TheBrownBottle

He should’ve been hungrier for goals as a centre forward in the first place. Gordon was right to tell him to do one on this occasion.

‘We’re playing four-three-fucking-three’

It irritates me, but he was spot on last night.

Similar style of player - completely different character. Unless Gordon is in Baja Beach Club and Sea every night acting like a cunt, that is.

He did also mention that the PSG pens were both ridiculous vs us. I prefer commentators to be as neutral as possible tbh - I used to hate when they used to go on about teams ‘representing’ England and implying that we’re all behind them. Fuck that

They never were - but they’re now the UK’s most successful club this century with the added appeal of being situated in one of the most desirable places to live on earth.

I’m willing to bet that if we offer a player £300k a week and Chelsea offer £250k that player is still more likely to go to Chelsea than us.

Those sort of wingers were dying out by the time Gillespie was doing it.

Mind, I think it’s more than PSR. Chelsea are a far more attractive club and can pay massive wages. I’m not at all convinced that PSR is the only reason a player would choose another club.

Thing is in financial terms we are elite - it’s reduced the chances of smaller clubs getting through to the latter stages. Yeah, agreed - it’s just a bit depressing. I’m glad there’s three European competitions again, but it’s been obliterated as a spectacle.

I didn’t think he was any worse than Barnes last night tbh

I thought we’d hammer them comfortably before it and they were even worse than I thought they’d be. Beating two even worse sides at home is no great shakes - Frankfurt and Copenhagen were even more dire. In all honesty UEFA has overseen the destruction of meaningful European competition

Didn’t want the responsibility until the pressure was off. If the centre forward wants to take the penalties I don’t doubt the manager and team would let him. He wasn’t pushing to the front when it mattered.

Nah, we took our foot off the pedal like Man City did against us recently

Carrier Bag would struggle in the second division in all honesty. Comfortably the worst side we’ve played in years. Decades of lopsided finances has led to this in European football.

Very different players who played in very different formations and in very different positions. As a footballer, I’d say Dyer was more talented. Gordon (despite his irritating high performance claptrap) is a far better professional. If Dyer had Gordon’s professionalism he’d be talked about in a very different way today - when he went on holiday to Ayia Napa with Frank Lampard and Rio Ferdinand to make complete arses of themselves, he was very much the ‘star’ of the three - and definitely seen as the better young midfielder between him and Lampard.

UEFA matches are administered in accordance with IFAB’s guidance Digne’s arm was in an unnatural position and the officials agreed - the issue wasn’t it being foul play, it was that the linesman and the referee didn’t think it was in the area

Dyer could play multiple positions (even if spitting his dummy out after being asked to do so probably was the final nail in Robson’s coffin), but ultimately played most of the time in his best position - which was what our granddads would have called an inside-forward. Gordon is lacking in a striker’s instincts and could only ever be a stop-gap.

Agreed re Thiaw - though I think Schar could certainly play a passing game in his pomp. Botman was always an excellent passer, too. I’m not convinced Ramsey is that much of an upgrade - if he is one - and the three forwards signed have been different levels of poor (the stats will still be kind to Woltemade due to the initial goal glut even if performance belie that). I don’t get the impression that the forwards were particularly well-thought out generally, and based on who we bid for initially there just looks like a confused approach (Pedro, Delap, Ekitike, Sesko, Strand Larsen). There’s no joined-up thinking on show there - and this is before Isak was sold (whether they were being bought as a replacement is conjecture of course). I’d like to see us move to a retention-style passing game, I think Howe is more than capable of coaching a style change (he never struck me as a limited coach), and hopefully this summer he’ll get the tools he needs to actually change things up. He shouldn’t be anything like as close to recruitment this time though - tbh I’d like to have seen some genuine expertise brought into the club in that regard (the DoF appointment wasn’t particularly impressive, and we’ve still got a small scouting team who clearly dropped the ball last year).

Great idea this - though I suspect that part of the problem still stems from too much talk about ‘intent’ rather than ‘unnatural position’. Our Milanese friend pointed out that it is often given regardless because of arguments over intent - but this is usually pundits not understating that ‘intent’ is meaningless. This would reopen an ‘intent’ determination.

I know, but you mentioned Italy and the way they’d been applied over the past 10-15 years. The point is more that they don’t get to reinterpret the laws of the game in Italy, Germany, France etc. The laws of the game (and their interpretation) are set by IFAB, not on a country-by-country basis - the FIGC in Italy (and other National associations) don’t get to change them. Making anything which hits the hand a handball incident runs contrary to the handball law.

You have to actually sign the players to allow you to do that - most of this stems back to bad recruitment last year. We’ve got a squad built for a particular style of play - either play that way, or buy players who can play a different way (and sell those who can’t).

It probably is - but better to have those memories I reckon!

It was business-orientated at that point - heavily commercialised, TV-orientated, squeezing money out of supporters. By 1996 NUFC had quadrupled their ticket prices in the space of a few years, had charged supporters £500 a pop in a disgraceful bond scheme, John Hall was banging on about joining a European Super League for money purposes, were preparing to float on the stock exchange, and players salaries were an order of magnitude above what they had been only few years earlier. David Conn’s excellent ‘The Football Business’ came out in 1997 and was excoriating about how the game had been sold out (it’s still well worth a read - the chapter on NUFC is particularly enlightening).