Checko

The club should put out a job advert for someone who's entire role will be: 1. To laugh hysterically down the phone at any club who enquires about buying him. 2. To then repeatedly call that club back just to keep laughing hysterically at them.

Yeah looked to me like he kicked it just a tiny bit too far ahead of himself and then had to stretch and caught his studs.

Yeah lack of control of playing time/needing a replacement etc. are certainly fair points. But I think the Championship gets underrated for developing players, just looking at recent England players, loads were developing in the Championship at his age: Maddison, Kalvin Phillips, Grealish spend 3 years there in his early twenties, Eze, Conor Gallacher spend a year on loan there before he was loaned to premiership teams. Bowen, Watkins, Toney etc all spent years developing their game in lower divisions until they were older than Anderson is. It's not ideal having him on loan, but my feeling is at his age (21/22) he's not going to reach his potential without consistent first team football (i.e. regularly starting in a settled position) and I don't think he's ready for that yet here. Not at the level we want to be at. You might find a bottom half premier league team for him, but as an attacking midfield I'd rather have him in a good championship team personally, and knowing he's going to be one to their better players is going to help ensure minutes. Even if it's maybe a loan till Jan with the option to extend. Alternatively he can be a useful squad player here. Ideally he absolutely tears it up in the final games and shows himself to be first team ready. I suspect he'll be a squad player next season as well though, which is fine. But he's in a very formative part of his development - he won't be seen as a young prospect for much longer, and I just think he really needs a year of being a consistent first team starter.

He's got a lot of good qualities but I still think he holds on to the ball too long all the time. Completely ignored a few good overlapping runs by Hall yesterday because he was too busy with his relentless shimmying. If I was a coach picking one thing for him to focus on it would just be 'pass the ball quickly.' I reckon he'd benefit greatly from a year on loan in the Championship. Consistent game time at a settled position would help him develop, and he's never had that here. He'll be 22 in November, and unless he can really nail the end of the season and force himself into a first team player, I can't see him becoming the player he could be just being a squad player filling in irregularly in a bunch of different positions. Of course that would leave our squad shorter if he went out on loan though.

He should take No. 9 He should take No. 9 to represent the 9 No.1 Singles Abba had in the UK IMO.

Think they were talking about him equalling Beardsley as our 2nd highest goalscorer in the PL era. Probably a few assists behind Pedro mind.

Didn't think that was a pen tbh, looks like he got the ball and just tangle of legs

The way we play we basically only have Bruno in the middle. The other 2 CMs both go and stand in a wide V ahead of him, often just standing there. There's no movement there at all. Then when we lose the ball there's absolutely no cover in the middle and we're so easy to counter on. This has been the problem all season. Would much rather see us play more of a 4231. Keep one of our other CMs deeper so Bruno actually has someone to pass to in the middle and cover if he goes forward. Particularly as we've got 2 attacking fullbacks, we need another CM to sit in. Think Tino and Hall have done well. Burn's made some brilliant blocks. Hopefully we step it up, but you feel like they have so much space when we lose the ball and our CBs are so slow that we're going to keep giving up chances.

Howay lads! Please be good at footballering today.

Monty Don's gonna be pissed off with that.

Hmmm, 'Drilldo gets the job done' appears to be trademarked: https://trademarks.ipo.gov.uk/ipo-tmcase/page/Results/1/UK00915894017

Nice. Trademarking that.

Agreed, we need to get into these fuckers like a pneumatic dildo.

What I mean was he is, but only within the terms of his contract i.e. after his gardening leave

I don't particularly care about Ashworth leaving, he's entitled to leave and go to a job he'd prefer if he wants, like most of us will have done at some point. It does feel like Man U are low-balling on the fee if the reports of £2milion offers are true. I mean, they can low-ball in negotiations if they want, but it's pretty unreasonable of them to get pissy about us publicly at the same time. Given we'd paid £4/5 million for him a couple of years ago (I've seen varying figures) using that amount as a starting point seem reasonable. Then you've perhaps got additional compensation payments for things like - money we're having to pay him to tend his garden. Essentially compensating for the money we invested in him [not for wages spend when he actually did some work]. Then there's more intangible amounts like compensation for the disruption to our business due to him leaving, and also for an employee with detailed knowledge of our business strategy joining a direct rival. That's one of the big reason behind the existance of gardening leave after all. Anyway, don't know exactly how I'd calculate it exactly but I'd make the sum as something like...

double post Actually while I've double posted, might as well moan about something: I hate the colour of the blue on our badge. It looks cheap and tacky. Should be darker.

I agree, though I don't like the birdy badge on it personally. Birdy badge and yellow and green gives me Norwich City vibes! Could also just be a bit of a colour clash for me. I'd adore it with a green NUFC logo from kit no 2.

Urgh, that fucking Luton draw man.

Punishment for their performance on Wednesday.

According to .com Hendrick and Dummett's deals end this year, Hayden's contracted until June '26

Eddie said “Joelinton has seen a specialist and is working on his own programme." when asked about how close he Pope and Miggy are to returning, so probably just that.

Isn't that starting in the 25/26 season?

No point Howe denying it, presumably his agent's leaked it. Let's face it, if a big team comes in he's off. I'd guess Man City most likely, then PSG. Real have loads of young CMs already and Barca are a bit skint, though he does feel like a Barca player. Could see Arsenal or Liverpool going too if they have the funds. Sounds like MAn U are skint but they might try and free up funds just to spite us I'd be gutted it it was Man C, but at the end of the day, no matter how much he likes it at Newcastle, Bruno, do you want to more than double your money while winning trophies playing in world class facilites for the defining manager of his generation next to De Bruyne, Foden and Rodri? Or would you rather chase Europa League for a few years playing next to Longstaff, Willock and Murphy? Still, if he goes, we'll have had 2 and a half years of great performances and made a profit at the end.

If he really wants to get to work, perhaps we could send him to Man U on secondment for a few weeks, on the provision that while he's there he negotiates the fee for his release.

If that's true then if he does go at least we'll know early and be able to get a replacement in.