goodrobotusses

This is what finally did me in last night. The footage towards the end of him having a kickabout on the pitch at Anfield with his kid. Have just recently become a dad for the first time and ever since my wife became pregnant I’ve discovered a hitherto unknown fear of death, not for myself, but that something could happen to me and my wife and child would be left alone. So I saw that clip in the montage last night and lost it.

If the Isak thing is feasible, I can see a diddle like we did for Quansah. Not a swap deal, but Newcastle do end up getting Elliott. Think it would be a good move for him too: CL club and one with a slot open in the team (you’d assume he could push Murphy out, although NUFC also trying to get Elanga).

It’s an extremely limited market for strikers, in which players with a smaller body of work than Nunez are being rated at 65m+. Just because Nunez hasn’t worked out here doesn’t mean we can’t try to juice the kind of fee the likes of Leipzig and Frankfurt want for their strikers. He’s still a darling of stats nerds too, moreso than Šeško for example.

In the ones and zeroes, flow chart way of thinking you encounter here, it is proving very difficult for Germany to understand that the Israeli government might be a gang of bad lads. Obviously of any country in the world, Germany has the most reason not to want to break with Israel, but my impression here is people want to close their eyes, stick their fingers in their ears and blame everything on Hamas. Here in Berlin pretty much every “free Palestine” graffiti gets appended with “from Hamas”. I was at a small punk show about a year ago, and when the singer of the American headliners called “free Palestine” from the stage, one dude in the crowd walked to the front, gave the band the finger and walked out.

Ah, so that’s why we’re signing tiny players.

Taffarel’s role always seemed a bit ill-defined as he wasn’t the main goalkeeper coach, but interesting that Otte has gone after just a year. That said, Taffarel going might be a precursor to Alisson’s departure next summer, as I think they’re close.

It will be a low basic with a higher overall package based on incentives, yeah. That’s standard with us. Think Diaz’s people have been happy to make the basic salary known and omit his actual take-home earnings. And of course he’s for sale, for the right offer. We’re just not gonna put a sign on him that invites lowball bids. He’s a significant asset.

Think for players whom the club is quite obviously looking to sell the buying clubs wait as long as possible to try to get the price down.

Chelsea must so wish they’d let Mudryk go to Arsenal way back when.

Seems we’re doing a bit of a Real Madrid to Palace, albeit with the courtesy of offering to pay for the player now.

Think it must be a stand-off up there. They know they don’t have to sell now, he’s got three years left on his deal IIRC. But this is probably his peak value, because once he moves into his late 20s a bunch of clubs won’t be as interested in lashing loads of money on him. So they can either hold him to his current contract, knowing he’ll be depreciating as an asset while they continue to have PSR issues; they could get him to sign a new one, which I suspect he won’t because he wants more than Alan Shearer’s used jockstrap to remember his career by; or, failing that, they could sell him now for maximum whack and reinvest it.

Newcastle Chronicle reckons Howe might get involved in Isak’s contract negotiations, due to backroom churn at NUFC: https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/newcastle-united-stage-quiet-talks-31951741 Article seems to think getting the No.9, chasing Shearer’s records and maybe getting a statue will be selling points. Almost certainly was his dream growing up in Sweden, lads.

Agreed. Mane terrified opponents almost as much as Salah. If you had a special plan for one, you freed the other. Opponents are more comfortable to focus on Salah now, knowing the player on the other side isn’t as capable of producing something out of nothing.

WFH

Yeah, bit nonplussed by this having seen Wales plod around under him. Seems a good fella, and he had the bad luck of having to absorb the end of the Bale/Ramsay era, but eh.

Never met Gibbo but my brother says he’s one of the nicest people he’s ever met.

Read something today suggesting he’d come to an agreement with Juve (I think), only for his agent’s demand of 15m to throw a spanner in the works. Presumably the same agent who has been hawking him around Europe via Romano for a season or two.

Plays on the right. Also probably too slow to play on the wing for us, like Elliott.

Not writing them off, but I don’t expect Pep to stay after next season.

Signings like this, the hiring of Slot, the uncertainty around City/Pep and how unconvincing Arsenal seem under Arteta could pave the way for a potential period of LFC dominance in the PL. Guess that might ultimately depend on life after Salah and VvD, but I’ve never before felt us to be in such a good position. It was amazing under Klopp, but it was still us the underdogs vs. the Death Star of Pep’s City. Think that’s over now.

Yeah, bobbins that lad.

Or Yamal on loan.

My in-laws are Serbian. Thankfully not racist though.

It's near impossible. VvD ticks pretty much every box if you were putting together a wishlist for a CB. Have never known anyone as complete as him. More than anything though, his future replacement can't just be a s***-hot defender or distributor or athlete, he'll have to be able to marshal the defence, because whatever combo we've used without VvD in there, we've often looked a bit of a s***show organisationally.

The height thing seems to be a bit of an issue with a lot of these hybrids CB/FBs (and probably part of the reason they are hybrids in the first place). I think all of Hato, Inacio and Hincapie are around 6ft, which while not a dealbreaker for a future at CB in a back four, it is a break from the size of VvD, Konate, Matip etc.