TRon

Jon Dahl Tomasson was basically making his excuses for him even when he was still on strike at Newcastle. He might as well have passed him the burgers and coke while he sat at home instead of training properly.

It's cost his old club and his country. I doubt he's that bothered about either. It's not going to cost Liverpool, that's the kicker, and that's what would affect him most negatively.

I think PIF had every intention to build the biggest and best club in England when they bought in - I mean why wouldn't they? The money is nothing to them, and if the goal was sportswashing, being associated with the most successful club in the world is the way to do it. But you also have to remember the Saudi govt is virtually partners with the British govt on a lot of international issues. They have a longstanding alliance from the days the kingdom took power. They might not feel it's a good look to be going up against England's biggest and most successful sporting ruling body. I wonder if that's why the gloves have stayed on?

I hope you're right. The whole thing seems like a carefully crafted get out clause which will allow City off the hook while maintaining the cartel protectionism over APT loans.

It does presuming we want to actually fight dirty. We've held off so far, and there has to be some doubt as to whether PIF would even bother getting tangled up in it when they could just as easily run the club by the rulebook and treat it like a run of the mill business.

Worth every penny for the cartel who are effectively the PL puppetmasters anyway.

I don't think he played well, and I said it yesterday. But at the same time, it wasn't a massive shock because he was being played as a target man, and there's already been more educated commentators saying that's not his game. I can't judge him properly until we see him in our set up and how we plan to use him.

Although Big Joe was a primary reason why we won our first trophy in 70 years. I suppose it's possible we could have won it without him, but in the semis and final he was pretty outstanding.

Beir and Amiri have stretched the Irish defence far more, Big Wolt looked far too easy to mark. He doesn't look like an out and out front man at all, now I understand why there was talk that he is not really a front man, looks like he needs to be playing deeper, probably off the main striker rather than as one himself.

POTY

Took one touch too many instead of squaring it or actually just ramming it into the net when he got a clear sight of it. Typical.

Tbf, he didn't want to leave and we didn't want to sell him. Eddie was a big fan, but this and the Minteh deal was forced on us by PSR, which has been forced on us effectively by the cartel. This is how the system is rigged at the moment. Isak's sale probably wouldn't have happened either if we were able to hand out a contract last season when he was pushing for it.

He never actually shone when he replaced Joelinton on the left side of midfield though. At Forest he seems to be playing more centrally. Maybe their formation suits him more?

Ironic since Bayern are the team that have been throwing daft amounts of money at British players on the wrong side of 30 for the last couple of years.

That might be the sort of thing which attracted him to this job in the first place. All he is going to see is potential for improvement, and that's what he's all about!

Exactly. It's the very heart of capitalism, so to try and put fake shackles on the Premier League when it's being run along those lines has always stunk of hypocrisy. But you can't blame the big clubs for trying, that's the whole point of building a cartel.

It's one of the things I really appreciate about Newcastle tbh. It's great being able to get on the road north and not see a single city until you hit Scotland.

Ironically it seems like there is a never ending glut of new houses being built between the city centre and the airport.

He's below McClaren just because he's a bigger cunt in my book. Worse than Souness because at least Souness never pretended to be anything else.

Honestly at the time it felt like Liverpool only bought Ekitke so we wouldn't get him. If we had sold them Isak I doubt they would have gone through with Ekitike.

Said it in the Isak thread a couple of hrs ago as well. We tend to forget these players have been friends and associates for three years now. While they will be disappointed to lose a team mate, they understand careers are short and every player has their own interests at heart. They are going to see things differently from fans. Even if they are disappointed they are probably not going to want to have a go at them publicly.

Still not convinced Slot is actually a good manager tbh. The best revenge re Isak would be Liverpool failing because their manager doesn't know how to build a team ethos in the same way Howe does.

I think if we are playing Barnes LW, then having Hall overlapping is a good idea. Tino's done great but Hall is naturally left footed and we need more down that left side.

We've got two excellent strikers for the price of one, I think it's probably a good idea to move on.