Tiresias

It's he's not some high quality possession recycling midfielder, and that is one position we are lacking in. Bruno has the technical ability to do it but (rightly) wants to be creative and attacking. Part of me thinks the perfect midfield for us would be a really cultured passer who keeps the ball, so we have a destroyer in Joelinton, a creative player in Bruno and a metronome a la the classic Pep Barca midfield of Busquets (Joelinton), Iniesta (Bruno) and Xavi (to be found) mould. Because we don't quite keep the ball to that level Bruno becomes more defensive and plays deeper which feels a bit of a waste, but in actual fact what we have now is working brilliantly (for the record, yes i do think that barca midfield is the best there has ever been(

Ba was mint like, but he is excellent

Oh sorry yeah Bellingham seems sound, wasnt criticial of him just a lot of the super expensive players seem more concerned with their brand over all else

I continue to hope the player price bubble will burst (and i hope in a manner that really punishes twatish clubs like Barcalona who have staked so much on ludicrous spending) but it feels unlikely still. I know now we are super rich it ultimately will play into our hands lol but the league will be better for players not being ludicrously overpriced. Still, football will probably totally implode before it does anything sensible and that will be bad

in 3 or 4 years time if we have sorted our comercial incomings we will be, truth be told I am dreading it a little, getting players more interested in followers on the gram than on working hard on the pitch to prove themselves. But yes that is what I was saying we're not signing bellingham lol

He's too loose with possession to be honest, a brilliant option from the bench in future I suspect and he's unfortunate not to have some goals. It's almost like we're playing too well and too dominant for him, he's best on counter attack which is difficult when we are dominating (not trying to be overly critical, really happy with his improvement in form and happy for him)

I have faith in our recruitment team to find those players like Bruno that aren't yet seen as finished article so get at a decent price. It's going to be brutal when we sell off some pieces of this team to fund it though, absolutely fucking love the lot of them

When we win i will watch and read anything football related lol an obsess, we lose i will pretend sport doesnt exist, but could probably stand a loss now everything so positive

Bellingham will be likely over £100m if he goes this summer, I suspect he's out of our current price range ffp and all

Still feel for him losing 2 of the best years of his career to the whims of cabbage head. Pays off now for him but still

Villa had one for head injury so we get an extra one

Has to be taking the piss haha

I want our players to be happy and enjoying their footy. Anyone wanting him to be sat at home miserable and demotivated is mad like, even if he gets injured I will say worth the risk.

Fuck off 200m

I keep thinking back to Howe telling players "if you're lethargic and don't work as a team you'll get fuck all" in preseason and it's really really embedded into the squad

We're back where we belong in the league after a long time away

FT Get in!

They had concussion sub does that allow us an extra one?

Quoting guardian mbm "whisper it, but are Toon in the title race?" No, but WHAT IS THIS

Good for them! And no I can't fully square this circle but we're all human and being human is complicated. I don't want the sportwashing to be successful and it would be quite funny for them spending loads of money to make my club successfull and it ultimately be a total waste of time for them to make them look good (just as long as we are fine in the long term lol)

Very good to see i was concerned

I dunno going to have to be phased in at some point this might be the super cautious time to bring him in, don't know if a less cautious team would have tried this last week

Yep as much as they say not meant to change the leagues, the idea of 6 of them get free revenue that is inaccessible to the rest of the league no matter their success is absolutely pathetic. I know they said they would put some mechanism for teams to join but they can't disguise the intent of a closed shop. They are all terrified of loss of revenue considering how expensive it is being a football club competing at the top, for some reason they never think of putting actual regulation in place that would make football mroe sustainable for all and bring down ludicrous costs because that would hurt their profits.

It's weird, at home we should be confident, our defensive record is great, we can struggle to score but at home should get over the line and yet all I think is, oooh Villa scored loads at weekend they're gonna score a bunch again... I think best bet against us at St James is to be solid for first 70minutes and once our very below par subs come on if it's still 0-0 have a right go. We tend to be able to hold onto leads at the moment.

I am concerned about it too, more about us becoming some modern super club like PSG or City and i tend to find them soulless and wonder how you connect to players like Mbappe. I also worry about when we are expecting to win every game if it will become a shrug when we brush aside poorer teams in the league and livid if we draw away at Crystal Palace. I worry once the expectations are win something and compete in champions league all the fear comes back in and none of the joy currently have of having a good team doing well that noone is demanding do anything more than try their best and if finish 8th it's oh well an improvement