TheBrownBottle

Never felt like a straightforward place to go, but it’s still a plum tie and I fully expect us to be in the hat in the 5th round

Didn’t look right at all vs Bromley, this isn’t a surprise but it’s a pisser. I like what the lad offers, I love his directness. Shouldn’t impact it - he’s only out for a month, and Joelinton can certainly play LW if Gordon is out

There’s always an English premium, but regardless Rice is a superb midfielder and we’ve seen that when he played against us in the past for West Ham and for Arsenal. Bruno and Tonali are clearly excellent midfielders too. Push comes to shove I think Rice is just about the best player of the three, but there’s not much in it.

It’s all speculation, but there isn’t any other reason I can think of that the club would pay more money for the remaining six months of a player’s contract unless they said they were off. Clubs in Europe have been able to do this for nearly two decades now, but there seems to be a collective agreement not to take players under these circumstances (because they’re all vulnerable to it - and of course it impacts selling and buying clubs).

Haha yeah, MOTD commentators would get far more moved by ‘cheating’ (ie going down easily) than common assault 😁

Ah, the days when a deliberate headbutt would fetch a belated one-match ban

The wingless wonders Clint man

The formation was a mess and Pistone kept moving out there first half.

The happy days of playing in a cup final and chanting ‘attack attack attack’. Gutless stuff. Tbh Barton often would effectively end up RW as Pistone (who was right footed) had a habit of playing both wings. Barton did regularly play RW for Wimbledon before we signed him for an exorbitant fee, so his being out there wasn’t that crazy. I still hate Dalglish after all these years, mind

No, he played RWB. I was at all of those games - Dalglish often played 3-5-2 (or, because it was Dalglish, 5-3-2). His tactics and shape were often a complete mess by the end of 97/98. Sometimes they would erroneously show Pistone at LW. He wasn’t. Beresford did play LW a few times that season, oddly enough - and bagged a few goals (he didn’t score often before that). Screengrab from the 1998 Cup Final line up:

Because the Webster ruling means he can buy out his own contract and piss off to Saudi straight away, which gives him leverage. Clubs in Europe have been reluctant to do it; perhaps KSA clubs wouldn’t give a shite.

Warren Barton never played on the wing - though I was at Anfield when he briefly played up front. He scored Dalglish signed Speed and immediately put him on the left wing … let’s just say Speed wasn’t a popular player on Tyneside until Robson started playing him in the ‘right’ manner

I never agreed with the meeja narrative that Asprilla cost us. He didn’t - the front line needed changing up for the reasons you’ve listed, and I completely agree re the goalkeeper. He wasn’t to blame for losing the title - but he wasn’t the right signing.

They were fucking dreadful signings (Though Tomasson had talent, and I think he was mishandled. Looked great pre-season.)

Yes, I too was present for his hat trick against Barcelona. I was there for most of his other games for us, too - he was frustrating and ineffective most of the time. I’m sure he looks great in clips on YouTube.

Asprilla was far from great, like. He was bang average at best in the PL. Don’t know where ‘great’ came from. It was tongue-in-cheek

Ameobi also scored against Barcelona in a CL game

Ferdinand was to balance the books - Keegan was meant to bring in millions to offset the Shearer purchase. Spurs offered an insane amount for a player his age. Shearer then gets injured, we try to cancel the transfer but Ferdinand is upset that we agreed the sale and heads off. I think Ginola fell out with NUFC more than anything else after we blocked a move to Barcelona in 1996. He also was completely off the boil after getting kicked out of the game vs Arsenal in the LC QF in early ‘96. Asprilla’s sale was simply a case of getting our money back for a player with a goal-to-games ratio akin to Ameobi. All these years later and I’m still unpersuaded that Asprilla was a good signing (yes, that night against a Barcelona side which finished bottom of our CL group was fun).

Staveley had a management contract to run the club - she said herself if they cocked up they were out. Staveley, Ghodoussi and Reuben were doing the day-to-day running. They get both credit for successes and responsibility for failures.

Doris Day, Shirley?

I just had to do a quick google search to understand the reference

Is he threatening us with a Webster-ruling release?

Longstaff is ‘PSR-free’ on our books at present; replacing him with a player of similar standard for those sort of fees would reduce our PSR headroom.

Yep - just let the crowd sing ‘tell my ma’, they don’t need an accompaniment

I’d keep him as a squad player - I still think he’s a better player than he’s often given credit for - but the club might just look at Miley coming through and think it is time to cash in.