Infinitely Content

It's a good team that man

It's doubtful, but I'd be intrigued to see this actually, particularly against a difficult opponent. A lot of crossing potential from Trippier, Murphy and Hall to the two forwards. The key issue with it is no Joelinton.

I absolutely love him. He's top 3 Newcastle players of my lifetime. Ben Arfa, Joelinton, Given - in that order.

We saw the Leeds performance differently then which is fine. I saw a player who about 3 times in the space of 20 minutes headed the ball without any distance or conviction on it straight to the edge of our box to Leeds players in space. If he does that against a better attacking outfit than Leeds, Pope is tested 3 times in those situations. He was rusty, that's fine, it certainly wasn't a vintage Botman performance and out of the 3 centre backs on the pitch, he was rightly the one sacrificed for an attacking substitution.

It's not just about that though, Burn offers the full package. Fierce leadership, immaculate defensive work, blood and thunder when it's needed and calmness and pacification when it's needed. He's not just some passion merchant. He's absolutely invaluable and a key player for us.

He wasn't like.

Well, I'll put it this way, if we were playing a final tomorrow, with a back 4 of Livramento, Schar, Burn or Botman and Hall. I'm choosing Burn every single time, no contest.

Botman wasn't very good against Leeds other than the first 5 minutes, he put us in trouble with terrible defensive headers 2 or 3 times.

Having a laugh? No. Botman more of a goal threat? He's scored twice for Newcastle. Burn without checking has much more. And in terms of cutting out passes to forwards with aggressive interceptions, all of our centre backs do it, both Burn and Schar extremely effectively. Nothing you have said clearly shows me Botman is a better defender at present than Burn, mainly because he isn't.

It is. For me other than Botman's slightly better long range passing, I don't know if he's better at any one defensive skill than Burn. And of course Burn's leadership skills and character on the pitch which are so vital for that position puts him even further ahead imo and makes it a no-contest.

Botman is a really good player, but genuinely, these days, do you think he's better than Dan Burn? Burn is pretty much perfect week after week. Even a healthy Botman doesn't displace him imo.

This is the defining comment imo which perfectly illustrates the absurdity of what we’ve done. Both Brentford and Wolves aren’t even to be praised for some show of strength, they’re just doing the obvious thing. If Wolves sold us Strand Larsen for £35m without a replacement in I would think they were insane. Yet here we are doing exactly that, but somehow far worse under our particular circumstances. We’ve absolutely fucked it. I’ve seen better negotiation skills on fucking Facebook marketplace for a fucking wooden chair.

All of this summer's nonsense aside, Liverpool are insane for not just paying the money for Isak. 25 year old, top 3 striker in the world. Gifted beyond belief. With Salah looking increasingly peripheral in games, he'd probably be their best offensive player.

Hallo meine Brüder, we have a striker available, canny good. One could say the perfect long term Harry Kane replacement. £100m and a 6 pack of Spaten. Might as well, you were about to pay a heavy loan fee for some Chelsea OutKast.

The standard of Premier League football has fallen a lot in the last 2-3 years.

I rate Arteta very highly as a coach, just not always a fan of his conduct.

Arsenal also have a much better manager and a much better defence.

Isak would fit this Liverpool team so so seamlessly. They're all a bunch of whining arseholes.

Can see Wirtz taking the entire season to truly settle in. He's looked completely overwhelmed in every moment I've seen him play thus far for Liverpool.

Deport them to Donetsk.

Certainly as back up it's fine, but they will be needing Eze and Saka to be starting the vast majority of games to pose a challenge imo. Madueke and Martinelli are no more than average top half wingers.

Arsenal’s front 3 today of Madueke, Martinelli and Gyokeres is a bit shit on paper. I hope they can pose a challenge for the title this season to make things interesting, I think they’re much better than Liverpool in many areas of the game, but they can’t be putting out a front 3 like that too many times this season and expect to challenge.

And yet I think many of us have a feeling that we may be on the verge of doing precisely the opposite and actually lowering the price as we move towards the deadline. Logically it goes up, as with Wissa and Brentford to compensate for time constraints and desperation. That said I do have some faith in the club to act sensibly, but certain noises from journalists this week suggest the contrary is possible, whether or not they're to be believed which is questionable at best.

Still feels incredibly simple to me. A conclusive no to any approach by Liverpool, such is our right. Sell him for whatever any other club is willing to offer us in January/next summer. If that's £95m then so be it, the value in showcasing that you're not going to be rewarded for unsettling our players and attempting to bully us into selling is worth the £20-30m deficit.