Raconteur

It might well be all relative, but I must confess to being pleased Hayden signed on. I thought there was a rumour he was seeing out his contract and heading south, which meant the club wanted to move him on for cash this summer (autumn). Or did I invent that?

Before it was frowned up, someone posted the full text of this story from The Athletic. It really is mind boggling he’s been on our books for so long without ever being considered a player... https://theathletic.com/1214642/2019/09/18/comment-1m-an-appearance-yet-saivet-has-become-a-footballer-who-does-not-actually-play-football/

Feels like he wants to out himself with this new “get your truth from me and not them” vibe. I really enjoyed the parody when it was taking the piss out of Ashley in a witty manner, but it just seems the account holder suddenly wants to become more “active” or something...

It's sickening that Bruce is so desperate to get rid of Lejeune that he's willing to forego a loan fee

Hands up, I thought it was official and posted it here as such. Still shaking my head, though...

Pretty much this 4-2-3-1, and the only real question mark is Fernandez.

Nah - he said that in a very particular context that included calling himself shit. He’s saying he played shit but trains well, doesn’t get picked when there are others who play shit and train shit but keep getting picked. It’s a fair point and takes a certain level of courage to do (possibly afforded by the cameras). It is Jose Mourinho, after all...

I have to say I don’t like either Rose or Mourinho, but they both came out of it looking better to me. Mourinho was calm and controlled leading a hard conversation, he was respectful and, frankly, showed a lot more than I thought of him. Similarly, I thought Rose was a broken has-been collecting until he couldn’t any more - and I don’t think anyone who watched him play for the Toon would disagree. As dickish as “I’m going to Daniel” was, it was encouraging to see a professional have that desire to get out there, even if he can’t do what he used to. And major kudos for calling Mourinho out on favouritism too without getting hysterical.

xLiaaamx[/member] posted our whole 30-man (over-21) squad in the general NUFC thread, but it makes interesting context when talking about who we need and who to shift. We’ve got ten defenders on the books - 2 x left backs, 3 x right backs and FIVE senior centre halves (not counting Dummett, who is a left back for this case). Brucey, mate. Just why do we need another centre half? As insane as it sounds, we’ve got five strikers on the books, when we uniformly play one up front. Maybe you could get all Fantasy Football and list Muto and/or Joelinton as midfielders*, but that creates its own problems: 12 (or 14*) midfielders - I make it six central, deeper players and six (or eight) wide/attacking midfielders. We’ve managed to build a squad that is so bloated we need to shift five players as a minimum and barely has a starting eleven fit for purpose. It really is a case study in incompetence.

Isn’t Yedlin more likely to leave than Krafth? EDIT: misread that. Isn’t Yedlin on his way out the door? I’m sure there were rumours about Germany and MLS...?

It’s astonishing that we have 30 professional footballers on the books and struggle so very hard to cobble a decent Premier League XI together...

Prefer him to Wilson tbh Gotta say I was “excited” for Wilson because I’d read King was in the £40m bracket and the likes of Man U were after him. If he’s going for less than Wilson, we might have missed a trick here...

Officially stripped of the number 9. Sorry, son. Sorry you were so shite...

I'm finding that uproariously funny when it should probably make me cry

Same. Btw I'm not knocking Rondon, I was one of the ones defending his signing while a lot of people were being negative, I just think Wilson is a slightly better, more mobile version of the Rondon we signed. Wilson might be a better striker than Rondon - but Rondon under Rafa versus Wilson under Bruce is a different matter. That said, I'd be as "pleased" with Wilson as any other striker we've been linked with. Confirmation please

We've only actually signed Hendricks so far as far as I know. Hendrick. There is no fucking 's' you morons. Is this where some smart ass suggests it’s ironic to correct a rogue letter “s” when you’ve used a plural to describe a single person?

If our budget is 30m, and we're paying half that for Lewis, then we're maxed out with our 15+Ritchie bid. Blown out of the water by Villa Villa are loaded no? More that, not so very long ago, we were laughing at them. Didn't take long for them to blast past us.

If our budget is 30m, and we're paying half that for Lewis, then we're maxed out with our 15+Ritchie bid. Blown out of the water by Villa

Owning Melbourne City hasn’t done much for them - the only player they got was Aaron Mooy (who never wore a Man City shirt), while the only player from within the group that played for Melbourne City was a four match spell from David Villa. Not much return in six years...

Re loans: "Some clubs have no qualms ringing up and asking if "anyone is available" and taking whomever's on offer" Step forward, Mr Charnley...

Isn't losing your sense of smell one of the symptoms? Probably how he figured something was wrong...

He’s being a proper cunt about it, but you can’t blame him for being pissed that Madrid called his move to China off.

An almost-30 year old journeyman "bursting onto the scene" Someone called him a Vogon in another thread - and listening to Bruce's press conferences is exactly like listening to a Vogon poetry recital...

Isn't he in quarantine, except the club won't confirm it? Also, anything come of that "betting scandal" story? Would be fucking hilarious if the match suddenly became a "training game" after the bookies heard our boys had lumped on the smoggies

There's so much to hate about Barton, but damned if he doesn't say the right things