Yorkie

https://www.thetimes.com/sport/football/article/sandro-tonali-the-unlikely-poster-boy-of-italys-renaissance-lhx3hl08d

Bloody hell. That's unreal.

Should his legs always fly up like that after a dive?

Absolutely. Not seen a second of Palace this season so keen to see how he does here, seeing as we'll inevitably go back in for him.

Enjoyed that forward ball fired into feet from Guehi.

Agree with that, but in the context of Ashley's ownership.

What you've snapshotted there is definitely one of the spikes of the Ashley era. SackPardew.com, 'celebrating' defeats, beginning of the in-fighting, the realisation that we didn't want to compete, being told by all and sundry to be happy with our lot. I was apathetic and angry but, unlike the Bruce days, I still believed then that changing the manager would change anything. Hideous.

Ffs of all the kits/seasons. We didn't even wear that half and half one competitively.

I hadn't considered the Sociedad contribution so will make a concession there. Still, I'm not sure what leverage is to be gained by having to make a sell-on contribution. From the buyer's point of view, they're offering £17million profit and that's hardly unreasonable. As I've said more than once now; I'd expect us to hold out for more in the event of any concrete interest because Isak is a phenomenal striker and he's beyond crucial to NUFC. But I honestly think anyone expecting us to say "nine figures or fuck off," just isn't living in the real world. Deals of that nature have happened, obviously, but in 50% of cases Chelsea were the buyers and in the other 50% of cases the players were key England internationals. £100m+ isn't going to become the norm. One of the league's best players was recently illuminated in Fenwicks window for that price and no one bit.

Can't find this, can you quote it?

Honestly even if Sandro spent five minutes on that whilst looking at it, it's quality. It's such a hard badge to draw.

If Isak were to leave, obviously I'd hope he'd only go for something truly obscene, I said so yesterday. It would have to be, in order to offset the loss of a player who puts us in the running for titles. But £80m isn't an "insult," it's an enormous transfer fee and a decent profit on what we paid. I don't picture 9-figure transfer fees becoming a routine thing in this league tbh. There's only been four deals made which are in that bracket; two of them done by Chelsea - which is a totally unreliable barometer - and the other two were English internationals in their prime; there's always been a premium on those relative to the market. Maybe Isak would go for that but he'd be one of extremely few. Just reacting to the 'news' story posted tbf, though I don't think discussing the hypotheticals is inherently pessimistic.

It isn't, though. That matches the highest fee ever paid by a PL club for a striker (excluding Chelsea (Lukaku)). Anyway, it's surely a moot point for now. He's not going anywhere any time soon, he's got it great here.

I got sucked into Deliverance on BBC2 and there was honestly more charisma there.

Eh? Just the standard Dan Burn victory rage; he's always at it.

You do wonder what the fuck all of the broadcasters are thinking at times. MOTD2 the other night was Troy Deeney and Theo Walcott. The former doesn't deserve to be anywhere near a position like that and the latter is so mild-mannered and uninteresting, you wonder what the point is. There are definitely plenty of decent pundits out there (even if you don't agree with them), but there's some proper bilge. Incredible how Murphy has had that amazing gig for so long. I also dislike the trend of broadcasters appearing on multiple channels now, rather being a BBC guy, or whatever. Matterface is doing TNT this season, for eg.

The brave but controversial shout would be putting Adrian Chiles back where he belongs. Oh, you want braver? How about Mark Clemmitt, everyone?

you rascal. I was just about to and now I don't want to.

Why? You can do that in YouTube if you want that.

They're not that daft. Good news for 'Chappers' fans I expect.

Oh come on, Stifler. Germans? Sausages? Do I have to spell it out? The sausage-munching Boche. Fritz, the bratwurst guzzler.

Absolutely gutted for the bloke if anything truly severe comes from it. It's obviously an incredibly poor decision to chat away so candidly to someone holding a camera, but what exactly is the gotcha here? Is PGMOL suddenly not satisfied that he behaves in an impartial and objective manner because he thinks Klopp's a cunt for publicly berating him? Surely not, ffs. I loathe how much top level football is about referees and officiating these days. However, you do wonder if - in times like these - there'd actually be some value in the likes of PGMOL actually acknowledging that the refs are human beings, rather than admonishing them beyond repair whenever that humanity is revealed.

My new favourite ref.

Agree generally, but Isak probably holds the most important cards. I don't think he's destined to leave in the next 12 months but if we're not at least showing signs of qualifying for the CL, the writing is probably on the wall. Like I say, I'm optimistic that we'll get this and another season out of him, but I think he's probably destined to join a club with realistic potential of achieving the biggest honours. That's not a reflection of us; he's just so good.