bluebruce

Adverse weather...4 degrees with a bit of rain and snow?

Ahh yes, I forgot about the VISA thing. I look forward to losing him for bugger all in a couple of years instead then.

I'm sure he is earning more money and the crowds are bigger. But he is now in the football wilderness regardless of that. If that's fine with him at his age, then I have no criticism, it's his life and things weren't going well here. Best of luck to him, he's a likeable guy. It's still a shite standard of football now the money has dried up.

Thanks, I naively assumed what I was looking at was this year's friendlies, but for some reason it was set to 2025 and they played Tianjin on the exact same day last year. OK, godawful Russian team (second tier, 3k stadium). I don't disagree that he is a confidence player btw, or that we failed to get the best out of him under Ismael. I'm just pointing out scoring against a terrible team in a friendly demonstrates precisely nothing to us.

Interesting...is he still here, or is that the only photo they could find of him?

Not that I'd have been enthused, after he had just scored 7 in 38 in League One. Of course, all that matters is that you get them right in the end. In the summer it wouldn't have screamed bargain though.

And to be playing against some godawful Chinese team in a friendly.

You can't not drop someone after they play that badly. Nobody is saying that we literally have to play him, just that it costs us money every time we don't. If he had remained in the side in the next game it would have confirmed that theory and given ammo against the regime. Plus he clearly needed a game out of the firing line, and a bit of a kick into gear. The fact he came back in so quickly after, ahead of someone who actually plays that position, further reinforces the theory.

I'm talking from the perspective of a loaning club. An ever-present, a frequent scorer, and a 3 million quid new signing isn't going to make them feel like their lad will definitely get game time without guarantees, in what may only be one spot.

Indeed, I thought it was utterly bizarre that we went back to a back 4 and they still couldn't get in, we would rather play Cashin out of position. Feels like both their times are up as long as Val is here.

I agree, except for the part about us being able to guarantee minutes because we have no bugger else. We are about to have 3 fit forwards, one was in excellent form until injury, another we just supposedly paid about 3 million for (won't be tons less given what Glimt paid in the summer) and one who has been pretty much an ever present. We may have just switched formation so that only one of them can play as a striker at a time. We could and may well do our Cashin thing of guaranteeing minutes at cost of financial penalty, but we are in a relegation battle so we really shouldn't.

Huh, I always figured it was going to be Pickering leaving. Seems to have played less, at least recently, is a higher earner, and is allegedly one of the ones who stood up to Gestede for his bullying behaviour. The rest are all gone.

That one was definitely just propaganda.

You said it was negotiation. I'm saying it's public relations. We have no intention of buying this player.

They also definitely aren't going to take 1.5 mill. I'd imagine the least that's possible is 3 million and we are nowhere near that either.

Because they want 5 million. Then there's no way we will need to pay them 1.5 million. More gruel for the fools in the fanbase to lap up. 'We tried, obviously they're backing us, Barnsley are just greedy, difficult market' etc.

I can find you some footage of Ronaldo doing shit things. It's not about what you do at your worst moments, it's about consistency. Ryan has tons of that.

He has actually managed to get worse as the season has gone on, and he was pretty poor to begin with. I've never (or Neve) seen a player with worse positional sense. I might have never seen a player with less game intelligence.

One bad cross. The others have been lovely. One in particular he did brilliantly to lob it over the first man.

A quiet game, but I wouldn't say poor. Doherty won't be better.

We've missed Alebiousu's ability to always get his cross in.

Fair enough, I assumed it on the basis of us bringing the two wingbacks on. But no change I see.

Makes him a perfect bedfellow for Venkys.

Not to mention why change the formation when we've been on the ascendancy?

Why. The fuck. Does this manager insist on playing Dion de fucking Neve?