Lush Vlad

Fulham have looked decent.

“Bugger. It was the wrong thigh.”

Aye. We only have one person capable of playing the deeper role. Even when everyone is fit and available. Longstaff looks terrible on the left side of the midfield and all.

Found all of the NUFC ones have their flaws. Think I've said the below so many times. But it still tracks: POTT - painfully unfunny. Waugh the only one worth listening to. But he certainly lacks a bit of charisma. The other two twats just spend the whole show taking the piss out of him and offering fuck all in the way of anything worth listening to. True Faith - Charlotte is horrendous. Hurst speaks really well at times. But I still can't see past the fact he regularly used to say Joelinton and ASM were left footed. Norman is never on, who was class. The post-match reaction lot are never particularly insightful or enjoyable to listen to. Too much 'WE ARE CLASS. WE ARE FUCKING MINT. NOBODY WANTS TO PLAY US.' When we're doing well. Depressing stuff when we lose. The life of a fan, I guess. AWSF - seem like good lads and it can be fun. But they go off on too many tangents, they get bogged down on certain points or spending ages talking about food The slightly higher pitched fella is argumentative for the sake of it and doesn't actually improve the overall experience. Just feels like he's playing the role of the contrarian and it ruins it, for me. The longest of all the pods, but they somehow say the least regarding the club or the game. It can be 20 minutes before they even comment on the game, sometimes. Not NUFC specific. But Football Daily has been pretty good of late. Euro Leagues is alright, too. Most of the pundits and journos on there are decent enough. Only a few whoppers.

Who is your highest paid player out of interest, Son, I'm assuming? Maddison was rumoured to be getting £170k a week when he signed, wasn't he? I'm sure he would have chose Spurs even if we could afford to pay the same wages. But there is no chance we would have been able to match that, if true. That was before Bruno's new contract and I think at the time our highest earners were £120K a week.

Same. If we are going to pay the Prem/English tax. Then I’d be happy if there were some truth to the rumours. Even better if they owe us money for Wood and/or they need to sell for to help with their money troubles.

He was very good that day. It did help that he was immune to getting a card. Was aggressive as fuck from the off and must have had 4-5 niggly fouls. Followed by a big old whinge to the ref. One shocker on Bruno and all. The ref totally enabled that and let him get away with murder. It also helped that all of our players on the day appeared to be wearing rigger boots. They were that bad and slow.

We also don't play with wingers since Howe came in. It's not fair to compare wingers predominantly playing in a 4-4-2 from an era where tactics were very different. To players like Gordon and Almiron, who are forwards in a front three. EDIT - you beat me to it

He has played as more of a forward in his time here, no? Especially the good performances and the goals, since Howe came in. The same way Gordon is considered a forward.

I would rather he stayed as a squad player short-medium term. But when you look at our squad and players that might actually fetch a decent fee, whilst also getting rid of a decent salary. Outside of players that we really want to keep. After Wilson, realistically, who do we have? Longstaff? Who we can't sell at the minute with our midfield crisis (wings are not much better, granted). If we need to move players on because of FFP and in an attempt to improve the squad in the long run. Then I think Almiron and then Wilson are two of the more obvious choices. I was thinking in the summer and not now, mind.

I dunno mate. Kaka’s pretty trim.

What in the Ready To Groom has been going on these last two pages Walked into a warzone.

Just seen the Girona score. Not sure what is more unbelievable. The fact they are still pushing for the title or the 6 minute hatrick from Dovbyk. Pure class.

We have signed most of our ‘purples’ from abroad, yes. But I do feel like we are paying a premium and in turn, bigger wages because they are already playing in the biggest league in the world. The price for Hall, Livramento and Gordon all looked high for what those players have achieved so far. Gordon is more than proving value so far, of course. Jury is out on Tino, but he looked quality when regularly starting games. Hall seems a massive waste of time. Barnes was a decent price with his numbers. But hasn’t had a chance to prove it yet. I bet he is one of our highest earners. I mentioned it might not be a factor. But looking at Bournemouth’s signings under Howe and a lot of the buys we have made, the comments from the media and the players we are constantly linked. It does seem like we/Howe favour the Prem market. If we are trying to pad out the squad and get some genuine competition. It’s going to be next to impossible to do that unless we do take a punt on more unproven players. Not big ticket players like Botman, Isak and Bruno (Tonali). Easy to mention those three and be wise after the event. But I seem to remember most were over the moon with such big name, big money players and were surprised they came here.

I thought he looked brilliant bar the finishing for long spells last season. I know scoring is quite an important part of being a forward I would even go as far to say he looked a better footballer than Haaland outside of the box. By that, I mean his all round play, touch, dribbling off both feet, decent in the channels. This season. It seems like with every game without a goal. He gets more and more desperate and his game gets worse and worse. He looks like a right donkey the last 4-5 games I’ve seen him. So annoying he has been like prime R9 against us the last two games at SJP

I remember Tiote coming in from the Dutch league and instantly looking like one of the best defensive midfielders we’ve had in the prem era. If we have scouted properly and they have the physical attributes. I’m not sure what the big deal is. If indeed there is one. We do certainly seem to favour prem proven. Which results in us spending more money on the fee and the wages, like you’ve mentioned.

Not relating to his free kick skullduggery. But more the way he has carried on for a while. Toney really does comes across as a bellend. I get to be an elite level player, most people are going to need an unwavering, unbelievable level of self-belief. But he just comes across as arrogant and petulant. Not sure I have once seen him kind of hold his hands up for his ban. Seems keen to point the finger and blame everyone else when he’s in the media. Then there was the disrespectful interview when he was about to return. Ivan Toney, My Story. The ‘Fuck Brentford’ stuff. ‘The Big Dog is back.’ Just seems thoroughly unlikeable.

No wonder he’s always so miserable. He looks like the human version of grumpy cat. Also shades of Buzz Lightyear.

Schar takes corners and free kicks into the box, does he?

I wouldn’t mind it changing either. Not sure Howe is going to do that mid-season should Trippier leave. Been doing it pretty much since he started managing us. Would just mean we have someone doing the same. But with a worse delivery.

He laced a corner to Botman. Who nobody wanted to challenge for a header, aye. Considering our gameplan consists of free kicks into the box from the halfway line onwards. And we don’t really have anyone decent after Trippier at taking set pieces, bar maybe Targett. It is a bit of a concern. You know. Along with losing everything else Trippier brings to the team, as well.

Who’s taking the set pieces now then? Longstaff? Gordon?

Just came in to question why the keeper set his wall up about 3 yards inside the post

This is my thinking. If they’ve looked at it and his wages off the books and a £10m’ish fee means we can get a couple of deals done this month. Then I could maybe see it. But he is so important to how we play. So much goes through him. He often sets the tone. He’s well respected, our leader and captain. Not sure on the numbers now. But until recently, early Jan, I think. He was joint 2nd on chances created in the league

That HLTCO lad on Twitter is forever posting about other teams. If this is what he has to watch every week. I don’t blame him!