miceal

Yes, that’ll be the way they see it. On my recent trips to ‘toontastic’ (thank f*** that’s over) I’ve noticed lots of ‘cartel’ talk, as though us and the Mancs were conspiring together to exclude plucky little underdogs like Newcastle. No notion that we (and in all fairness the mancs too) are where we are in the footie food chain because we’ve won lots and lots and lots over the years, building worldwide followings and very big revenue compared with them. There’s a nasty, self-pitying Farage-ist feel about these chip-on-the-shoulder clubs. One perspective the whole business has reinforced for me is not to worry when TAA stuff happens. We shall be here whoever plays for us.

What is outrageous is not that they haven’t sold him to us. That’s up to them. It’s that they’ve given him to believe right until this evening that they would. They’ve treated him like s***.

Guéhi wants to be humble, dutiful and serve god. Isak wants to be a superstar.

I wouldn’t go back for him. Lots more fish. Well, some.

Doué, obvs.

Beautiful. Opening lines of a state of the union address.

I must have missed an explanation somewhere but, for me and those like me, what’s a deal sheet?

I’ve worked it out. Leverkusen sacked Ten Hag after tapping up Glasner. Guéhi is sold to us. Glasner has the excuse and flounces out. This day next week he’s manager of Leverkusen. Everyone happy (except in south-east London).

That’s because they weren’t saying it.

They’re not all saying the first bit.

Let’s not judge him just yet. Yes, if HE pulls out, he doesn’t have the mentality for it anyway.

Cor blimey, having spent four years living in Brixton I can confirm this is correct.

Was a significant underestimate- maybe 500 pages.

Yeah; seem to remember it being mentioned about 200 pages ago.

Yes.

I’m at the point where the main reason I want to see Isak join is to read how that half-witted clown of a PR man Edwards revises his entire summer story.

Another top prediction from a YNWA all-star

I feel a bit sorry for Hugo . We paid big money, seems like a top player. Has made an excellent start and nobody’s giving him a second thought.

No

Fish puns are preferable to discussing the relative merits of software. Just.

Idle chatter about nurses checking whether your balls have dropped is preferable to discussing the relative merits of software.

And we were all going spare about the lack of action over the last few windows.

So we’re in a good place in that invisible hierarchy at the moment and our management seem to realize that now is the time to go big. Wirtz and () Isak are the kind of players we would not have landed because of our diminished status, pre-Jürgen.

Sure, I’m not talking about the value of the transaction (Beardsley, Saunders etc weren’t cheap in their day); my point is just that their star man wants to play for us, not them.

I think that pseud Jonathan Wilson was writing about this recently. There is a hierarchy and Real Madrid sit at the top of it. We are not far below but we are definitely below. As said, it’s not permanent (Real are as near to that as it gets but some of us will remember years ago when they weren’t the draw they are now). In the modern era that hierarchy has become international. I seem to remember that once we had established ourselves as the team in England by the mid-70s we could basically have who we wanted, although until the late 80s that always seemed to mean competitively-priced Scots who turned out to be world-beaters. Not so long ago, of course, Man U had usurped that place in the hierarchy. What we are doing to the fatties at the moment over their star player is what we could do to anyone domestically back in the 70s/80s.