SteV

Amongst other things it would probably help combat Brentford’s long throws and general set-piece threat. Although vibes of Pardew doing it for that reason once away to Stoke.

Donnarumma’s 26 and he’s absolutely class. As much as I rate Trafford, he’s got miles to go to realistically have a chance of surpassing him. I’d be very, very surprised if Donnarumma isn’t your number one for at least the next 4-5 years.

Like I say, I think you can tell when he’s being a bit evasive. I mean he never really outright lies, in that he says a player isn’t playing, then he does. It felt to me like he was saying ‘Hall’s already had one muscle injury since coming back, we really need to make sure he doesn’t get another’. So I’m with you in that I think he’s still on the bench for this one.

Not directly, no, but when you watch all of them you get a feeling for when he’s skirting round something as opposed when he’s just giving a straight forward answer.

Right club for what? Cos it doesn’t appear to be playing football regularly.

Didn’t sound like Hall was starting from what Eddie said in the presser yesterday.

That post-cup final run, where he scored in three successive games, was definitely his best run as a starter, especially the Man Utd game. But even then we’re talking 4 or 5 games max, before he sort of drifted a bit towards the end of the season. I want him to do that for longer, more consistently. He’s probably the best finisher at the club, and I genuinely think he can get 15+ goals a season (especially when we’re playing so many matches) if he finds a way to consistently influence games as a starter.

The only way I could see him not going to AFCON, would be if they were to qualify for the WC next week (big ask tbh) and we managed to convince everyone, including Wissa himself, that it would be better for his long-term fitness leading into the WC, if he just stayed here with us and managed his minutes. Seems unlikely though.

Agree completely, apart from the bit about England, as a think most would be happy to see one of our players miss out for them too if appeared to have a direct benefit to NUFC. Friendlies, certainly, and even qualifiers to an extent, but we can hardly be expecting players to sack off major tournaments because it’s an inconvenience to the club.

If Gordon ends up being out for my length of time, he really needs to take this chance to really perform if given a run of starts. Feels like he always done ‘OK’ when starting, but never any better than that. The vast majority of games in his NUFC career that he’s really impacted/impressed in, seem to have been as a sub.

“Yet” seems incredibly optimistic at this point tbh.

Why do we need a minimum of two goals?

Just he’s no longer injured, and it’s just a case of him building up the required fitness and sharpness, as to when he’s ready to play. Seems very cautious about putting any kind of date on it, which I think is partly-related to the situation with playing (or not) for DR Congo.

Starting to think that maybe Thomas Tuchel doesn’t frequent this forum.

Putting to one-side the OAP-culling, the safety nonce people wouldn’t let the away end be down there due to entrance and exit protocols.

That was pretty much my experience when I attended one too. Tbh, we can probably all flag up what the issues are, it’s just a lot more difficult to offer viable solutions. Did anyone have any ideas that seemed like they might be feasible?

Seen @bobbydazzla on his way into the ticket workshop earlier.

Now we’ve established the criteria, can I ask what the point of that ‘mini-draw’ is? Why not just have it fixed as 9th v 24th etc?

Aye, that’s interesting, hadn’t realised. Should have been Milan v Juve going off league placing last season, but it wasn’t. Will have to have a closer look at the criteria for sorting that out.

It’s 9th v 24th, 10th v 23rd etc in the playoff round. L16 is a bit different (see the Villa and Liverpool examples last season).

Agreed, and that’s without Davies and Musiala as well.

They did get a bit lucky in that Brugge finished 24th and ended up beating Atalanta (9th), whereas Liverpool ended up getting PSG (15th), so there’s definitely an element of lottery to it. But I suppose you’re right, and you’d always take your chances against the majority that finish outside top 8.

Thought that was his best game of the season by a distance, granted, a pretty low bar. Looked a bit of an attacking threat for the first time in a while.

If we qualify next season and get Qarabag and Kairat away you’ll love it…