HawK

How he was so bad at holding up the ball and retaining possession leading the line I'll never know. He's one of the strongest players in the league. I don't care about the naysayers, for me he's one of the best midfielders in the league and the first name on the team sheet. This is Joelinton's world and we're just living in it.

I don't understand his incessant patter and I just find it irritating.

Never thought I'd have to use the Ignore function in this forum

The tape supposedly works when applied correctly by pulling the skin from each end of the tape towards the centre, creating a more 'open' area under the skin where the injury is, to increase bloodflow there. When I had bad shin splints (became stress fractures), I used a few bits of tape to help with recovery in between ultrasound therapy to break up scar tissue. Seemed to work better with then without tbh. On elite athletes with nearly no measurable body fat I don't see it pulling as much skin as it did for me though

Yep, I very much know the distinction, I went over every summer for the best part of a decade with my wife until Covid hit The Newcastle UEFA cup tie in the 90s was actually the ice breaker when I asked her where in Spain she was from. We met in Brighton where I was living at the time, and no-one she'd ever met outside Spain knew where Bilbao was except me. Following this club indirectly led me to my wife and my 2 awesome kids

I'm surprised an Athletic supporter would refer to Atlético as Athletico to be honest, it just adds to the confusion. In Spain they just call Bilbao 'Athletic' amongst friends and family I know from the Bilbao/Eibar area.

Played the last 15 minutes of Brazil's 1-0 victory against Japan, coming on for his mate Paqueta. https://uk.soccerway.com/matches/2022/06/06/world/friendlies/japan/brazil/3784478/ They've only lost once since November 2019, to Argentina, and that was last summer also to Argentina in a 1-0 defeat. Bruno's appeared 5 times for Brazil in 2022, but only twice in 2021 and once in 2020. I think it's fair to say that the lad must be ecstatic with how his move has worked out so far with his growing importance in the national team coinciding with his scintillating club form. What an advert he is for other players who want to make a step up, are you watching Hugo?

No, he always showing the fraud he was. He just had the whole tabloid press paid off. And still does evidently.

He seemed better with more strands on his head. He's a bit like Sampson I think, the less hair the less good he is.

In January, I didn't know who the f he was. I still don't other than Youtube clips. I was worried in January this was a panic signing. But now he's being described like the second coming of the real Ronaldo, sign me up

Dat commercial income boost from the US exposure

Aye he was decent, never felt he was one of our stronger players in our team at the time, though.

I just think he's not very good at all, and if we're to reduce our squad size and also look to bring in another central defender, he's the weakest link at the moment out of Schar, Burn, Fernandez. The latter of those three seems content at being a squad player, whereas I don't know how Lascelles would react to sitting on the bench as only a backup. I believe we should have our captain on the pitch, leading from the front, not on the bench so either our captain will be sitting on the bench, or he has the captaincy removed which might cause friction in the dressing room. Him going to Forest just seems like a very obvious way out of a potentially sticky situation where we're having to tip-toe around our captain being one of the worst players on the pitch (imo).

Would drive him there myself

Whilst I agree with the sentiment of reducing the squad size and planning for the long term, that graph is pretty arbitrary. I'd argue Trippier peaked at Atlético and is still going strong now, and Wilson is also at the top of his game. I think the 'peak' range for each position picked there is at least 2 years younger across the board than where it should be.

This might be a bit fanciful, but is Chiesa out of our league? Primarily a right-sided attacker, but can play either wing, has played up top and even cover in the middle. Hard worker, doesn't stop running for 90 minutes, big game player, speaks English, undoubted quality. Used to playing in black & white stripes... recovering from an ACL injury though, but could be back for pre-season. I think we'd need to pay nearly double what we paid for Bruno though.

As someone who fondly wore Enriqué 3 on the back of our Championship banana-top, I think this lad has been the best left-back we've had in my living memory. Make of that what you will, i.e. our quality in that position over the years really hasn't been great, featuring such gems as Babayaro and Dummett as regulars. I only remember back as far as Beresford and then Pearce, but I don't recall any of our left backs as good off the ball offensively, or as good at striking the ball as Targett. Bernard and Domi were decent, but they were ball carriers rather than playmakers, and defensively they were average. I can't easily compare Targett to anyone we've had in that position before, other than my old favourite player Enriqué defensively. Offensively he's been a revelation, let alone the added threat from set pieces he brings. With him as our left back, we were in Champions League form without even having a decent striker. Then there's his personality, which is absolutely spot on. I think any other 'better' left back is just unnecessary at the moment when we have other positions that are more pressing - cover/competition for Wilson, a starting right-sided attacker, a world-class centre back and a proper link-up player in the middle. We need to spend wisely and imo the wise choice here is to not look a gift horse in the mouth with Targett.

I signed up to Twitter today just to block Glendenning

Almost 9m too, might as well say almost 50m, let's just pick numbers eh

Come back, sweet Prince

Looked quality from the first moment to me tbh.

And also why he was so effective for us when he was fit.

Loved that little prick when he played for us.