ponsaelius

New stadium would be an easier design and build. Whether it was easier to get it through the planning process would depend entirely where it was. Arena site would sail through, mostly Leazes Park not, mostly Castle Leazes somewhere in the middle. Planning process can also get highly politicised. Whether we see any designs or not early on will depend on whether they keep it confidential or go public early on.

I think there's a sweet spot to capacity of any European club in terms of demand/atmosphere and somewhere between 60-70k is probably about it IMO. I don't think demand is insatiable/endless. There's only a handful in Europe bigger, and most of them are actual or de-facto national stadia.

I still think an expansion could be 'state of the art' if done in phases. Strawberry Place has already had huge mix used developments approved on it in the past as we all know. If you can get over the Metro issue then you could do a pretty significant cohesive development including a East Stand/Gallowgate rebuild across that whole area which included numerous money making elements for the club (hotel, conference facilities, expanded club shop, museum etc). You eventually then get round to rebuilding or re-developing the Milburn and Leazes to cohesively join it all together. The only issue would be how lopsided it could look in the interim - but it's hardly cohesive at the moment anyway. You're probably limited to an absolute maximum of 65k too even if you got really creative with the rebuilds - but I still think that would be enough.

Aye if he wasn't a footballer he'd be on Dragons Den asking for £100k for a 1% stake in his Peak Performance Mindset app, receiving 5 different offers.

Messi is the kind of obvious comparison - Bellingham might be scoring robotically at 1 in 2 but it's hardly like watching Messi running up and down the wing at Stamford Bridge getting lumps kicked out of him at 19. Like you say maybe an unfair comparison - but I do feel like off the cuff dribblers are completely gone now. Bellingham is like the prototype modern footballer in terms of what modern tactics and physical expectations elevates to the top. Even find how well media trained he is a bit annoying to be honest

Bellingham is a good player and he's obviously still very young but him being up there as the potential (likely?) Ballon D'or winner just makes me think football has fallen off a cliff in terms of individuals to be honest. Great mentality, immaculately coached, great output in terms of stats, and comes up clutch at key moments - but I can't say I've ever been particularly excited to sit down and watch him play.

That goal for Bayern at the end doesn't seem too dissimilar to that Shelvey goal down at Sheffield United where we played on and scored despite the flag going up. I don't really understand where VAR can and can't get involved on situations like that.

London is absolutely class. Love it every time I go. I'd have to be earning about four times what I do now to want to live there though.

Yeah they had the best January window of any team by a long way.

It's great to see Palace finally getting some good fitba out of these players, tbh. They've persistently been dull as fuck despite having some entertaining individuals.

Eze is great but he's very left sided. We need a right sided player more.

Henderson went for £12 million. That's your benchmark for an inflated Saudi transfer I'd say.

Think comparing him and his brother shows how much luck comes into it in making it at the top level. At one point Josh was playing for Cardiff in the PL and Jacob was out on loan in the Championship. Fast forward now and Jacob has played CL this season while Josh has dropped down to upper League One. In reality I don't think there is quite that much of a gap in talent level between the two. They both sold for basically identical fees a year apart. Jacob has benefitted hugely from firstly the club being so dysfunctional under Ashley that we regularly kept inadequate players around for years and offered them long contracts, and secondly from landing on a manager in Howe who has subsequently been able to squeeze every last inch out of his talent level. That's not to do Jacob a disservice - I think he's clearly got an excellent attitude himself and is a good pro. I just find the sliding doors moments in football so interesting when you look at players' careers. In another timeline both brothers possibly end up playing out their careers in the Championship.

Bernardeschi and Matty Longstaff link up, the MLS is such a trip