Eveready

Doesn't Murphy get a fair amount of abuse? It just never really gets talked about because he's clearly an idiot and no one defends him. I have no doubt a lot of the abuse Aluko gets is sexism & racism, but some people (not an equal amount) will defend her for the same reasons resulting in visible internet arguments.

His stock is low as it's ever been due to injuries and despite being a player who needs a few games to regain match fitness, his G/A contribution per 90 was still one of the best in the team last year. Even with the short term impact on FFP, I cannot understand how people would be happy to accept £30-35m for him when it would cost easily double that to replace him.

No differences as a percentage of our budget assuming all deal are 5 years+ though. For the record I think this is a good move and I'm all for signing young prospects.

Were Qatar hoping the migrant workers would stay? What for if they've built the infrastructure which is no longer required? The vast natural resource wealth means that unlike countries with developed, diversified economies, which require an increasing population to grow their GDP, I thought the reason migrant workers were brought over was simply to fill a labour shortage that the native population refuse to fill as they basically get free handouts from the government. After these huge infrastructure projects have been completed why would they want the migrant workers to stay and wouldn't they offer them a pathway to citizenship if so? Not doubting you, just genuine curiosity as I'm not well versed on the subject.

Is it only me that also thinks that Rakitic was fouled in the lead up to the Roma goal? Would have to rewatch it but it looked the Roma player shielded the ball from Rakitic by completely turning his back on the ball and using his hands to stop Rakitic from getting it while his teammate picked it up. Like an American football defensive linesman blocking. Edit: watching it back the Roma player makes zero attempt to even touch or control the ball and even falls over because Rakitic steps back so he can’t lean into him.

Set a dangerous precedent here. If it was won this year by the manager of the clear favourites before the season, after winning last year and adding Haaland, then surely whoever wins the league wins manager of the year moving forward - unless they're even bigger favourites than Man City were this year and win by a smaller margin.

Found that amusing too. I bet it was very hard for a millionaire footballer to find a private doctor to diagnose him with that. I know from my own personal history that addiction manifests in many forms, but the percentage of his bets that involve games he has intimate knowledge of doesn't indicate addiction. For all I know he was up until 3am playing online roulette which we wouldn't know about though as it isn't football related.

Actually find the betting against us pretty funny but 8 months is ridiculously light considering the bets.

Which clubs united to become Manchester United? I live in London and I rarely hear people refer to Man Utd and simply 'United'. The only guy I know who refers to them as 'United' is a Man Utd fan from Manchester so I'll give him a break.

Knew exactly what he was doing there, ducked his head before contact so clearly knew the player was there and dangerous as fuck. Problem is if they make it a booking then Kane is going to get sent off every other game.

Possibly all the ex-Soviet countries remaining in UEFA after the break up? No idea, but could be the reason.

I’m not saying he hides from the ball all the time (and by saying ‘hide from the ball’, like I assume others are, I mean not showing for the ball). But what is he doing in that clip if he’s not hiding?

I think you need to look at the definition of majority, mate.

This is his level https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/scott-mctominay-rangers-transfer-floated-29420650

I don’t feel like going back to Willock and Joelinton switching LW and LCM roles is the answer. We need goals and our goals dried up well before ASM came back into a starting role, and ASM himself has looked our most threatening player since.

Crazy notion. I think we should all tell everyone who has a different opinion on other football team to shut it and fuck off.

That doesn’t mean that it can’t be implemented differently. For example - have the penalties as reduced spend for totalling 150–200% of the overspend (this could be spread over 3-4 years). If they then don’t follow that then instant relegation, they’d have been given fair warning. It would also result in a situation where they’d have to have a fire sale to ensure they comply with the penalty, which would be a further deterrent. With an absolute cap they know the number to work to and there could be no ambiguity in claiming that they expected their commercial revenue to increase or that outside factors out of their control (COVID for example) reduced their revenue. Any non-compliance would be sheer negligence.

I personally think the opinion that FFP is simply there to keep the status quo is largely correct. I don’t think unlimited spend is the answer but if you are going to have caps on spending then teams within the Premier League should all have the same absolute monetary caps (none of this percentage of income nonsense) as long as the spending doesn’t jeopardise the future of the club. I don’t think this would be too hard to devise a formula based on not allowing loan balances to exceed certain values and having enough cash reserves held within the club to cover future committed transfer instalments and wages if income isn’t enough to cover them. Allowing some clubs to have wage bills 5-10 times higher than others is ridiculously uncompetitive.

We'd have to finish top 4 for even the remotest chance of that happening.

I'm not worried. I'm sure if we'll adjust our targets accordingly if we've ended up spending more than we intended. But I think fans having an opinion on the amount we spend on a player is valid.

Wasn't even referring to this deal specifically, even though I do think it's on the pricey side I don't think it's massively overvalued. My point is simply that I think the 'it's not my money I don't care how much we spend' is a little shortsighted.

I agree it's good we're spending money but the club will be running on a certain budget, limited by investment or FFP, and overspending has to have an impact on future spend.

I still think he'll be back in the starting line up as soon as we lose a game. Just don't think Howe wants to change the starting 11 unforced with the unbeaten run we're on.

Seems too much. I'll still give him my full support when he's in a Newcastle shirt and I hope he proves me wrong but I'm struggling to get excited by this one.

The other way of looking at it is that he's only started 1 of their last 7 league games