Polarboy

No it was today, also known as the day after yesterday.

Trippier has been pictured in the departures lounge at the airport. As said in the article I was reading he has gone to Dubai before for treatment on injuries, but as far as I'm aware he's over his previous injury and it does seem like odd timing given the players are just back for preseason training. Add this together with the story the other day that he's increasingly looking to be on his way, and it looks like this is just further confirmation.

If you look at his numbers last season they don't seem all that impressive, but upon closer inspection he only started a handful of games, and the games he started in were where he got most of his goals and assists. It's never going to sit right with me if we help Chelsea in any way given the way they conduct business in the transfer market etc, but I'm sure Howe could very easily make any trepadations I have about Madueke look stupid quite quickly. The question is will he take half a season to adjust like Gordon, or perhaps more. I know there's no guarantee any player will hit the ground running, but it would be nice to have a player who's perhaps more fully formed, but Howe of course has said we can't afford those types just yet.

I could have sworn he was given they've had him a few years, he's English, and he's still relatively young. But yeah, evidently he was at Spud's academy before going to PSV. Given they bought him fours years ago his fee probably is pretty much off the books, so even if he isn't an academy player it would still largely be "profit" for them. Edit. Just realised that I misread the contract signing date, and they only bought him last season 😂 Fuck it, let's just buy him.

Well let's hope this isn't true either. Madueke might turn out to be decent but even if you account for PSR it leaves a bad taste that he seemingly isn't good enough for them to fight to keep, and obviously it massively helps them to buy an academy player off them. Underwhelming all the way around.

Clearly I've not been party to some top bants. I shall elegantly remove myself from the situation.

Wednesday does usually precede Thursday. The quotes I seen from the Times piece said it was played. Are you saying different?

In the behind closed doors game against Burnley yesterday afternoon. Again him scoring and assisting could easily be untrue given I've only seen it on social media.

I heard, but take it with a pinch of salt, that Tonali got a goal and two assists against Burnley. It would be great if he could hit the ground running when his ban is over, but the PL is a different kettle of fish of course. As for Thiaw 10m seems like an awfully big gap in valuation, but if he's genuinely interested in joining us that's always incredibly helpful to proceedings.

Reports from Italy that we've put a bid in for the Argentinian Nicolas Gonzalez off Fiorentina. He's a right winger and has great stats when he's on the pitch, but going by his injury record that doesn't happen all that often. Given his injury history this might be the one time I'm happy that Italian papers are usually full of shite.

Gives his answer within the first two minutes, very interesting. Basically says as long as he feels supported as the manager he will continue as our manager. He's perhaps alluding to Mandy and Mehrdad leaving and Mitchell coming in, as in he needs to see what the new landscape is, what transfers he gets, what control he has over said transfers etc.

Yeah he's definitely not going to say he isn't interested, not least for the fact that he's on record that he'd see it as an honour. Howe keeps his cards close to his chest so he'll dance around it skillfully like he does with other awkward questions, but him doing that could mean little more than not wanting to even marginally insult the position, or the FA given he's, again, on record as wanting the job at some point in his career.

Just seen Bailey the journo make a decent point, that being that if Howe decides to wait until later in his career there's no guarantee that he'd get a crop of players this good again. And that if Howe is of the opinion that he could conceivably win the next world cup with said players he has a big decision to make. A relatively obvious point, but it is something more to substantial to weigh against his love of day to day club management. I'll not crack open the Pampers just yet, but I'll admit I hadn't even thought about the implications of Howe waiting until later in his career, even if it's, again, not a revelationary point.