Dear athlete,
Hi, it’s me, God. I’ve heard your prayers and your post-match proclamation that your team winning was “God’s Will” and I want to talk to you about that.
First off, I think I should clarify a few things that humans have gotten wrong over the last few thousand years. The big one is, and I’m sorry to break it to you but, almost all of the religions are wrong.
I don’t know how you all heard what I’ve said (and I know that you have heard at least some of my words because they are in your bible, koran, zen koans, etc.) and somehow turned that around to mean the exact opposite. How did you manage to take “love thy neighbor as thyself” and turn it into “God Hates Fags”? How did you take “don’t kill” and turn it into “except women who have sex before marriage and homosexuals”? For the vast majority of you, you live a perversion of my truth.
Some of you listen to preachers who claim that I speak through them. Guys like Pat Robertson who say vile things like “hurricane Katrina was punishment because we are living in sin”. Pat Robertson is an actual demon, who says demonic things and perverts my message. I warned you all about false preachers as well, and boy did you not listen to that.
Anyway.. (I also like to start sentences with “anywho” these days) The good news is that because so many of you all are unworthy, heaven is relatively empty – except for dogs – almost all dogs go to heaven (not that dog that bit Tim’s dog yesterday). And I like it this way! I have all the good boys to play fetch with and some good humans who are really nice people. Heaven is sort of like my house. Could you imagine living an eternity with someone like Benny Hinn, one of those insufferable right-wing trolls on twitter, anyone who works for the NRA, or anyone from the Republican caucus? Nightmare fuel!
Probably not a surprise but there are no politicians in heaven. The only one who even has a chance is Jimmy Carter and that’s because he wasn’t a very good politician, he was mostly honest and tried to do the right things. And he atoned for his political sins after leaving office as he spent the rest of his life building houses for the poor. Like literally with a hammer in his hand, building houses. I like him, he’s a guy who listened to what I had to say and lived his life the right way.
Back to the topic at hand, there are also not very many athletes here in heaven. Sorry! Most athletes are greedy, vain, and self-centered. And they also allow themselves to be corrupted by the money and values that have ruined organized sports since the beginning. People talk about “sportswashing” these days as if it’s something new. What do you think the Roman Colosseum was all about? That was a rich guy spending billions to use sport to make himself look better than he actually was. Vespasian and his son Titus used Jewish slaves to build the Colosseum! Does that sound familiar to you?
I also have to say that I hate almost all sports. The only sport I watch at all is Test Cricket and that’s because it takes forever to play. Look, I’m a deity with literally infinite time on my hands and I need a sport that helps fill in that time. Test Cricket is the one.
The point is that I’m just not following any of the sports called football, basketball, baseball, or ANY of the Olympics – which I consider to be mankind’s worst invention. I MADE NATIONS TO PUNISH YOU FOR YOUR PRIDE! And what did you go and do? Make a sport that amplifies national pride into a count of how many medals you’ve won. Again, you pervert everything I tell you to do, ya freaks.
But even closer to the point, do you realize how stupid it sounds to say that your team winning is just “part of (my) plan”? Yes, Professional Athlete, I the infinite god of all of the universe, all powerful, all knowing, set in motion a plan at the start of time which would create the earth and evolution, so that I could have dinosaurs (which we do have up here in heaven by the way, because they are cool!) then kill them all off and create the human-specific habitat which would eventually lead to apes and then hominids which would then evolve into Neanderthals who would then mate with humans (which was way grosser than you can imagine) and create the modern human beings which would organize into cities, create sports, and television, and money, and sports drinks, and fans hurling racist abuse on Twitter, just so that the New York Red Bulls of Soccer could score a goal that won them a game. It’s all just part of my “divine plan”!
I don’t know what Calvinist preachers you’ve been listening to but there ain’t no divine plan. There is no predetermination and if there was, I certainly wouldn’t have sketched out having you putting a ball into a net. I would have had you all playing cricket or building houses for the poor. In fact, you should go out there right now and build houses for the poor or volunteer at a hospital for sick people or literally do anything to sacrifice some of your comfort and wealth and opulence to help people who have less than you do. That’s what I would have you doing. That would be my plan. But you don’t like that plan, you only like the idea that my plan somehow makes you incredibly rich and famous.
My plan would also have you nitwits solving the climate crisis. You know that you’re killing yourselves, right? Like all of you are going to die and I’ll have to start all over again but with like cockroaches or something. And I’d really rather not let sentient cockroaches into heaven, thanks. So quit thanking me for stuff I haven’t done and start making your world a better place.
