Has anyone got any clips of him being shocking in the latter half of that season? He was a hell of an athlete, getting up and down the right hand side, during that run. Including some surprisingly good offensive work as he grew in confidence.

My sources tell me Tonali's full media presentation should be revealed within the next 24-48 hours. Certainly this week.

Hope to god they're exploring this to death.

Posted something very similar in the Dogawful thread, but went with arse myself. Can we settle on the perineum?

To develop on this a bit; Seeing as we know how much Howe values his pre-season preparations, I would imagine that the closer a player plays to our own goal, the more he'd want them to be fully integrated into our squad and methods before our first match. Whereas there's more scope for experimentation and patience over things like fitness with a forward like Isak. So even if a RW was seen as more crucial than a CB overall, it might be that we'd prioritise making sure it was the CB who arrived as early as possible.

I sort of agree, but I didn't think we'd see goalkeeper as a high priority last summer either and look what happened... So I don't think we can rule it out.

I'm not quite in the 'great' camp, but I'm broadly in favour of this (fully expecting to be brought back down to earth by VAR though). I imagine it results in linemen assuming a player is offside and raising their flag after goals, and I prefer the idea of VAR ruling goals in rather than out i.e. receiving nice surprises like Joelinton vs. West Ham rather than horrific ones like Isak vs. Liverpool. One attacker being offside and another not due to the different sizes of their nostrils is not something I can respect. I agree it will change the way teams set up, but that's already happened with the current abnormal offside law we have now. Historically teams could not in any way rely on a stray toe giving them permission to play a high line and condense play in midfield. What we have now is not normal. As I was getting at earlier with my arse post, the truth is offside functioned predominantly as a deterrent, and was not expected or intended to judge situations with millimeter accuracy. It was about whether an advantage was gained, and truthfully in most situations about midway through someone's body is roughly where that happens. And even that's dependent on where on the pitch you are.

Probably the ideal would be judging offside by the attackers arse. Daylight between his arse and the defender? Offside. Just a hand, chest or shoulder as he leans forward to run? Not offside. VAR is the cause of these conversations...

Option A please!

That's interesting, I wasn't aware. So, superficially, you have (old regime) Twitter in dispute with the British police, Premier League and England setup. Not being sarcastic, I'm not sure who to believe... I thought misinformation experts were supposed to agree with eachother... To throw another hand grenade in, it bothers me that frequently people are only obsessively paranoid about online bots, and manipulation of communities by malignant forces like the Russian and Chinese governments trying to cause societal discord, when it suits their personal worldview. It has to be considered plausible that actions are being taken to demoralise immigrants and disintegrate Western societies through fake racism at high profile times like the world cup, right? It would be a failure by them if they weren't already at it...

Are all clubs owned by the Saudis nowadays? Cheers for taking the heat off us, lads.

I've only skim read the past few pages in reverse order so happy to be told I'm wrong/misinterpreting anything. But we can't really be surprised that a black man thinks visceral racism is entrenched in the country and segregation is inevitable when this forum spends half it's time calling the country a racist country full of racists who vote for a racist fascist government run by a corrupt political party whose main electoral appeal is its dogwhistling to not-so-crypto fascist racists. If you think a black man isn't going to be negatively affected by that kind of talk, you may be suffering from 'white privilege'. I think Kaka is very wrong about things like the standard English attitude to black England players. But when every day is portrayed as a firefight against racism for players like Saka, what is he to think? That's why, referring back to a brief conversation we had about Joelinton and the Arsenal racism the other day, I think it's very important to be forensic about who has said what, when and why, and to be careful with our language about it. It's because racism is a very serious subject, and making glib, point-scoring declarations about it can do far more harm than good in ways we haven't begun to imagine.

If all the sponsors on the kit were similarly concealed it would stand out less...

Quite unhappy with our badge being almost invisible. A big misstep in my opinion as it makes it increasingly easy to draw parallels about the club's identity fading away. I can see Castore, I can see Sela, I can definitely see noon, but I can't see NUFC? I like the shirt in itself, though concerned about it's visibility on the pitch, particularly the green socks.

Maybe just crap management and training measures caught up with him? Ala Bruce. Drop October 2021's Longstaff into today's squad and he'd look way off the pace too... That's my hope, anyhow.

Possibly/probably. His fitness was a surprise to me. Hoping we see a revolution on that side this coming season.

He's the player I often liken him to in my head. Imagine he could have a similar career trajectory in terms of gradually getting better and adapting his contributions.

Cool Seem like a really lovely family.

I'm not an expert but it definitely seems like too much for all the players to me.

Fwiw, most of the Dutch fans we/I came across back then were class overall. Think we had some Breda fans turning up on trips here for years after. Plus the PSV link with Bobby Robson etc. It's what made Feyenoord stand out even more. So it was really weird to see people going gooey over us having a relationship with them. It'd be like people having that warmth for Everton.

No worries mate, I won't hold it against you

Multiple running battles with them in the early-mid 2000s. I know they're your team, but my major experience of them is them constantly seeking, and failing to get, revenge on us following the CL tie, turning up at places like Breda and Alkmaar to launch sneak attacks on dads with kids. Low class tossers.

Is it just me whose skin crawls at forming a partnership with Feyenoord? Just about the only Dutch we've come across who were unrelenting wankers. Sunderland were welcome to them.