Good post as ever, and agreed.

I expect Tino to leave in the summer. CL or not for us doesn't hold much relevance, I fear. City can offer basically permanent CL football and greatly improved wages. And the wages matter way way more. Players aren't sentimentalists about this stuff, rarely ever have been, and especially aren't now with agents in their ears making sure that human emotions don't come into it. And who can blame them?   This will continue to happen. We can't offer the wage so we can't compete. This part of football history will be remembered as the beginning of a truly protectionist era, as a response by the established giants to the rise of City and PSG. I also don't see how it ever ends. Not that I have any insight. Anyway, in our lifetime, sport has evolved out of the end of amateurism and local loyalties (at least in a lot of disciplines) to become utterly enmeshed with geopolitics and international business. And that sort of trend doesn't seem to show any signs of reversing.   Football is a closed shop. NUFC may manage to overcome it in time but only because we're owned by one of the only entities in the entire world with the financial and political muscle to push its way into the conversation. And we may well do so eventually for reasons that have nothing at all to do with football because there are a lot of people in the world who want to do business with Saudi Arabia. It's all very icky stuff really.   I guess we're all complicit so long as we're paying attention. But, hey, I'm a moron and a hypocrite so expect something more than nothing at all from me at your peril.  

bless him. Looks and talks like he’s about 12