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The thick bastards cant even get the date right

I think Howe has serious potential to eclipse both Robson and Keegan and in very short order as well. We shouldn't lose sight of the fact both his predecessors had emotional connections with the club which helped drive their passion for success with the club (*). Howe, by comparison, is driven by his coaching and man-management ability alone. Having witnessed 12 months of him at the helm I massive underestimated his abilities of both aspects. I had him down as a 'steady Eddie' (no pun intended) who would guide the tiller in the right direction until a big-name coach the owners could convince to come on board would sign up to the project. As one of my mates put it - he was to be Newcastle's answer to Mark Hughes at Man City. Couldn't be happier to be proven wrong. With perhaps Keegan and Robson aside, I cannot recall another manager who engaged me more when interviewed. And I'm talking every single interview. It's obvious it's not just a front as well - he refuses to be drawn on anything that could potentially be considered contentious and he's careful to ask journalists to clarify their point if he thinks for one moment he doesn't fully understand it. He also realises getting the press on board is vital to success and harmony - having a laugh and a joke with them but also being human - referring to them by first name, asking them how they are etc. - the example that sticks in my mind was when he stopped Keith Downie and asked him during a press conference if he was OK after the tree landed on his car during the storm earlier this year. Contrast that with the likes of Kinnear and Bruce who treated the press as sworn enemies. Fucking hell, it's unreal. But back to the comparisons, I always hoped Keegan and Robson would deliver something. With Howe it's different; I feel confident it WILL come. Personally I think he has the potential to be one of the best man-managers/coaches this country has ever produced. Long may it continue. (*) - let's not forget his immediate predecessor should have had that emotional connection as well, but failed to EVER get anywhere near it.

Pope is our representative on earth! Let's go! Up the Protestants!

That's right, shit your face.

Both isn’t realistic, if you give equal priority to both. The League Cup is a significantly lower priority (even winning it) compared to a CL place. I’d rather we had a proper crack at both but the only teams that do that have deep squads. The only teams with deep squads are the ones that qualify for the CL on a regular basis. If we get in the CL this year it puts us well ahead of schedule in terms of becoming one of those clubs. Once we’re in that group of teams there are no guarantees but you’d think the investment will make it very likely we’d then qualify most years going forward. I’m not getting any younger and would love to see us win something for the first time in my lifetime but HMHM is spot in terms of the bigger picture

We have a great opportunity to put nine points between us and Chelsea on Saturday, we're in 3rd spot ahead of where we want to be and one or two players need a break and others need some minutes. If Murphy can start our league games then Shelvey can come in for this. I'd rather this year grasp any opportunities to finish as high as possible with a unique WC situation and no Europe to bolster our turnaround times in between games and help our recruitment chances and enhance our imminent sponsor deals. Can you imagine anyone bemoaning a sponsorship deal if we finished in a CL spot or close to it? We'd just point to the clubs in a similar part of the league table as ourselves and say if it's good enough for them etc. The cups can roll in when we've a squad good enough to rotate in these early rounds and get through comfortably. If we were in 8th I'd be putting out a better team injuries permitting but this really is the time to look at the bigger picture.

Bayern: “DAMAGED MIND? FUCK YOU KHALID & CO”

Yeah I watched the clip of the high performance thing, fuck watching 90mins of his “David Brent with A levels” guff, that great wet lettuce Humphrey egging him on, not for me Clive But wtf do I know? I may well have reacted well to that when I was younger and I may be a lot less of a cynical old bastard now. Whatever he’s doing with the players it’s plainly very effective. He’s the single most significant figure in the history of AFC Bournemouth. If he wins a trophy with Newcastle United it’s arguable that he’ll be the talked about in the same terms in the North East… nearly 19 years since SBR was sacked.. two generations of young fans who’ve not known any real hope at the club. He’s their man.

His commentary was fucking awful

No

Of course we play a game at a time I can watch and its not on TV anywhere in the world

Also, you chaps should have simply bought a ticket to watch the magic in person like this cool dude. I’ll report back with tales of the new world

Rotation is a good thing anyway, think of it much the same as alternating between your left and right hands whilst wiping your arse. It ensures all areas are properly engaged and your weak hand doesn't feel excluded. Sit or stand, we all do that, right?

Has he mentioned the club have thanked him for lowering expectations yet? As though Real Sociedad wanted £90m for Isak but took less after reading one of Edwards’ tweets

I may have suggested then loaning him to Stoke 😉

He a class act

@Christmas Tree

Saturday night.

My daughter is having a woman from England in her English class tomorrow. Every kid is allowed to ask 5 questions. One of her questions will be: “Have you ever seen a mackem in Milan?” The woman is obviously from Sunderland.