Sincerely, God.
Ha, ha, well done.
As a counterpoint, I’d like to raise Real Madrid in the CL this year. If you were hoping that we wouldn’t notice your interference in the affairs of mortals, you got a little carried away with that one.
lol
I had to get you all to stop arguing with Bill about the same three topics.
It’s the off season, and transfers haven’t really started yet. We’re desperate for new topics to argue about.
We announced Marquinhos today. So we’re off to a banging start!
Have we already had the argument where people say he’s either the festering incompetence at Arsenal made manifest, or the second coming of Nicolas Pepe, but for 3 million instead of 72? Cause if we haven’t, I’m in the latter camp.
PS: I wasn’t even trying to make religious allusions, but your article as apparently inspired my amygdala
ha!
And for those of you whose arrogance leads them to doubt the Lord’s wisdom with regard to Test Cricket, just tune in tomorrow to Day 5 of the Second Test between England and New Zealand. The Black Caps have a lead of 238 with three wickets in hand but if England can skittle out the tailenders in the morning session it promises to be a glorious and thrilling final day as Root, Stokes&Co. try to chase down a reachable score on a batter-friendly wicket. With appropriate breaks for Lunch and Tea, of course. Amen.
Oh, and while we’re at it, is it any coincidence that the Home of Cricket, the MCC ground in London, is called “Lords”. I think not.
Well you certainly have a point there.
So you love test cricket, God. Great choice.
You’d be pleased to know that at the end of Day 4 of second test between England and New Zealand — a stone’s throw from Nottingham Forest football ground — a draw is still possible after 4, days, 24 hours of play, 4 hours of lunch or tea, and 1500 runs scored all round.
God (you) bless test cricket. There’s no other game like it.
btw, when I get Yank friends into cricket (and I have), I become inordinately proud of myself.
Each time you convert a Yank into liking cricket, an angel gets its wings…or something like that.
Well done, Tim. Mark Twain nods approvingly.
They say never talk about religion, money or politics with your friends but here you tackle all of them. It’s quite the manifesto!
I have thought for quite some time that if there is an entity that might be loosely characterized as a god, it would be completely beyond our comprehension, much like the vastness of the universe or the fabric of time since what we probably very naively think of as “the beginning.” The human brain is a humble instrument, incapable of detecting most of the sound, light or energy in the universe. How could it ever fathom the existence of a being that probably transcends those things?
So the very concept of talking to a god is a strange one. We have no idea how to do that or if it is in any way receiving our meager, pitiful signals. We do it because it feeds a basic emotional need within us: we do not want to feel alone and insignificant in this vast abyss of time and space. In a way it doesn’t matter if anyone is listening. What matters is that we feel comforted when we do it. Thus the evolution of dieties in the human imagination: tales we have told ourselves for millenia.
That said, I believe it’s equally naive to believe that we understand even a shred of how our universe came to be or what powers govern it. Humans have thought since the beginning of time that we understand what there is to understand about the world around us, and time and time again we have proven ourselves wrong. There is a basic energy that permeates all living and non-living things, and this energy is pervasive in the cosmos. All matter and all light is fungible. All of our atoms have a common origin. What is the word of god if not the collective vibration of all of the energy of the universe?
You feel it in the ocean, hear it in the trees, you are touched by it in a work of art or a kind word. There is no cosmic puppet master, no confessor, no arbitrator of good and evil. There is just a constant hum of energy, the heartbeat of the universe, the word of god, if you like. You can either swim with the current and join in the great song, or fight against it. We can all tell which we are doing by how a certain action makes us feel. Either way you will return to the same dust that made you. That’s what I believe.
Lovely, thanks Doc.
If Almighty can briefly break from producing Rottweiler puppy videos to intervene in Brother Partey’s fortunes, we would all be obliged.
The brother is good of heart, gentle of speech and elite in progressive carries. If his body keeps failing him for inexplicable (Emirates juju-related) reasons, the waves of the red Kop swarm and the azure city slickers will close upon us. Virtue will be cast into the black-and-white shadows of the tyrant Shearer’s castle. The press already worship at the heathen altar of the cock-and-ball.
Please note Brother Partey has recently switched subscription plan from weekends to five-a-days. Kindly check all inboxes. Ameen.
