TheBrownBottle

I'm going to switch my brain off entirely here and ask a daft question. Howe plays a 4-3-3 generally (or 4-5-1 or 4-3-2-1 etc etc). Three midfielders including a deep lying playmaker, two inverted wingers and a centre forward. Where does Maddison play in that set-up? Tonali makes perfect sense as a Longstaff upgrade (I like Longstaff, but I'm all for adding quality). Does Maddison replace Willock / Joelinton on the left of the midfield three? That really doesn't look ideally suited for him - they're both superb athletes. We don't play with a 'no. 10'

Also, not that individual matches mean shite all tbf - but I'm pretty sure Pardew never won at Arsenal

Fuck me ragged. The man who turned his surname into a verb on Tyneside - players having their talents recede through mismanagement will never be anything but being 'Pardewed' as far as I'm concerned. Yep, his lack of bitter criticism means that he doesn't rank with Souness, Allardyce or Bruce. But ho'way man.

The team Pardew nearly relegated in 2013 contained two Argentinian, one Italian, two Dutch, one Senegalese, one Ivory Coast and FIVE French internationals at its disposal. Nothing further to add, your honour.

Yep. I've been with my better half for a decade and a half - but we're 'living in sin'. We own properties together, have insurances paying out at 100% to the other half should the worst happen, have wills etc made out to each other, spend just about every minute we can in each other's company - we just don't agree with the notion of marriage. This isn't a criticism of those who are married of course - it just isn't 'for us'. (Or as the old joke goes - marriage is a great institution; but who wants to live in an institution? )

I think Wood was a qualified success. He certainly helped keep us up, then was sold a year later for a loss of a few million.

I think too many had already signed this lad in their own heads tbh. He’s good footballer, but the idea that there isn’t anyone else that we’d be able to sign who is better? Christ almighty. Let’s wait and see.

I’m trying to imagine them as a front three at NUFC today. Would be entertaining but can’t picture them playing a pressing game …

Completely makes sense to me. I’ll repeat what I’ve said for months - he ‘feels’ like a Spurs player. In both a good and in a more negative way. I don’t think he was a good fit, nor do I think that the club was really after him this summer. All guesswork based on a bid late last summer.

Yep

Liverpool’s (and English football’s) European football ban is what stopped it. He wins European Cups with them if they’re in it.

I once caught herpes in a building in Amsterdam

Is the correct answer

Or maybe transfermarkt is wrong? How does it establish value?

I still find the criticism of Burn odd. Are we that sure the Eddie Howe just can’t see that he has a better left back in his squad than Burn? Or maybe he prefers Burn to Targett for a reason, and he knows a bit more about football team selection than us?

The Geordie dentist was another fake ‘ITK’. Didn’t pick up that BZG was run by a fake sheikh when even a brief perusal of their website & realising that the bloke just shared a similar name to genuine Abu Dhabi royalty would have pointed him that way. They’re all just weird, tiresome wankers. Fuck knows who actually listens to them. The only surprising element is that Wraith clearly has contacts with ex-players.

Vs Halmstads in the 96/97 UEFA Cup Yeah, he could be magic on the ball. Also, agreed re winning PFA PotY at Spurs - Man Utd’s treble team splitting the vote helped that one massively too. We looked like contenders before Ginola joined - at the beginning of 94/95 and the end of 93/94. He joined a side which spluttered across the line into 6th having been top three for most of the season the year before. Also, I would have swapped him for Giggs at the time given the choice. Giggs is one of those players who it is easy to forget just how good they were.

Bit of both for me. Pardew didn’t have a clue how to manage talent, but HBA’s attitude has always been an issue. The lad should have been world class - that he wasn’t is something he takes some responsibility for.

All four months of it. I was at Highbury that night in the LC - he was kicked from pillar to post. Never the same player ever again in B&W. My memories of Ginola must be more selective. Of course I remember him turning Cox inside out vs the Smoggies. There aren’t many ‘Ginola’ games that stand out though as match-winning performances. Both feet were like wands mind.

It possibly isn’t tbf - ‘assists’ being tracked is a relatively recent thing. I can’t pin a year on it (I’m sure the internet hive mind will know) when they started to become a sort of ‘official’ stat. It still feels like it comes from a different sport tbh - the game existed for a century and a half before anyone really started to track and record ‘assists’.

HBA better than Robert? Sacrilege. (I’m also owld enough to have watched Ginola. And I’d have Robert in my XI ahead of him).

Dolly Potter and the Friends of Leazes Park. Sounds like a shit JK Rowling knockoff. They were 100% NIMBYs. The type who write strongly worded letters to the Times about public lapses in moral rectitude.

I’m not saying it’s impossible, of course - but it would be a bastard to build (and might be impossible). As Sima pointed out above, the Metro changing lines at SJP makes it even harder - the simplest solution would be to shut the station either temporarily or permanently while you either rebuild it or grout it.

I laughed, and then I realised that this is more detailed than some of the civils drawings I usually have to estimate from …

Neither was I