TRon

Sort of agree with this, but I don't agree he's slower than Shelvey. He covers ground much quicker IMO, will make a proper judgement call when I see him with a bit more legs around him. Jo and Joe were a big miss against Chelsea, we had a completely revamped midfield, that too against one of the elite teams in Europe. I thought Bruno ended up trying to do too much and needs more going on in front of him to get the best out of him.

We've had some fantastic results without him like, that's been a real bonus. But we are definitely better with him in the team.

They bought us for a reason. Staveley or Mehrdad went on record on saying that being a one club city was a huge attraction for the Saudis, and Chelsea are very far from that.

Yeah we know what it feels like to go from being one of the top clubs in England to basically fighting to be mid-table. I also felt some resentment to clubs like Chelsea and Man City basically blowing everyone else out of the water with their wealth, but tbh, you still had it pretty good compared to us. Spurs have consistently been around the CL positions, you have had great managers, and great football to watch. I think I'd be more on the same page as your dad tbh, as long as we were still competitive, the club would be a big part of my life. The problem for us of course, was we were bought by someone who thought we were a cash cow. I agree that there's something wrong with the game where the biggest pockets decide who will be the biggest club, personally I think NUFC (and Spurs as well) would be more than capable of punching their weight if owner's wealth wasn't a factor. But we had to live with this system for the last 20 years, I'm certainly not going to sniff at it now it's our turn to pitch in with the big boys. I agree with @ManDoon, sport is not a moral compass once you get to the professional level. When the stakes are so high, money is going to affect it. Football is probably not much worse than other sports other than because it is so popular, it attracts more money. Honestly, if it was me in your position I think I would just live with it. Spurs are hardly bit part players, they have one of the best managers in the world, some great players, and they are still fighting for CL places. Cheer up mate!

I can't get my head around that like. He's prepared to go up against PIF? Do they view sport as non-competitive or something?

I'd say it's unconcsious bias, but some of the decisions we see are so palpably wrong you just can't accept it. It's one thing for a ref to claim he was unsighted, but what excuse has the VAR analyst got? How do you watch a tv replay, see a clear tug on the shirt and say nothing doing?

His pressing is more evident when you are at the ground, no complaints at all on that score, but you still need to be a good footballer to be in a decent side. He's not.

It was Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink btw, dunno why I had a brain freeze.

I find it very hard to say there's blatant corruption involved, it sounds really kooky tbh, but it's hard to imagine that it can be sheer incompetence. Every time?

So what was it that made you walk away from football? I know you have probably explained previously, but maybe I missed it.

That fucking meme still knocking around triggs will be having a wank over it later.

Yes you could argue the Havertz elbow decision was subjective, definitely room for debate on that one, although it was telling that former Chelsea boy Tony Yeboah thought it was a sending off. What I don't get is how shirt pulling can be legitimised.

I'd prefer Havertz personally, he looks like a cracking player.

See that's the thing for me, shirt pulling isn't subjective, or at least it never used to be. It's a stonewall foul, and it's cheating in order to stop the striker from potentially scoring a goal. Otherwise why would a defender ever pull someone's shirt in the first place? There's nothing subjective about it, it's a bullshit excuse.

Of course we don't have to defend what goes on in Saudi Arabia. Let's not forget that their people will have their own moral code which fundamentally disagrees with ours. I doubt they'd defend a lot of western practices, so why would we feel the need to defend theirs? But they like our football team now and that's something we can agree on.

I know I can ignore it, but then again I can also participate in it as an actual supporter of Newcastle United, the team of my city where I still live today.

Yeah but I come here on this NUFC related football forum to discuss my favourite football team. Maybe you have a better reason for being here, but since you no longer support us it must be a weird one.

You didn't say you don't support Newcastle any more, you said something along the lines you only watched our games for ASM. Anyway the question was would you rather have the Glazers as our owners and you've answered it inadvertendly even if you didn't have the balls to say it outright.

Yeah I already said that was because you couldn't answer the question so resorted to name calling. If you can't read an article then why make an uneducated assumption about it based on the first sentence? Doesn't seem particularly intelligent to me.

For someone who keeps making sneering comments about how thick other posters are, I'd have thought it might be a good idea to actually read a full article before passing judgment on it.

Of course

Just wondering, would the St George's flag be allowed in a Saudi stadium?

I think he's talking about the ref cheating, not the player.

Our fans will be giving them plenty of stick over Rafa. Hopefully the Raaaafa Benitez chants will go up, no disrespect to wor Eddie of course.

I was taking the piss out of the bookies making them favourites.