An interesting interview with Gazidis – https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/may/30/milan-ivan-gazidis-serie-a-title-football-future-arsenal . I’ve always been ambivalent about Gazidis, but he’s earned the right to a re-evaluation. His answers about ambition (praise for Arsene, silence on the Kroenkes) are revealing.
It’s amazing how much decent managerial talent the Kroenkes have wasted for lack of clear vision and financial empowerment. Pushing David Dein out of the club was malpractice. I still can’t believe Mislintat, Sanllehi and Emery, none of whom were perfect but who had complementary skills on paper and defensible track records before and since, were not able to get on the same page.
“Culture reviews” notwithstanding, the jury is still out on whether Edu and Arteta are coordinating or just co-existing. The contradictory management of Aubameyang, Tavares, Nketiah and others doesn’t inspire confidence.
Thanks for the post Tim.
Doc Gooner.
I share some of your thoughts. To me the idea that everything we see now in the universe is a product of random chance seems unbelievable. The idea that all matter and energy were stored in one place and then the Big Bang created the universe as we know it seems hard to accept. Even harder to accept is the idea that life on earth began as an organic soup in the oceans and then by random chance enough of these inanimate organic molecules and amino acids came together in a coherent pattern to form a living organism. The complexity of a single cell with all of its organelles seamlessly working together is staggering and that couldn’t have all developed by random chance. Even harder then that for me to believe all plant and animal life with DNA and many with complex nervous systems evolved from those first primitive organisms thru a series of unguided random mutations. Its seems reasonable to believe there has to be something or someone who guided the process.
Bill, just so you know, evolution isn’t a pure random process. There is also horizontal gene transfer to account for the variety.
The problem is that evolution isn’t properly taught and has been made into a political tool to push certain agendas. Case being yourself.
A real shame because evolution is certainly a factual process. We can observe that with Covid mutations unless one believes Covid is an alternate fact. If so, it is very difficult to have a conversation.
“We can observe that with Covid mutations unless one believes Covid is an alternate fact. ”
I think it’s very fair for a Creationist like Bill to raise questions about the THEORY of Evolution. For example, we still have not established clear distinctions of or have observed speciation occuring.
Your example of Covid mutations for example, can be countered by a Creationist as an example of adaptation, not evolution. Similar to how North Asians developed epicanthic folds to reduce wind chill or Central Africans developed darker skin. Both populations are still the same species and are able to reproduce freely.
The Theory of Evolution would indicate that over a prolonged period of time, isolated populations of various human groups will speciate till they will not be able to. Which also gives rise to various notorious 1930s racial theories.
The theories of intelligent design vs evolution should be continuously debated, not shut down immediately.
Note: I am a proponent of neither, because neither side has been able to prove their side beyond circumstantial evidence.
I won’t get into this (I am not a scientist) but the use of the word theory in a scientific context is not the same as used in common parlance. It carries different connotations and not what you imply.
correct. if you have a theory, it’s pretty much accepted as a fact.
Yes, that’s also true. And neither am I a scientist.
I just find it unfair to tear down another person’s reasoned opinion, based on what is really circumstantial evidence. If anything, opinions from guys like Bill are necessary to keep challenging mainstream scientific thought.
My whole point is that the current pop understanding of evolution is skewed in the first place.
For example, Bill brought up the idea of pure random process. Evolution certainly isn’t a pure random process so why does this idea stick in the minds of the public?
Just like the notion that we have an infinite universe which means there must be intelligent life some where since infinite multiply by any number is infinite.
I am sure Elon Musk knows that isn’t an entirely accurate statement to make but he makes it anyway. Likely because he is in the business of space exploration.
No. Bill is wrong that evolution is completely random. We still don’t really understand how it works (simply because human lifespans are too short to observe it happening in real time). Evolution self-selects traits to adapt to current circumstances.
I guess the really mind blowing part of evolution is that homo sapiens are a just 50k year old species and have already reached sentience. Makes you wonder if there was any lost sentience in the past 100 million years on Earth.
Bill, you are (in your first few sentences) illustrating the ‘ontological problem’ asking in effect “how can the universe have come to exist in the first place without a creator?”. Appeal to a deity is certainly a common way to address it, but unfortunately suffers the *exactly* the same problem that you highlight, as I can ask in return – “how can the *deity* have come to exist in the first place without a creator for the creator?”. You can no more demonstrate that than I can demonstrate conditions prior to the universe’s early hot dense state. You might argue that god just *is*, but equally, I can argue that the universe just *is*. Neither is directly testable and so neither is falsifiable.
