OTF

This is supposed to be me accusing you of name dropping, turns out it's much better than that. Also "bag on someone" is not Australian vernacular.

His character and associated joy and shithousery brings a new element to the side, much like BDB's fortitude, grit and desire, Sven's steely demeanour, Kieran's universally respected leadship, Joelinton's passion and aggression, Isak's icy cool.... I could go on. He's got to be a great player for the squad, you know he's not getting upset or making bad challenges in training, but rather is bringing the team more together. The fact that he's also capable of top quality finishes and passing means he can have a very real impact. He's 28 but has had a pretty easy run of games over the last few seasons in that a lot of his games are as a substitute. He has another three years to run on his contract and I can see him continuing to improve his onfield vision and decision making over this period thereby maintaining his status as a very valuable member of the squad especially when we have a busy European schedule.

I for one never doubted the lad 😉

Why he was on the bench? Or just a rest from international duty? Tough to drop Murphy now after he had a fantastic game, but then that's squad rotation.

It's better for that to be the casual rhetoric around our games, anyone poorly informed coming in expecting something different to what we bring is to our advantage. Don't expect that any teams in the Premier League could still be in that category though.

Grealish, Foden, Phillips, Bellingham, Saka, Kane, Rashford... NONE of them have won the Sela Player of the Month. Are you watching Gareth?

I know it's 4-0 but I'd prefer us not to get sloppy like we have been here.

Jacob 'oil money' Murphy

Thattttt's numbernonce!

Roy's been waiting for the bus and the rest of Palace will be looking for theirs after that first half. Dominated.

Us at the moment.

You beauty Longstaff!

Finally! Great time to score and great for Gordon. Assist Murphy who is having a blinder.

Schär is such a fantastic passer of the ball.

Bullshit yellow there for Longstaff

Should have been the second there! Great work Murphy

Let's see that smile Jacob

Goal!

Is this finally our replay from last season where we had the worst VAR decision EVARR chalk off a match winning goal?

Agree wholly with the above. If you don't at least consider it likely that Milan had a knowledge of this issue you're credulous. Plausible deniability, sure, that's what they will stand behind, but all factors considered there's a strong stench about the whole ordeal with further doubt added by the timing and public nature of the 'investigation'. These sort of issues, involving multiple players across multiple teams, don't get discovered and then immediately revealed to the media. Let's not also forget that of the big five leagues Serie A is the one with the most chequered past; calciopoli being the biggest (known) scandal in modern football (outside of FIFAs blatant corruption).

I know there's no existing provisions for this within FFP, but surely there would be grounds to appeal based upon whether he has committed any crime whilst being a Newcastle player? It's not comparable to an injury preventing him from playing as it did not occur whilst playing for us. If we were to pursue Milan based on the likelihood that they had some knowledge of this, then any compensatory damages would at least be removed from the amortisation ledger reducing the yearly allocation. Likewise any penalties (fines or reductions in wages) could shave a little more off. Like the rest of us I'd really like to know what the crimes he has committed are, and whether there's any precedent based on cases here (Toney's being the most prominent). If he has bet on football then he will have broken FA gambling rules and at best will be subject to their penalties which from the sounds of things will be less punitive than the Italian laws.

It's a tough one because unseating Dan Burn from the left back position would be a tough ask. Like Livramento, Hall seems more like a signing for next season than this. Livramento is more developed as far as his career goes, but is behind the first name on our team sheet. So the success of this transfer window really does come down to Barnes and Tonali, both of whom are seemingly set to miss big chunks of the season. You'd have to think a squad this this spread so far will catch up with us at some point this season.