Last night’s performance for Wales is exactly what I mean by that world class ability he still has. Both of those goals were superb. He needs to have one last dance here, especially in front of the fans now, got robbed of that last season.
Would love Bale back for one last hoorah but would he have the legs and intense fitness to perform Contes high press ?
I think we’d have to appreciate that Bale probably isn’t going to have loads of successive 90 minute matches in the tank regardless of system but I think he could do sporadic ones as well as be a constant option from the bench for the last 25-30 mins - of which there’d be very, very few better to bring on, if any. I think it was CK that even mentioned about how our current squad players just aren’t doing anything from the bench when they come on with Bergwijn’s heroics vs Leicester being a one off. For me there’s a lot of sense to be made bringing Bale back, presuming he himself wanted too of course. Shirt sales, fan euphoria, a more or less guarantee of goals/ assists and the fact that ability wise he’s better than anyone we’ve got bar Kane, you can never have too much quality.
We've scored 2 free kicks in 3 years. The only comfort is that there are plenty of PL teams who have done even worse. Southampton well in the lead with 8 scored over the same period.
One of those was Son against Watford. He just put it into the box and everyone missed it. I've no idea what the other is.
I would do it. He’s got absolute quality on the ball and I think he’d be a game changer that we lack, and would struggle to find elsewhere. He could start games where we have more of the ball and struggle to unlock teams, and in the more high intensity games where we’d maybe have less of the ball, he’d be a weapon if we were chasing a game.
Same here. We didn't score any at all last season so I assume the other was by Eriksen just before he left but...when? I've kind of erased the period of November 2019 - November 2021 from my memory so I'm struggling.
Yep. Eriksen against Norwich in Dec 2019. 2-2 draw in which our goals came from a direct free kick and a penalty, which must count as some herald of the apocalypse. It was his last goal in a Spurs shirt. For now.
That vid compilation of Dybala suggests he scores at least one per season. Bale we already know well from his Spurs days and elsewhere, As always, would need to get the PL source data on free-kicks to see how Spurs compare generally to the rest and the usual suspects.
In the PL, IMHO you would be looking at Bale for : 1. starting XI, 60 odd mins max 2. sub, 30 mins max On #1, I think in terms of Gazza in the 1991 FA cup SF. 60 odd mins of unplayable destruction, then subbed. On #2, 30 mins at full pelt against opposition that may already be feeling the running in their legs. I'm sure a manager can rotate the team sheets on that basis.
I will see if I can quickly do a ball park estimate (using the 2019-20 season) as to what what the EBITDA annual income for new WHL is.
I think it's something like: Premium seats £50m Other seats £50m Food and drink £20m Naming rights £20m Other events £10m Which is why I used £150m in my post.
Always go worst case (in this case : no naming rights, other events) . So that gives you 120m EBITDA, and 60m effective. Next is what split on that 60m should be done for transfer/wage costs.
So far this season there have been four other events (including the rugby tomorrow) with at least five more planned for the summer. I imagine we get at least 1m for the rent of the stadium and another 1m for food and drink so my 10m seems pretty robust.
There’s already rumours (albeit not from any highly credible sources yet) that Everton will look to bin Dele in the summer to avoid paying us the fees they’d be obliged to should he play in a set amount of games. Based on the amount of game time he’s had for them so far, it has to be said it’s quite believable. To think just four years ago we probably could’ve sold him for about £100m if we wished… crazy fall from grace.
Various sources are suggesting we're looking to sign Boubacar Kamara when his contract with Marseille ends in the summer. I mean we do owe them a Levying for the summer of Batshuayi & Nkoudou... L'Equipe, meanwhile, are linking us with Rennes' wonderfully-named CM Lesley Ugochukwu
It seems unlikely to me that there's nothing that allows them to move him on quickly without paying anything. I said that it was a **** deal at the time, but that just seems too ****.
I’m unsure, seemed like we had practically no suitors and the club just wanted rid and the Everton deal felt like a no loss scenario, got an unwanted and poor player off the books and if he does well we get money.
Genuine question for you, PNP. I'd noticed that, since more and more Spurs fans lost patience with Dele, they were calling for him to be sold and felt he'd lost his way. Over the past 18-24 months, these calls for Dele's exit became frequent. But you never seemed keen on the idea of letting him go. Just wanted to know why that was? It seems to me he's clearly not the same player he was. And the fact he's struggling at Everton right now (although he isn't the only one) may suggest it was the correct choice to cull him from your squad. Maybe he's suffered from different things being asked of him from different managers, maybe he's not been utilised right, or the players around him haven't complemented him well enough - all of which leads to a loss of confidence. Or maybe other players made him look better than he was i.e. Dele's a system player? I don't know. But whatever the reasons are, I don't envisage him turning his career around.