Still, while not directly testable, it is still a really interesting problem. One argument runs that the universe *has* to seem almost incomprehensible complex, as if it couldn’t produce chemistry capable of forming RNA molecules which later evolve to multi-cellular life, no sentient being could ever exist to observe it in the first place, and we couldn’t be having this conversation. This is known as the weak anthropic principle and is true as far as it goes, but still offers no suggestion of why such a wildly improbable universe formed in the first place.
The strong anthropic principle argues further that, since a big bang creating a life-capable universe is absurdly unlikely but it happened anyway, the simplest answer is that the big bang cannot be a solitary event. Just as once upon a time we naively assumed that the milky way represented all the stars that existed but now know there thousands of billions of similar galaxies in our observable sphere, the big bang that created us would be just one of infinite such events stretching through the true universe which is infinite in space and/or time. Then, just as infinite monkeys at infinite typewriters would inevitable produce the complete works of Shakespeare by random accident, so to must infinite big bangs inevitable produce a universe capable of evolving William Shakespeare to write our copy. Completely untestable, of course, but there it is.
I think it was Stephen Hawking that defined “God” as simply the rules of physics which give structure and order to the universe, not in the sense of an “bearded old man” intelligent designer.
If we were to expand further on that, early religions’ worship of “God” can be boiled down to humans seeking order (“order” being what ordered societies define as “good”)
If it’s in the nature of the laws of physics for random chaos to slowly settle into patterned order; An intelligent designer can be the rules of physics which chaotic structures of atoms slowly settle and coalesce into more efficient and ordered types of atomic structures- eventually settling into intelligent life.
Everyone is free to believe whatever they want – I’m not trying to disprove god. Quite the opposite, I’m saying that the existence of a creator deity can never be disproven. What I am saying is that the argument that the universe is too perfect for there to be no creator is a circular one, and that there are plausible other explanations for the problem.
Incidentally, you have order and chaos the wrong way round. The early dense universe was extremely ordered – everything in one tiny space. Since then, disorder (entropy) has been increasing inexorably as particles spread and bang into one another, pushing the universe towards its eventual heat death. All the temporary order we see can only form if it maximises the rate of entropy around it, like a whirlpool or a tornado. Stars, life and even atoms themselves are mayflies whose existences will be just flickers when measured in cosmic time. Whatever or whoever the cause of creation, the end result is a very brief moment in the sun.
“Incidentally, you have order and chaos the wrong way round. The early dense universe was extremely ordered – everything in one tiny space. Since then, disorder (entropy) has been increasing inexorably as particles spread and bang into one another, pushing the universe towards its eventual heat death.”
Yes that’s a very enlightening thought. Thank you!
There is certainly a lot that we don’t understand and even more that we will never understand! Humans should make peace with our basic limitations and with our ignorance. In my opinion, a true evil of the world is evangelism, in all its forms.
Dear Dennis,
Spare a thought for poor Bernie Sanders, surely he deserves a place within the pearly gates of your wonderland.
Thanks
Quite a test of your patience and belief when your key competitor is making strong moves in the transfer market. I’d have Spence any time. He’s not as strong a defender as Tomi but he’s much better going forward. Could have been quite a combo with Saka. Plus he’d have cost very liitle offset against Bellerin’s departure. Bissouma does pretty much what Partey does but is available for the majority of games. And at £25M that’s a steal. Early days but the pressure is on EduArt to seal smart deals.
Bissouma is being investigated for sexual assault.
Serious charge. Indecent assault, in public, in a nightclub. Lets see where that goes.
Football wise, great pickup of a highly regarded midfielder for only 26m euros, roughly 20m gbp. The White deal, for more than twice that, is increasingly a head scratcher. wth went down there?
Not sorry to miss out on Bissouma, though. We dont need the entire midfield decamping to AFCON. If Elneny had created room, yes. It’d have presumably been Xhaka to the bench.
Money or cost issues aside, signing a player with a pending criminal proceeding is a huge risk. It’s not a great look for Spurs either.
From an Arsenal perspective, in a vacuum, you’d love to have Bissouma. I don’t follow Brighton closely but I believe he plays basically the same role for them as Thomas Partey does for Arsenal. I have no doubt that he sees himself as a first choice player and would not be content signing up to be Partey’s understudy. Nor would the club sanction such a price for a backup even if he didn’t have a criminal charge hanging over his head. We have too many needs elsewhere.
