STM

Honestly, watching that almost made me well up. Fucking Bruno and Botman just strolling along in their lush Newcastle travel wear for a professional pre season session in Austria. This is light years away from 12 months ago.

Just after the hour mark they talk about Nick Pope and his aggressiveness when coming out for crosses. Quite interesting.

He was one of my favourite players for about 12 months. I always felt that he made Lascelles look good. Nothing but respect for him.

That's the best part about Bruno, he gives you both options. He's equally good in both advanced and defensive positions.

If we had this lad in our sights for 12 months time, we might have to bite the bullet and pull the transfer forward to prevent Arsenal nicking him. I'd like to think that we are having conversations about it.

Absolutely frightning. When Simon Jordan is the voice of reason, you know someone batshit is on the line. I doubt he will ever own a football club.

I still don't for a second think we will sign Paqueta this summer, but... If we are to sign him, it might be because we don't want to let a long term target go to another club. I know we jokingly talk about beating Arsenal to Bruno but we are in a much better position with Paqueta because of Bruno. I can't for a second see Paqueta not choosing to play with his best mate.

So 20m quid then. Interesting to see if we bite. I'm 100% sure this is either Madrid driven or agent driven.

You implied it. Don't play word games. You might get into daft arguments with others on this forum but I'm not falling for your shit.

Can you point out what part of my post painted Gordon in a positive light, compared to CHO. In fact, I'm fairly sure I said the opposite. You are a moron. Stop finding racial issues where they don't exist.

It's a perfectly natural thing for a human to see one person and associate it with another person. Its a tribal thing from way back, where we had to make sure that outsiders weren't a threat to our tribe. It doesn't have to be skin colour though it could be any feature that stands out different. Of course its a great excuse for racists also but it doesn't stop anyone from comparing two people of the same skin colour and seeing similarities. If I want to compare Kante with Claude Makelele, I fucking will. I swear people were comparing that young kid Sucic? with Luka Modric but that's fine because they are white.

Fucking racist. Honestly, some people are thick as mince. Can't do anything without some moron jumping to the wrong conclusion. "I was watching Peter Crouch highlights the other day and I can't tell you how much he reminded me of Pele in his pomp. Had to scrub my eyes for a second to make sure I was watching the same fella".

The second paragraph is spot on, but it has nothing to with racism.

Willock seems to be missing most of a game, that is until he scores or assists like he did against Leicester and I end up scratching my head. I like him, hes a decent player but in 12 months time if an Everton or Palace or whatever came in with a half decent bid, I'd be tempted to cash in. Still has 12 months to progress and prove there is more to his game.

Its like a parody at times. He was literally pencilled in to sign for Liverpool. How fucking bad can he be? On a serious note, he seems versatile which I'm sure is something that Howe wants. If he can play CAM in a 4231, as well as left of right wing, well that adds to his potential value to our squad.

You mean like they have new owner who doesn't have a club what they are doing? Chelsea will drop like a stone at some point, similar to what Man United have done. Might take a few years for the rot to set in.

This is what I suspected. When you have someone like Rafa as a phone-a-friend, you use it. I'd like to think that a part of Eddie Howes "education" trips to Madrid and the likes were partly a networking mission. You can't tell me that when we signed Trippier, Howes relationship with Simeone didn't make a small difference.

I think he's trying to imply that because I compared CHO to Atsu and Gordon to Milner, that I'm somehow a racist. Which is funny because nobody else seemingly thought that and by pointing it out has actually looked racist himself.

Jumpers for braincells.

Yes they will box smart on a striker like Broja first and then go all in on Diaby.

What has skin colour got to do with it?

Quiet day transfer rumours wise.

I think you have misheard what I was trying to say. When a club scouts a player, its normal to do background checks by asking previous managers or team mates about the character of the player. Like i say, they clearly did it with Digne, so why not Gordon. Its not going behind Eddie's back in any way.

Yeah I think we are balls in the bath on Diaby. There is a real possibility that we smash our transfer record to get him. It's unclear how the player feels but if Leverkusen were to accept a bid, he would at least be tempted. Surely we have sounded him out. It's interesting that we were supposedly quoted 60m Euros for him, that surely means there is a chance that we could get him for less than 50m pounds, which I think we could do.

On Gordon: I was convinced that the reason we avoided Digne was because of a bad reference from Rafa, who I'm sure we have a direct line to. Therefore, would it be safe to assume that Rafa has, at least in part, reccomended Gordon? If he has a glowing reference from Rafa would that change anyone's negative opinion on him?