Think he’s just asking his followers for a stream…

All this chat about having a cup run or finishing fourth, Eddie Howe would simply ask “why not both?”

I sense we'll still be seeing a dressing room victory photo later. We've a score to settle with these bastards after what happened a couple of months back.

Yep, we win on Saturday and we'll be third on Christmas Day with a really good chance we'll still be there by the New Year. Having the transfer window open with us in a CL place will have us attracting far better players than previous windows.

Absolutely this, obviously we are all desperate for cup runs and a cup win but the opportunity we have this season to come top 4 needs to take complete priority. It will be completely fucking transformative to our club and put us years ahead on our timeline, it’s way too good of an opportunity to pass on to prioritize a league cup run.

The only reason I’m glad is that it’ll annoy so many other fan bases when pundits and media outlets praise us. That said all the pundits can suck my left testicle the gaggle of fucking helmets.

Aye, someone got caught with their trotters in the Slimfast biscuits today, didn’t they?

Villa's owners put £40m in to their club today, the fucking paupers.

Never heard of it.

Totally, though it would be horrendous to get rid of Howe for anyone. You can tell how well respected Howe is by other managers, including Pep, through their comments and body language, which is in stark contrast to Bruce before him where their pleasant platitudes were as empty as Steve's crisp packets. I'm looking forward to seeing how Howe reacts to the inevitable challenges we will face as the season progresses; cup team selections, injuries, switch up tactics mid-game and the pressure that will come from being where we are on the table.

I get what you saying but what do you expect? He does what I expect of a manager in such a situation but does it well by listening to the questions and answering them honestly without giving away too many specifics. It's not like he doesn't say anything, he frequently comments on how well he thinks we played in games regardless of the results, and what we need to work on. I believe that his comments about taking it a game at a time, although cliched, are so for the reason that that is absolutely what you have to do. He doesn't get drawn into speculation or mid-long term commentary which again is appropriate. Sure it might mean there are no grand media grabs, nor potential banana peels but that's not exactly a bad problem to have in my book. Of course he will be different behind the scenes, but I wouldn't call it a front, just his media persona. I'm glad we don't have a raving lunatic who pretends to be your best friend until you ask a question they don't like, or someone who blames everyone else, or holds a grudge, or is negative towards the players/ fans/media as all of them would just cause undue distraction. Here's here to manage the team not tickle the whimsy of reporters out to create a sensationalist headline.

Man Utd is still my pick of teams Id like to see us turn over and I said at the beginning of the season that my measure of success would be us finishing above them. The opportunity to do Liverpool over at the same time.....

No way Stevie cites Stewart Lee btw

Arsenal, Spurs & Chelsea all gone out as well.

Still no definitive word but:

It's almost like it's a real trophy that we don't want to win anyway. (just getting our excuses in early)

Especially when they essentially amount to

If it's available as a stream, the IPTV lads would have it. I'll be reporting PaddockLad's lack of faith to the rest of the flock.

I guess he’s just going to keep saying this every window hoping it’ll be the case one day? Note that he’s even tried to cover his bases for when they go and sign Maddison and Diaby.

@wykikitoon spotted on a day trip to York today

Again it’s credit to Howe keeping the likes of Wood and Lascelles happy. Trippier helps as well, putting the armband on Lascelles when he comes on the pitch

I'd only watch if someone tampered with the parachute.

They don't actually, they're called Honey Monster Puffs now, but I haven't seen them in a supermarket for years. The effect of the mackem boycott. Apparently they're being foced to sell their star striker in January, Ross Stewart. He's previously played for the eponymous Ross county (is this really a place? I'm not actually convinced it exists), Sunderland in League one wheere they came 6th, and has about half a dozen games in the Championship before getting crocked. Six months on his contract. So of course he's worth £50 million according to them. Anyway, the funny thing is they refer to him as LND. I was a bit scoobied and sufficiently curious to find out why. It stands for Loch Ness Drogba.

I knew very little of Howe before, just that he had progressed Bournemouth steadily up the leagues over a lengthy management tenure there. Having heard and witnessed plenty of him and watching a lot of his press conferences you can see that he would have interviewed extremely well, and of course with his massive bollocks he was not phased by the relegation that we were staring down the barrel of. He could see beyond it, to the progression that we could make with the financial backing and intent to achieve that the new owners were bringing. It's been a match made in fucking heaven and you're right that he could well become a Newcastle legend in what will be an unprecedentedly short period of time.

HasTINHATTL, amirite

Helmethüttl

Listening to the Athletic podcast about Hassenhutl. Apparently he doesn't like working with an assistant, and he prefers to work with younger players mainly because they'll just do what he says and be less inclined to offer a view. And they've spoken to some of the more experienced Southampton players who did try to offer a view and he reacted badly to it. He sounds like a complete fucking helmet.