Youre right. The serious criminal charge represents a risk. I was speaking only on the footballing value.
That said, a Bissouma would play WITH Partey, not understudy him. He’s too good a player for that, and he’s comfortably a better player than Xhaka. Midfielders are versatile beings, as our own manager once demonstrated. It’s about understanding… who sits and holds, and who goes on any one sequence of play. At a very high leval, that worked for Vieira and Petit (Im not saying that these 2 are the same quality… just making a point about complementarity)
Ehh.. I don’t think that Arteta wants to play Partey and a pure DM. We seem to have moved away from that model with Xhaka camping slightly further up the field in a more of a midfield diamond.
It’s both a financial risk and a reputational risk. Not sure reputational matters as much – fans have traditionally been willing to overlook these things. If he’s found guilty, that’s the big financial risk. Which is probably why they got him for cheap. Wouldn’t pay his true (footballing) worth bedau of that risk, and Brighton probably satisfied with the money on offer for the same reason.
Difficult one… there’s no smoke without fire and simultaneously you’re innocent until proven guilty. Brighton continued to play him and Spurs you’d presume have some diligence process. I think back to RVP and the rape allegation against him. Footballers are young guys with untold riches snd comforts but equally easy targets
For sure. But anyway Arsenal weren’t interested. There are literally no links in the Guardian or BBC.
What’s the view here on tielemans? If the rumour mill is to be believed he’s the prime mf target.
I can speak just from having watched him play against us. I didn’t like it when he was on the Leicester team sheet. I thought he was a dynamic player who was good in both phases and dangerous in the final third as well. He kind of looks like a chubby kid but he plays fast. He can pass, tackle, cross, dribble and shoot at an average or above average level. I don’t think he’s an elite player but he is certainly a massive improvement on our current options.
I could write something so that you all can have a topic to discuss. How about tomorrow?
Wonderful post and some great responses (I’m looking at you Dr. Gooner).
I have stayed away from all things Arsenal, until today, and I was rewarded with a great read, so muchos gracias, spasibo, grazie, shukriya, shukran and merci beaucoup.
I stayed away because I was so bitterly disappointed with the end of our season. We were capable of 3rd place and ended up out of CL, getting pipped by Sp$%s no less. Terrible. But I can’t stay away forever (or apparently, even that long).
So I take a figurative knee today. Not to some human construct called “god” but to humans in general, including some those who created and help to perpetuate that construct. I am not unaware or blind to the fact that it does help many human lives. Also to the incredible football talent that entertains and sustains me. To Arsene Wenger for largely creating my Arsenal addiction, which has overall, provided a wonderful hobby to distract me in bad times and good.
I am a thankful, ultimately still proud supporter and ready to do it all over again in coming months and weeks.
Late to this post but Sparks wrote this
https://youtu.be/oC0rzv1j8Zc
With the lyric
My God is great, my God is good
He loves every man
But show consideration when you pray in demands
His plate is filled with famine and with clean wholesome air
If Arsenal wins
He really don’t care
didn’t care too much for the initial thread but the transfer talk is interesting. the fact that arsenal have identified transfer targets who would rather go to other clubs has always been my biggest fear with arteta. it’s an indicator that arsenal are no longer considered a big club. players with options don’t seem to want to play for him. finishing 5th hurt a lot more than some of you guys realize….especially being 4 points clear with 3 games remaining. that’s a bigger collapse than the ’02-’03 season.
djed spence gave arsenal some serious work when we played against him this season…and he’s going to tottenham. bissouma has all of the same problems he had last summer but, man, he’d look good in arsenal red; an absolutely lovely footballer. the afcon is over and i’m surprised his case hasn’t reached a conclusion. we bought (overpaid) the wrong brighton player last summer. for his case, i hope he’s not a greenwood or benjamin mendy. we’ll see.
i’m not a fan of signing gabriel jesus. he’s a decent footballer but he’s not a center forward. ironically, when arteta gave eddie so many minutes last season (’20-’21), i thought he felt he could make eddie a gabriel jesus. now, he’s trying to get two similar players on the same team at the same time. arsenal targeted vlahovic and darwin nunez (good center forwards), but both those players are also team mates with lucas torreira.
i read a story that said arteta was unhappy with the kroenke’s not giving him requested transfer funds. this is funny. we’re talking about the same manager who decided it was a good idea to allow so many players to leave for far less than their value. this list includes lacazette, aubameyang, ozil, chambers, willian, kolasinac, guendouzi, ryan, mavropanos, mustafi, mkhitaryan, and mavropanos. he’s overpaid for players like ben white while diminishing the value of players like pepe. if this story is true, he can’t complain when he hasn’t helped the club earn money by ensuring arsenal sell players for top like most managers do. the only players arteta’s arsenal has gotten good money for is joe willock and emi martinez.
