Infinitely Content

Welcome, Limbombe.

Good luck Mitro, you endearing bastard.

Hands off Pauly D

You down for a thousand quid bet? Can I get in on this Even in the event of a civilisation rebuild post-apocalypse.

You need to lay off the acid, learn from your mistakes!

I'd kill for totally average. But we already have well above average in Lascelles, Lejeune (and hopefuly Schar)!

Mourinho will end up at Newcastle in the next 10 years, I reckon (unless he retires which is probably a fair possibility)

Got badly roasted once was indistinguishable aside. Aye he got turned inside and out at one point and I didn't see much of him afterwards. I wonder if Rafa has seen enough in training from him to value him as a backup full back, someone capable of pushing Yedlin. Time will tell.

Fulham also after Hector Herrera apparently, who played against us last night. Very good player, would be their signing of the season ahead of Seri if they could pull that off imo.

Ah, sorry - I had mixed you up with Twinport (both have Ben Arfa avatars)

Someone's been listening to Jordan Peterson

Depends what you mean by purpose. If someone feels some innate desire to say write, explore, make art etc how do you know that is not something deeply within them that they simply have to play out in this life? What reason do you have to discard that as an illusion of purpose?

Really interested to see how Fulham (and Wolves for that matter) adapt their style of play this season and how it affects Mitrovic. They're both used to front-foot football, seeing the majority of the ball and thus creating a surplus of chances to score - a mentality/philosophy they will struggle to impose on at least half of the teams in this league, maybe more. It was a bit easier for us having a manager like Benitez, where whilst we did dominate the ball in the championship games (largely through opponents allowing us to/respecting our ability), you almost felt Rafa would be more comfortable playing a more compact game focusing on breaking away rather than breaking teams down, meaning we were ready to make a more seamless transition from one of the best teams in the league to one of the poorest/most limited. I don't know a great deal about Jokanovic or the Wolves bloke, but I suspect (asides from Watford) that they haven't really experienced setting up a team to not have possession whilst still creating good openings for the forward players.

Especially Fulham as well they have a stadium like an old abandoned warehouse Their stadium is great, one of my favourites. Give me Craven Cottage over Flatpark Park on Overpriced Shite Business Park off a Junction of a motorway. Love Craven Cottage.

Gayle had some good games, yes, but he went missing so much man. There was some games last season where I'm not even sure he touched the ball over like 70 minutes. It's no wonder Perez was running into dead ends at times. I'm not saying it's only the fault of the strikers, but I was making the point that's it's more of a shared responsibility situation than purely a fault of Perez.

I'd argue that is as much a reflection of Gayle & Joselu being quite terrible as it is of Perez's ability. I'd agree one of the weaker parts to his game is his decision making, IE. releasing the ball at the right time before running into trouble, but there's only so much of that he can improve without options around him to play 1-2's and such with. Hopefully with Kenedy & Muto up there with him he might have more options in the final third, as even when paired Mitrovic who had decent link up play and made himself available he looked much better, I thought. Gayle especially hides away so much.

I would maybe get the Perez criticism a year or two ago, but to criticise him now when he's clearly developed quite a bit seems unfair to me. Even in pre-season I think he's shown strong signs that he's continuing to really grow into that number 10 role, he looks a threat always imo, makes good, positive runs with the ball, decision making is getting better and his movement is fantastic. That coupled with his well-documented traits of hassling midfielders and defenders to win the ball back up high, and his very good finishing and I think you get a rather good player.

FFS

Diame was excellent imo. Lascelles good too.

The rate is actually quite good. 85% of players who sustain the injury return eventually to the same or higher level of football.

Think Shearer missed half a season with a similar injury. Should be able to recover quicker these days, but it probably differs from person to person. Most players seem to come back from it without too much trouble though which is good. I damaged my knee ligament over 2 years ago and it still goes from time to time, although I never done any physiotherapy to compensate.

Yeah bad news for us, felt really good going into the season knowing him and Lascelles would be at the heart of our defence. Wonder if Rafa will go with Clark first few games to protect Schar. Depends how much he trusts him. Sounded good tonight but tbh I could see what pixel he was as the NUFC feed was rough.

DUBS HAULED OFF.

Dubravka is god.