John P

Nets? Probably better than Blob

On his compilation videos he seems to be popping up all over the place - striker, left back, centre mid, right wing. God knows what position we're signing him for.

Great stuff. We'll have Merino starting plenty of games instead of this guy. An absolutely massive improvement.

Trabzonspor?! Jesus, thought he would be able to do better than Turkey.

That was the first time I've seen Merino and, even though he only touched the ball a handful of times, he looks quality. Broke up the play a few times with well timed tackles and showed some lovely vision, especially that outside of the boot pass to Aarons. Pretty excited by him I have to say. Could turn out to be a great bit of business.

Yep, Atsu looking really good, very sharp

That's never a penalty like. Disgusting bias from the ref

Ah right, thought there had been an announcement or something that I couldn't find. If it sees the light of day it could be glorious

The results didn't help like Genuine question, do we know if he is any good? Sure I read he was supposed to be in charge of defending when McClaren was here and we were hopeless at defending that season (although I doubt that was all his fault). Obviously Rafa rated him to keep him on so I guess he must have something about him but he was hopeless at Hearts I thought he was more in charge of attacking? Either way we were shit

Eh? Madness :lol: Apparently it's being produced by that group that were rumoured to be buying the club, and the club resisted it for ages until giving it a last minute go ahead. Camera man at the Celtic match caught footage of a bird shitting on Grayson's head Just done a quick google and couldn't find anything about this. Do you know for sure? I'm desperate to let my Sunderland supporting friend know.

Remember this so well. That trap from a high, travelling crossfield pass was something you rarely see. Just killed it under his boot. Absolutely stunning. Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk Think it was Tiote's pass but the gasp from the crowd said it all, in the current team maybe only Perez comes close who is capable of something like that. Aye, vividly remember that and the collective gasp from the crowd, it was brilliant.

Don't suppose anyone on here went to the game and spoke to a German woman with red hair on the bus to the match? If so, it was my mother in law

As Rafa alluded to though, when you go from Championship to Premier League, you need far more signings than teams who were in the league the previous season.

Saw a tweet by Ted Knutson (guy who worked as 'head of player analytics' at Brentford) where he showed a chart explaining how Riviere was consistently seen as a good talent from the age of 20, and his stats suggested he would become a good player, but it just didn't work out. It's obvious that he's been a massive failure here, but it seems he was rated by certain people who know their stuff when he was younger.

Plenty for #NUFC fans to be excited about with Mikel Merino. Can play as CB, DM, CM (Box to box type). Strong, athletic, very good passing. Heard #NUFC require creativity but Merino not of that type. Will help retain possession, make runs, link-up but not known for final pass. Merino to be someone who helps build play for Rafa more than anything. Smart passing, neat and tidy, keep game flowing in midfield at #NUFC. That's from the 442 Spanish journalist on Twitter. Sounds good.

Imagine if he became our Xabi Alonso

Brought through the Spanish youth system Coached by Tuchel Pushes Colback down the pecking order Could be a permanent deal

The kind of one that plays in midfield. Greek Alan Smith? Got a similar goal record I guess.

These are really not the signings of a team ready to bounce straight back up to the Premier League like.

Don't care tbh. Yeah, me neither. He's foreign and costs more than £10m, get the bugger in

Didn't our resident Benfica fan say he was shit?

When was the last remotely credible transfer rumour? Ie one backed up by a couple of reliable sources? Feels like forever ago.

Similar situation to Shola. Two guys who'd been starting for us in the Premier League for years, and within a year of leaving they're in League One and the Turkish Second Division. Ridiculous how long we held on them when it was plainly obvious for years they were no longer good enough.

Victor Fernandez seems a fairly decent prospect. Trained with the first team in Ireland too so is obviously rated by Rafa.

Weird for him to be training with the reserves. Surely he hasn't regressed so much that he's now worse than Elliott or Darlow? Seemed like a good guy and a decent professional too, so wouldn't have thought he would have had a falling out with Rafa.