TheBrownBottle

Yep. They’re buying a player our manager doesn’t fancy, who none of ours rivals would sign, and appears to attracting zero interest from any other PL club for that matter.

ASM isn’t a first choice player. So the team will be fine.

If it’s a rip off fee, then we shouldn’t worry. Other clubs will be queuing up to pay considerably more - that’s how market value is established

I’m with you 100%. It’s infuriating at times - lads in my office sneering at attending a local professional game as if it’s beneath them. Competition is what makes football fun - and I’d watch any competitive game anywhere on the planet before chucking huge wedges over for exhibition football

I’d probably have watched it if I knew there was a free feed! I used to go to the odd friendly was I was younger, but I’d often just be bored. Without stakes, it isn’t interesting - the players are (correctly) treating it as a slightly competitive warm up. Wolves away that time was the last one for me - spent a fair bit of cash for watching a training game. Never again. It’s particularly egregious in the modern game when friendlies are played abroad for stupid money ticket prices. I pity the poor sods who pay crazy sums to watch matches in the US or Asia during the summer to watch a training session. If NUFC rock up to Sydney I still wouldn’t go and pay daft money to watching them - a lad I work with paid over $100AUD for a Liverpool game a while ago. Yet he still hasn’t arsed himself to attend a single A-League game. I’d rather watch low-quality competitive football than superstars playing a warm up.

I wouldn’t pay £8 to watch a friendly in the flesh, never mind on the internet. I haven’t been to a friendly since Wolves away in 2002. Hard pass for me.

The Ballon D’Or thing was crackers, but the lad deserved a lot of credit if he knocks it back because he actually wants to play in Italy. ASM always comes across as a smart bloke for me - and this would only make me like him more (and I’m sure my liking of him is a massive motivator!) I don’t rate him as highly as a footballer as he does or many on here do, but I do think he’s basically a good gadgie

Just watched the highlights - obvious training match vibes, though Longstaff should have had a couple there. If that lad could finish, he’d be a cracking midfielder

100%. The ‘separation’ stuff was only ever there to nail the KSA state on piracy. There’s nowt in the rules re a HoS owning a PL club.

‘Idea for a YouTube video. I, Adam Pearson, am talking about £10 room service in a hotel. And other minor quibbles. Called ‘Pearson Ponders’.

‘Blacked out’ for both of those. Must have launched myself about three rows down in the San Siro Nothing has topped Bellamy’s winner in Rotterdam for me. Absolute chaos in the away end. Fucking magic

They’re the historical gates though but man Put up the mid 90s.

I think there’s an arrogance to it. ‘Do you think that the slush fund of a sovereign state will screw it’s own domestic league in order to win favour with another club they own 5,000 miles away?’ No. So stop blathering on about it.

Yep. Reporting someone else reporting on it is still reporting on it.

I tend to think that the European press outside the UK is even less aware of the FFP constraints. They know NUFC has rich owners and therefore will link all and sundry to the club

In the example I mentioned above, we replaced Micky Quinn - who went straight on to score shitloads that year in the PL for Coventry - with an Arsenal reject from Bristol City. Cole did ok. For what it’s worth, I think Barnes is a better PL footballer than ASM.

I totally understand supporters feeling bad about saying goodbye to favourite players mind (and ASM is still an NUFC player). Especially younger supporters for whom ASM is one of a few bright spots over the previous few years. For me, it’s what I experienced in seeing Keegan ruthlessly sell Micky Quinn and then David Kelly - my no. 9 heroes as a kid - and Gavin Peacock. I couldn’t believe we would get promoted and sell off our best forwards (NB Quinn went early in the promotion season, and of course Cole signed towards the end). Watching Cole and Beardsley the year after was a valuable learning exercise, mind, re the value of ruthlessness in football. Keegan - for all the nice guy charisma - had it. So in my reckoning has Howe.

100%. I think they do struggle to anticipate it. And what top footballers do is understand that and adapt to their teammates - even if they aren’t as good as they are. Bruno is the player in our current side who does exactly that - he makes players who are nowhere near his level look like they’re close to it. Beardsley was the master of doing this. ASM, unfortunately, doesn’t.

Because the ‘data’ is a load of bollocks in my view. ’Chances created’ is heavily qualitative. And I watched every game last season - ASM wasn’t putting them on cue only for our forwards to miss constantly. The constant, regular misses came mainly from Trippier dead balls.

Yeah, fair enough - and I forgot he only had a year left. But of the list mentioned, Lascelles is the only one I think would even command a fee

Yeah, I definitely have an affection for players - but loyalty would suggest not wanting them to leave, whereas it’s just part of the game for me. The club selling any player is unlikely to get me radged up - especially these days. I don’t get the impression that Howe is keen on the lad, he’ll bring in a good fee - so if he’s sold, then that’s ok by me. I don’t like seeing the club sell a player over the manager’s head, but other than that I’m happy for them to have free rein on this stuff. Especially when they’re as qualified and talented as Howe and Ashworth are.

Lascelles might get you £10-15m, but I’m not seeing fees at all for the others. You’d likely have to offload them for free and pay a % of their wages.

I have zero sense of loyalty towards footballers. I haven’t since I hit puberty. The idea that they have to be kept out of a sense of loyalty isn’t sensible for me. Murphy also shouldn’t be kept out of a sense of ‘loyalty’, but rather because the management team feel that they want him to stay more than the value his sale would bring. That doesn’t mean people should give the lad two fingers as he goes, but some perspective is required. As for ‘xA’ and all that stuff, it just doesn’t register for me. Not getting ‘assists’ isn’t just about other players missing the chance - if he’s putting the ball in the same place every time, and every time nothing comes of it, that’s not smart play.

No, because ASM didn’t do owt in any real terms. He’s a talented dribbler, but there his legacy ends. He definitely isn’t on their level talent-wise - the output isn’t there. Ginola and Robert were standout talents in the best NUFC sides most of us have seen. ASM - when fit - made watching Bruce’s sides not completely awful. Ginola and Robert were criticised heavily and regularly at the time. I’m not sure Robert would class as a club icon, either - he was a favourite of mine at the time, which led to most of my match-going mates taking the piss as most felt he was lazy and had a shit attitude. Personally, I just thought the lad had a wand of a left foot and even when he was out of form, his presence alone stretched teams.