TheBrownBottle

I still hope not - I genuinely hope in a couple of years time this thread is a non-stop love-in re our superstar no.8. All outcomes are still on the table.

I don’t think forgiveness comes in until we are on the other side of this. Let’s see how it pans out - he’ll get a lengthy ban. If his first reaction isn’t to fly back to Italy and spend all his time there during the ban, and he shows his commitment on his return (I.e. no ‘I’m homesick’ requests to leave the club) then I’m all for full forgiveness. Until then, it is play it by ear time. Happy to give the lad the benefit of the doubt until then, but this has raised some serious questions about him.

In fairness, Baxter is the only one I saw on their lists where people outside of Sunderland would say that he was a first-rate footballer. They’d need to be of a decent vintage though - it’s before my fatha’s time, and I’m in my 40s

‘I only shot myself twice while playing Russian roulette’

I take your point, though it would have made as much sense for the club to have an additional representative in there blocking questions re Tonali other than re selection.

Great example. It can seem odd - but some of them wouldn’t bother at all if they weren’t actually superb at playing it.

He was a good player for us like, but he doesn’t make my top 20 NUFC midfielders

Honestly, as much as I like laughing at them, I stopped at the first page. It was genuinely depressing to read their nominations - Christ, they’ve really never seen a top rate midfielder play for them, have they? Don’t get me wrong, it’s funny too - but fuck me, I’d be utterly devastated if Reyna, Bracewell, McCann, Schwartz, Baaaaally and Clattermole were the ones getting mentioned

It’s a stupid question because Howe isn’t going answer in the negative, but it shouldn’t be assumed that all footballers love the game. David F Batty, for one, couldn’t be said to love it - but he wasn’t a bad midfielder as a result.

Good to see that some things don’t change at NUFC, with the manager having to answer questions that other senior figures at the club really should be answering re Tonali.

Sunderland’s ‘natural’ home being somewhere around the arse end of the top division or the top of the second tier. They do have a sizeable support from a football-daft area with a huge catchment area, and a classic history. But so have quite a few other clubs - as mentioned above, Sunderland on this basis share far more in common with Sheff Wed than they do any of English football’s top eight or nine clubs. They’re bigger than Palace, Bournemouth, Luton etc. But I don’t think they’re necessarily bigger than Leicester, Derby, Sheff Utd & Wed, West Brom, Wolves …

Yep. I think Tonali will deserve the lengthy ban coming his way, but the football authorities have no moral high ground on this, with their continued allowance of betting ‘partners’ etc.

Wouldn’t fucking bet on that still holding true, you grass

Aye, it’s hard to argue that it might not go that way. There is a chance if it’s a lengthy ban that he doesn’t play for us again. I’m not trying to be melodramatic, but it’s hardly something which has a tiny chance of occurring. Considered the size of the outlay, it’s up there at the moment. Hopefully in a couple of years time this thread is a great big Tonali love-in. But at the minute people are well within their rights to be fucking furious.

Yep, I thought his quality was there, his positional sense within needed time and obviously it takes time to get up to speed with the way Howe has us playing (Gordon is the classic example of this)

Michael Owen pales next to Marcelino, Luque, Thauvin etc - no matter how much of a little wanker he was / is. Just in terms of output for cost.

Matt Law is a decent hack tbf - he has a decent record of not pulling it out of his jacksie

Completely agree - I’d also completely back Howe in his approach to handling this. Like you say though, Howe strikes very much as a man who demands the same high standards of integrity as he demands of himself. I get the impression you get one chance with him, then *boot*

*puts on best Kenneth Clark accent* ‘It was in that epoch of Metro expansion that the tribe from Prudda, known as the Pruddaese, were so taken against the mechanised carriages - which represented a sensibility with which the simple architecture of their tribal buildings would clash - that they would unleash spears, javelins, and let loose arrows at these great symbols of a modern age when they would invade their atavistic homesteads’

Even if Milan didn’t know, Tonali and his agent did. Of course the club should work with him, and I know you can’t expect perfection from all people at all the times, but he signed the NUFC contract knowing full well what he’d been up to. Some level of personal agency and responsibility has to come into this.

‘Charley sez: would you like another cup of tea, Mike?’

FIFA can

Matt Targett is on 100k a week. I wouldn’t blink at giving Kalvin Phillips the same

Not sure what use that would be, given it’s a worldwide ban. It would raise suspicions you’d think.

Don’t know tbh - Joey Barton was still on full whack in prison