HawK

Always seemed to score when he was in the team, even in the Championship. Strong argument to start both himself and Schar for the goalscoring potential. Love a team where everyone can finish, reminds of Keegan's first season in the PL with us.

Be honest is he any better than Mitrovic a guy that is now a championship player and one who couldnt get a game under Rafa in the championship on a regular basis Yes. He is. By miles. Except Mitro would actually score sometimes...

Fuck sake, Bruce. You had one job. Just be as good as you've been at pretty much every club you've managed in the past 5 years. I can't get behind you any more.

Billing's looked a class player throughout.

Stern John Terry Butcher Footballers only, what's the longest chain that can be made?

This isn’t true though is it? Your reply makes no sense.

Enjoy the good moments when they come. The main reason ASM and Almiron play for us is because they have glaring weaknesses to their game and no better club wanted to take a risk on them. Better clubs from all over Europe will have scouted them out and decided against them. It's not often nowadays that a club unearths a hidden gem, Kante springs to mind. That said, he's pretty much my new favourite player, along with the Longstaffs for obvious nepotic reasons

Same thing was said of Lomana Lualua

Get your son a ticket, there's far worse he could be up to.

I liked his classy long-range strike against Liverpool, the defenders thought he wouldn't know what to do with time and space outside the box so they left him, and he just smacked it into the bottom far corner.

You really didn't like my Nolan comparison

Honestly think it's this sort of mentality which will always hold us back. Kevin Nolan was never the sort of player who had either the techique or mobility to be part of a genuine class football team. He was a working class hero at his most effective in an old fashioned English team. Wijnaldum was probably too poncey and soft in a lot of people's eyes. Not sure what you mean ? If you mean that we shouldn't be using 'Luxury' players than I disagree, give me a Hatem any day. If you mean that I was incorrect in comparing Nolan to Wijnaldum, then I also disagree.. in terms of how they both contributed to the team, they were unerringly similar. Nothing off the ball, nothing on it apart from a goal-scoring finish. In the position that Wij played for us, that's all he did. And I always wondered why, when it seemed so obvious due to where he played for his previous club, he wasn't played in a deeper role more often. I said it in that quote: "Kevin Nolan was never the sort of player who had either the techique or mobility to be part of a genuine class football team" Yet he had a cult hero status here. I just saw a player who would ensure we would always be mediocre. Wijnaldum ended up at Liverpool. I don't think Klopp would ever have considered Nolan. That's the difference. Oh on that I agree 100%, they are different players. The point I was making is that in our team, Wijnaldum was limited to basically what Kevin Nolan could do for us, most certainly by managerial instruction. Not that that's all he could do, as demonstrated by his performances in Liverpool's midfield. I did like Nolan though, I'm sure in one season he was the top scorer in the PL for a month or two

Honestly think it's this sort of mentality which will always hold us back. Kevin Nolan was never the sort of player who had either the techique or mobility to be part of a genuine class football team. He was a working class hero at his most effective in an old fashioned English team. Wijnaldum was probably too poncey and soft in a lot of people's eyes. Not sure what you mean ? If you mean that we shouldn't be using 'Luxury' players than I disagree, give me a Hatem any day. If you mean that I was incorrect in comparing Nolan to Wijnaldum, then I also disagree.. in terms of how they both contributed to the team, they were unerringly similar. Nothing off the ball, nothing on it apart from a goal-scoring finish. In the position that Wij played for us, that's all he did. And I always wondered why, when it seemed so obvious due to where he played for his previous club, he wasn't played in a deeper role more often.

I remember seeing him play once for us in central mid, in an almost holding role, did better than he ever did before for us. Where he played and how he contributed for us meant he was a completely irrelevant player. Under a different manager, he might have done a lot better, or maybe he would still just go through the motions in using us as a stepping stone. At least Sissoko gave us an out-ball, like Jonas did before him. Wij was our modern-day Kevin Nolan, except he contributed even less to overall play and only turned up for the cameras/big games (I've included some analysis in an older post in this thread).

They own 14% of Bordeaux. Ok, but the chairman and CEO of GACP, Joseph DaGrosa, seems to be the president of Bordeaux. Nothing stopping then from owning 14% and having the ceo mace president of the Football club. Well that would be quite an escalation.

Personally from your example I think it's clear it should be Maguire and Stones if both are fit and available. To expand on my original point, Mason Mount for example has only played a couple of months in the Premier League. I think that historically as a nation we've knee-jerked a lot to purple patches, and Southgate seems even more keen to do so. I'm not saying we should return to a Capello-esque era of teamsheets you could name 6 months in advance, but I think one of the reasons some of the smaller nations perform better than the sum of their parts is a familiarity with each other's play, enforced largely due to a lack of alternatives.

Settled team > random changes to keep the press happy with in-form players getting into the lineup imho.

Not sure if I agree with the tone of the posts against Froggy, here.

Untitled Goose Game

Steve Bruce, like many footballers that have just not existed in the real world, mix their metaphors. He probably meant to say 'All hands to the pumps', but because he didn't understand what it meant, misremembered it.

Not enough is made out "Harry Kane" being a force of nature.

Any plans for donators to be discreetly recognised in the avatar panel ?

Aye, noticed that last night. A lot more annoying than pigeon lady saying it. I used to be annoyed by it, but I guess it’s natural. When people say Real everybody knows which team it’s referring to even though there are many Reals out there. And it's their differentiator, they've always been known as 'Manchester United', 'Man U', and 'United' because of City. for Real Madrid, it's them or Atlético. We don't have that distinction, so we're just normally referred to as Newcastle rather than Newcastle United. I think you'd have to be particularly sensitive to be irritated when Manchester United is referred to just as United. If you asked people or fans in the street what team 'United' were, invariably they're going to describe Manchester United.

He's shown so much dtermination, chalk and cheese him and Shelvey.