Bigger club, larger salary, guaranteed starter, Champions League football vs Bigger club, larger salary (we’d probably offer him less than United), rotation player, Champions League football. I get why he’d choose United.
Holiy fuck your head goes over some ridiculous things
4 Likes
Lose a final and some fans become utterly ridiculous.
Lol tbf we have fans who have been ridiculous long before that.
Honestly if we go on not to win something major from here, the headloss from @Truth_hurts will be a wonderful consolation prize.
5 Likes
It is all about balance though. I’ve committed to a ‘Trust the Process’ tattoo if we win the Champions League and Arteta gets 12 months of relative immunity if we win the league.
I want Tonali here, but I can’t fathom why he’d come here to sit on the bench when he could start at most clubs in Europe.
1 Like
Newcastle are an awful club to deal with.
I imagine they will pretend the “gentleman’s agreement” doesn’t exist, create a media narrative that they are pillars of truth, tell Tonali to stfu and accuse buying clubs of being DISRESPECTFUL.
Massive, massive transfer saga coming.
1 Like
You would think that they’d learn from the Isak nonsense. If they had acted faster they could have received a top fee for Isak and probably landed their prime target - Ekitike. Yes, they got maybe 10m more for Isak but at what cost?
If we were to line up in some games with Zubi and Tonali and rested Rice, I would not worry at all about whether we could boss the midfield or not. Hopefully, the allure of London life, his best mate in the world Ricci and playing for the champions is the Paul needed.
Strangely, Anderson should be joining Newcastle. Go and be a top player for your boyhood club.
I can’t imagine he would be sitting on the bench. Would you not expect him to be a regular option in both Rice and Zubi roles?
He’d definitely start some games but I’d imagine that if push came to shove, Zubi and Rice would be starting if everybody is fully fit. He’d definitely be trusted more than Norgaard, let’s put it that way!
If he came here, he’d start ahead of Zubimendi but is Arteta going to spend that much on a midfielder when we’re already linked with Alvarez and need a top quality LW?
Still can’t believe we’ll soon be 7 years in and don’t have our main 3 midfield slots locked down. Rice is the only certified one now.
Now that you’re on that…
That midfield of Partey Xhaka and Ode, or Jorginho Rice Ode from 2023 or 2024, where we moved the ball so fluidly in the midfield and literally never had any trouble to progress the ball and move it around looks like such a distant memory now. Looking like prime Pep Barca, or Casemiro, Kroos, Modric midfield compared to the shit we mostly saw this season.
Never imagined the midfield would become such an issue for us.
3 Likes
We’ve invested close to a billion since Arteta arrived so I don’t think we need to question whether this club will spend.
I think it’s obvious we’ll need to get rid of a couple people this summer but there’s no reason we can’t get someone like Alvarez in (although in my eyes he’ll go to Barcelona) and someone like Tonali in.
My God, we played so much more fluidly then. Jorginho was such a good passer and Partey was much more progressive than Rice or Zubi. That said, Saka and Trossard aren’t exactly making runs in behind and Odegaard plays like a DM. Tonali wouldn’t fix this issue.
The league has changed since 22/23. The midfield is a whole different game nowadays with so many teams becoming increasingly physical, sitting deeper and often bypassing the middle of the pitch entirely.
No team has really worked it out yet.
We also don’t have the benefit of surprising other teams with breaking out earlier than was probably expected.
Yeah, Tonali isn’t fixing most of our issues. We still either need one of Ode or Eze hit some proper form, consistently, or we need to get another top creative midfielder.
1 Like
Coincidentally three specialists/different type of players. Rice and Zubimendi occupy the same spaces/type of roles. Obviously how it’s different how one fills it in different than the other but they are both box-2-box midfielders.