As long as he isn’t being a shithead I’m not bothered
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As long as he comes back and does the business of the pitch I’m not bothered.
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As long as you’re not bothered, I’m not bothered.
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Quality.
You see it in everything he does, our other midfielders are simply not in the same sentence as him in some basic footballing (mostly technical) aspects.
What I even loved about his little cameo, is that I think he won 5/5 headers. Beautiful stuff. Aggressive, precise.
He’ll never be a physical machine like Gini, playing 50+ games every season. But if we can get him for 35-40, that would be great.
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I’ve said that Alcantara and Keita hold the keys for the evolution of this side. Unfortunately, fitness issues have largely put that vision aside. I wish he could have played for half an hour against WBA, though. While his incisive passing might unsettle sides, it’s his ability to be patient with the ball and draw out the opponents, especially when Liverpool hold a slender lead, that would have been perfect in such a game and probably helped Liverpool hold on to win. That’s history now, we’ll see whether he can play with some consistency in terms of fitness and, if he can, how he’ll cope with opponents pressing him incessantly, especially in big games.
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I mentioned that in the game thread, his defensive headers are perfectly timed.
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This guy is in a class of his own, our defenders should give him the ball a much as possible, everything after that will be fine.
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I want to see a Thiago - Henderson - Ox midfield next match. That midfield will have much more bite.
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Hmm, so some positive to take away from 2020.
Looked like he’s bulked up a bit, hit the gym hard during his time off. Good to see, opposition players will struggle to muscle him off the ball. If they can even get near him that is…
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Yep, oozes class, in every move, I especially like the half backwards pass out the corner of his eye, back of the head even, always to feet. He will change the way we play immensely.
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Thiago coming on was about the first time I could muster up any real excitement for the game last night.
Apart from that one sloppy pass late on he was flawless. A number of diagonal balls that got the full backs in behind mixed in with some passes through the lines in midfield that the likes of Gini couldn’t make full use of. He was also winning headers against Newcastle’s big lads in the middle.
He was my MOTM last night, thought he was the best player on the pitch by an absolute mile and did more in 20 minutes than anyone else did in 90.
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The only thing I care about when it comes to him and this game is, how is he felling after the game, is he ok, how’s his knee and every other part of his body (within reason you perverts).
Can he play the next game, maybe start?
That and the title 
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He looked sharp enough to start for me and Soton are a more ball playing team, though to be fair to Newcastle they didn’t sit two banks of 5 like WBA, without the pressing early on I doubt they would have drawn.
But yeah hopefully 70-75 on Monday, if he had started fully fit yesterday we would have won that, before he came on we could have played that game for 180 mins and still not scored both him and Gini changed it and we were unlucky at the end.
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The one plus from last night’s disappointment. I almost didn’t mind so much dropping the points after seeing him come on and look every inch the world class player he is.
If we can look forward to a regular midfield of Thiago , Gini and Hendo from now 'til the end of the season then we are gonna start turning these shitty draws into wins and it’s there for the taking.
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Very happy Thiago came on last night. He was about the only midfielder who had the majority of his passes go forward. A lot of positive thinking by him. I was feeling frustrated that both Hendo and Millie had passed sideways or backwards and the pace of the game overall was too slow to make much difference in the result.
Although he only had 17 minutes to make a difference you could see the class he brings. Pls stay healthy!
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He’s been wearing Adidas boots in training but played in Nike boots last night.
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