His Name Is Death

I hope fans aren't going to turn on him so early on ffs.

Oh, right. I don't pay much attention to Madrid, so I didn't realise he was now an attacking midfielder.

How did Bellingham become such a consistent goalscorer? I thought he was a central midfielder?

Shane Long. Danny Welbeck.

I have to pass through places like Blackburn, Accrington and Burnley on my way to seeing my best friend in Preston. It's truly sad how neglected these places are (there's a reason why they're routinely listed as the 'worst places to live' in the UK). More than a touch of Innsmouth about them. Partially explains the absolute bottom-of-the-barrel cretins you get among Burnley's supporters.

The contradiction goes away when you treat his 'good causes' for what they are: PR exercises.

For our own good or because they don't want him to leave?

Didn't take long for them to find their Caicedo replacement. (EDIT: Oh, someone mentioned it already.)

We're not buying anyone from Brighton lmao. Why would he give them up for us when he's got a good thing going with them?

Of course, the actual behaviour of traditional journalists and media outlets couldn’t possibly have contributed to all that hatred.

I think that’s true, but it’s also that people want ‘like what they like’ without people hassling them about it. They don’t want anyone spoiling their fun at the weekend or the vicarious pleasure they get out of the club’s success. I know it’s true of many fanbases. I find the attachment our fans have to Villa unhealthy a lot of the time, but there’s something truly infantile about Citeh and Newcastle fans.

The Saudi league will succeed because the government are relentless enough to want it to (and wealth beyond imagination to fall back on), much more so than the Chinese government. Considering the other megaprojects they've got in the works, I don't know why people think they're a flash in the pan. Yeah, sadly, my 14 year old cousin (a Man U fan, but I still love him) recently expressed an interest in following Al Nassr because he loves Ronaldo so much. You have to remember that we're the 'legacy' fans stubbornly tied to supporting one club and we've already been dumped to make way for fans of superstar names.

Wasn't he dating Ines Rau, a trans woman, at one point? That's already more inclusive than (I imagine) most footballers can muster.

I really admired her for her protest on SNL - and showed a great deal more courage than Madonna - though, if that was one of the dealbreakers for her with Christianity, it makes you wonder why she converted to Islam, whose clerics and adherents aren't exactly free of problems around sex and child abuse themselves.

From a Roma/Villa fan on Reddit (in reply to an article about the Isco incident):

So... can we have him, then?

Oh bugger. As long as it's not as bland or simplistic as our old badge, I'll put up with it. Otherwise, I think a lot of the fans who care about these things will be very disappointed.

As others have said, he's from Coventry and, like Callum Wilson, probably wouldn't come even if we offer more.

Pretty terrible one from Reddit, though not a bad idea underlying it and I appreciate the effort.

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