SteV

It would have been. But absolutely no one thought keeping them two was a better option than keeping Gordon. And perhaps given what’s happened in between, it still wasn’t.

Aye, they looked class against Spurs…

The problem with buying anyone from Barcelona is that you would more than likely have to offer them a wage increase to come here, and the majority are on more than we can afford to start with.

He’s only on loan at Bayern.

Only got a year left.

Ridiculous to label Gordon a rat. Go back and look at how Eddie spoke about Isak when he was “injured” in the summer, and compare to how he spoke about Gordon. Chalk and cheese. Gordon has done nothing wrong IMO.

I don’t dispute he’s on the bench now because of the pending sale, and all the dynamics around whether that might have taken his focus away, Howe thinking players that are going to be here next season should get first go in the team etc. I just think he was injured when they said he was. Howe was absolutely adamant that he was. It wasn’t a half-hearted “he said he felt something” line, like he trotted out for Isak in the summer, it was “Anthony Gordon is injured, 100%”.

If he wasn’t injured (and Howe was extremely explicit that he was), why is he on the bench now, when he wasn’t then? What’s changed?

It would appear to me that Gordon hasn’t overtly done anything ’wrong’. Howe just probably feels that with this move hanging over him, is he the best person to be playing for in this moment? If we had critical games coming up, maybe it would be different, but in the situation we are, I think it’s understandable from both manager and player.

He’ll be off to a slower paced league that will hopefully allow him to manage his body better.

Absolutely wild.

I was at a talk-in with him (and Les Ferdinand) recently. He told the story of how when he moved up here the club sorted him a house in Crook (fairly close to Maiden Castle for training). Said it was fine to start with, then he started banging the goals in and becoming a ‘name’, and he started getting all the neighbours knocking on his door to offer him sugar or such like (in a friendly way) just see or speak to him. Obviously that became too much, and he asked to be moved. Eventually he ended up buying a place in Jesmond, which he said he loved, but shortly after we sold him, and he ended up selling it to Ferdinand.

Can we make our minds up whether he’s a) a flat track bully or b) someone who only tries in the big games Because those two would seem fairly contradictory…

We probably will. As others have said, these type of conversations with third party agent types, prior to any club agreement, seem to be norm now. No doubt we engage in it. There’s absolutely no way we would have piss-farted about for ages with the likes of Wissa, Guehi etc, if we hadn’t already spoke to their ‘people’ and had the broad outline of what kind of package we were gonna offer them.

Sounds more l like we’re OK with his people discussing terms, as we’re willing to sell him, subject to our price being met.

https://www.dailymail.com/sport/football/article-15814229/southampton-middlesbrough-spy-training-scandal-photo.html Can honestly see these getting kicked out

Ole

Hopefully it was and we’re a fair way down the amortisation road with him.

It’s interesting that when Gordon’s ineffective, it’s because of a perceived lack of commitment and/or effort. However, when Barnes is ineffective, that’s never really levelled against him. Anyway, irrelevant really, it seems like a suitable time to part ways with Gordon, for what (hopefully) is going to be a fairly sizeable fee. Am I right in remembering that when he first signed, it was on a surprisingly short contract (3 years)? If so, given he signed his extension 18 months later, would half of his fee been amortised in those first 18 months?

Depends if we’ve allowed it. It seems like we’re fairly willing sellers, so a different situation to what happened with dickhead in the summer.

It was possibly the wrong thread to post it in tbh, given it isn’t a current rumour in any way, shape or form. I posted it as it seemed the figures quoted were a relatively new revelation, and in that sense, worthy of note/discussion. The discussion has subsequently morphed a bit into some thinking we’re seemingly back in for him or whatever. Need someone to post another link to a South American wonderkid so we can all move on.

https://www.dailymail.com/sport/football/article-15811057/Half-Indian-footballer-called-curry-muncher-manager-John-Yems-WINS-harassment-tribunal-wants-12m-pay-career-ending-injury-suffered-result.html

It doesn’t work like that though. It’s like a close boxing match that goes to points. You can’t just give the decision to the underdog because he’s done better than expected. You have to judge it as if they are two equals. If we end up above them, you can still say they’ve had a ‘better’ season than us, but if they’ve got less points than us, they don’t ’deserve’ to be above us.

He was told he was going to be number one for the current PL champions. He wasn’t to know they’d shaft him a couple of weeks later by signing Donnarumma.

Be hounded out by October when everybody realised he couldn’t cope with being bombed on corners and free kicks.