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Sandro Tonali

The Prophet

by The Prophet
in Football

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STM

STM

Posted
Posted

I genuinely think our intensity shocks players.

 

Gordon has the most sprints in the league this year, 6 months ago he said he was unfit.

 

Isak struggled and the bloke hasn't an ounce of fat on him.

 

Look at the shape Krafth and Dummett were in Wednesday, they looked leaner and fitter than I've ever seen him.

 

When you aren't coping with the physical demands, it effects your awareness, balance, strength, speed, even the ability to play a simple pass, when otherwise you found it easy.

 

I'd like to think he has a personal coach assigned to him.

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CPL

CPL

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Posted

Could we class it as another redemption arc when he comes back and absolutely bosses it? 

 

Sept 2024 - Tonali scores a worldie free kick and breaks down in tears at SJP whilst making a sorry gesture with his hands to the fans then kisses the badge. 

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ohmelads

ohmelads

Posted
Posted
11 hours ago, TheBrownBottle said:

Football is very ‘insidery’.  Tonali was acting like a ringleader - so there would have been people in the dressing rooms he was in who knew.  He managed to get others involved - so there would likely be others who he approached who didn’t.

 

There is a good chance AC Milan were aware - either from internal whispers or outright knowledge.  Someone claiming to be his psychologist came out and said he’d been diagnosed with a gambling addiction.  So the chances are the club knew.  Making that stick is likely impossible.

 

Scouting is about character as well as xG wank.  We don’t know whether what Tonali was up to was discoverable or not - most on here appear to have made up their mind that it was ‘impossible’ to know.  

 

All we can do is speculate but it seems most people you speak to, both Geordies and fans of other clubs, think Milan and his agent knew they needed to cash in quick while they had the chance and his agent put the word out to the team or teams he thought had the cash and would jump at getting such a marquee signing.

 

Everyone I've spoken to who follows other clubs (I work with people from all over) thinks it's obvious and finds it funny we've been had. I haven't heard anyone who genuinely believes Milan didn't know. 

 

If other players have grassed Tonali up for putting them onto this site, it only adds weight to the fairly obvious assumption that Milan knew and moved quickly. I wonder what that Milan fan thinks - the one that was on here telling us there's no way Milan would sell him. 

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STM

STM

Posted
Posted
8 minutes ago, Ikon said:

Not sure what makes folks on here say "They knew" or They didn't. We can speculate about it, aye.

 

 

 

 

We are speculating. :lol:

 

They fucking knew. :lol:

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BlueStar

BlueStar

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Posted
28 minutes ago, STM said:

I genuinely think our intensity shocks players.

 

Gordon has the most sprints in the league this year, 6 months ago he said he was unfit.

 

Isak struggled and the bloke hasn't an ounce of fat on him.

 

Look at the shape Krafth and Dummett were in Wednesday, they looked leaner and fitter than I've ever seen him.

 

When you aren't coping with the physical demands, it effects your awareness, balance, strength, speed, even the ability to play a simple pass, when otherwise you found it easy.

 

I'd like to think he has a personal coach assigned to him.

 

Wonder how much of this is down to the players we have, how much is tactics, how much Eddie's training and how much is down to us finally having excellent fitness and conditioning coaches, Gives such an advantage when you can turn it on and suddenly have everyone giving a burst of pace and relentless pressure without worrying about them being gassed in the following play, and still have people chasing a lost cause at 85 minutes.  Steve Bruce's training regimen was mostly chucking a ball in the middle and saying "OK, let's play" apparently. 

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AyeDubbleYoo

AyeDubbleYoo

Posted
Posted (edited)
18 minutes ago, BlueStar said:

Steve Bruce's training regimen was mostly chucking a ball in the middle and saying "OK, let's play" apparently. 

 

You forgot all the days off - a key component of his weekly plan. 

 

 

Edited by AyeDubbleYoo

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The Prophet

The Prophet

Posted
Posted

So what he actually said:

 

“The current rules and regulations say there is nothing to stop it (signing a player from Saudi Arabia), currently. But there are … there is a potential that the various different organisations will look at things across related parties and what you can do to acquire players at a fair market value, [although these] have already been in place for quite a while.”

 

 We always look two windows in advance, so we will have planned for what we will try to do to strengthen the team in the summer of 2024.

 

If the right opportunities come in January we don’t mind bringing that forward. We did that with Anthony Gordon last January. We brought that forward when we had the opportunity. Nothing is any different.

 

What we always try to do is have that flexibility. So, what we have said to the recruitment team is, we could get an injury, we could get a suspension and there might be a player who wants to go. So, we have to have that agility.

 

We obviously know we are going to be without Sandro for the rest of the season. But we’ve got quite a number of midfield players and we have a number of players who can play in different positions. You saw that the other night [knocking Manchester United out of the Carabao Cup] and that is one of the strengths of the squad. We’ve got a few injuries, but fingers crossed they are back and ready for January anyway.

 

To answer the question, we’ve got a number of things we can do. It might not be a like-for-like replacement for Sandro. It could be a player who can play in a different position or multiple positions.

 

It could be that young Lewis Miley gets more minutes and comes to the fore between now and January. We might look in a different area of the pitch.

 

But obviously it is a blow losing Sandro. He was one of our big signings in a key area of the pitch.

 

He was going to be one of our most influential players so we have to do everything in our power to make sure the squad is as competitive as possible going into the second half of the season.

 

We do have a little bit of flexibility and we are able to look at the market. But there are lots of ways to do it. Whether it is a straight loan or a loan with an obligation or an option. You can sign a player and monetise it with a long contract. We are going to have to be quite creative, but we do want to be active.

 

He is a top player and a big signing, we will miss him. To contextualise it, it could have been an ACL. These things happen in football, although not in this context. For me, from the minute it happened, you look at yourself.

 

 

What could we have done better? What could I have done better? What lessons can be learned from this? Could we have known? Should we have known? You look at your processes.

 

I’ve been doing this for 16 years and nothing like this has happened before. We pride ourselves on due diligence and getting the right characters.

 

You have all seen the culture and cohesion in the group is extremely strong, and that’s not by chance. We spend an immense amount of time looking at the character as well as the athlete.

 

We have and will continue to review what we have done in the past and will do going forward. It’s really tricky about what you can and can’t know about people in this world of GDPR [date protection] and what you can and can’t check.

 

We haven’t come up with anything yet. Speaking to other sporting and technical directors it’s almost like, “How could you have known?

 

It’s really difficult for me to get into what other clubs do or don’t know. All we can do is look at our own internal investigation and internal process. It’s a really difficult question for me to answer [whether AC Milan knew], I just don’t know."

 

"Asked about a pay cut, Ashworth explained: “Any player’s contract situation is private and confidential. All I can say is that Sandro has been outstanding since this has happened and has been fully collaborative. He’s been an outstanding professional in that context. Beyond that, I cannot comment.”

 

I think if you know a player’s going to be out for 10 months whether that’s through a medical injury or through something like this, you’d either have to look at the deal again or structure the deal in a different manner. But as a player, from the performances of the player and the character and personality, [we have] no reservations [about signing him].”

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GideonShandy

GideonShandy

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, Conjo said:

Silver lining in this mess is that since he isn't injured and can train close to and with the team, he has a really good opportunity now to knuckle down and work on improving all aspects of his game - speed, strength & technical ability.

Have a hard time seeing this as much of a silver lining.  Maybe we should encourage a few other players to have a flutter and next season the squad's strength speed and technical ability will be off the charts.

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