Klopp: “Darwin, super news. I’m very grateful to everyone at the club for making it happen. We’ve shown decisiveness, ambition. We’ve wonderful attacking options. So there is no pressure on him at all. He signs for a very long time and we intend to nurture his talent”.
Klopp on signing Darwin Nunes.
Dear God, grant us, the gooner faithful, the patience not to look enviously at others clubs. Grant us the understanding to realise that some of the players we wish for will elect to play for clubs that can offer them Champions League football. And grant us this summer respite from the search engines of the evil internet, and the tyranny of YouTube.
Over Salah, Mane, Firmino, Mimamino, Oringi, and Jota, Liverpool has rarely put a foot wrong. They look likely to lose Mane, but that’s more game time for Jota, one of the strikers in the league that I like the most.
The whole question of how life started is not a political or theological or evangelical question to me. I don’t begrudge anyones belief systems and I don’t have any problem with the idea of evolution. I can accept that modern humans may have evolved from primitive ape like creatures because that pathway for that to happen seems plausible to me.
What I don’t understand is how life could have begun in the first place from a ocean full of organic chemicals. How could those chemicals have formed themselves into the complex pattern required to form a living single cell organism that can replicate it self. You can put all the adenine, cytosine guanine and thymine you want into a mixture and shake it or shock it with electricity and its not going to randomly form working DNA with genes that will start coding for the protein production needed to sustain a living organism. Its like asking a chimpanzee with typewriter to write a perfect copy of War and Peace by happenstance. The process of cellular mitosis is a very complex even for the simplest organism and how is that bag of chemicals going to start to divide and reproduce. Even if all of that somehow did happen by chance, how did that single organism evolve into all of the plant and animal species of the world. If that chimpanzee with the typewriter somehow typed out a perfect copy of War and Peace, then he next has to use the same typewriter and write a perfect copy of the unabridged works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The statistical likelihood of something like that is beyond my ability to believe
I think it’s wonderful not to know how life started, I’m ok with the ambiguity of whether life took 1bn years to form or whether it formed almost immediately after water first appeared and I’m open to the possibility that life was placed here by creatures with god-like technological capabilities or even just a random space rock crashing into the earth.
Just because something is incredibly improbable, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
Tim
Your last sentence is certainly true. To me its a very interesting discussion but I like nerdy science stuff. Its a discussion that has no possibility of ever finding a definitive answer, so to each his own.
I disagree. The truth is out there.
One,of the sad downsides of belief in a creator is (in my opinion) that it posits that the universe ‘as is’ just isn’t amazing or interesting enough on it’s own and needs some absent almighty creator to make it relevant or worthy of prayer and praise.
Still having issues replying. Must be some extensions on my browser.
tim, that sounds great. Looking forward to your take on our transfer targets and possibly thoughts on next season.
Doc, thanks for the reply. So I take it you are on board with tielemans as the midfield upgrade? I’m ambivalent about him and it’s probably only because I haven’t watched much of him. I liked him when he was at Monaco though not sure if enough to want Arsenal to buy him, but more than happy if he is as good as you say he is.
I’d love to read Tim’s take on Tielemans. I’m in agreement with Doc, I like his quality, mentality and work-rate, on both sides of the ball, and like many I think he’d slot into that more advanced LM berth very well.
I like Osimhen as the tip of the spear, but that’s never going to happen. I’m lukewarm on Jesus (that’s also my bumper sticker) but that’s probably unfair of me.
Honestly I think of all the players linked to us, if we came out of the summer with Tielemans, Zinchenko (who’s fantastic) and Jesus, replaced Pepe with Rapinha or someone, kept Saliba AND added someone like Aaron Hickey, I can’t really imagine doing much better.
I don’t necessarily think any of that will happen mind you, I wouldn’t be surprised if we are in fact looking at a number of players who are off the radar of any of the news and gossip outlets, much like last summer.