Happy Face

There's a suprise... http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/avprequiem

Dragnet £2 from Asda. You can't go wrong. "Not that it's any of your business, but I spend the evening in the company of Connie Swail." "Don't you mean "the Virgin Connie Swail"?" Dur du dum dum!

I swore off new year after the millenium. Might go round a house or two. But tending towards the idea of staying in with a Horlicks and watching the midnight Radiohead gig.

@ Ronaldo's penalty.

Just watching MOTD. Nobby Solano turns me a bit Meenzer. I just went all gooey after he forced a save with a gorgeous dink.

Spot on, Mr. Face. Is that your bro posting on NO btw (lbw or something)? Seems a canny blerk. Apologies if he obviously is/isn't btw, I don't get on there that much and am confused. It is, aye. Was Lankybellwipe. Nonsensical half the time, but a legend afaic.

Minute's applause on Wednesday night?

Another 3 changes, another new formation to try, another defeat. At least it was a better performance. The arrogant, stubborn label being hurled at Allardyce was somewhat dispelled with Milner being played on the right where he belongs, where he did better than anyone else has this season and where he'll hopefully stay on Wednesday. The team looked a lot more balanced. Just Smith and Nzogbia's misuse to sort and we'll be getting somewhere. And it was nice to see the opposition manager getting booed. Of course there'll be no headlines in the papers about Grant losing the condfidence of the fans or the chants of "you don't know what you're doing" directed at his changes, because there's not a chance of him being sacked. The press know that things are different up North where 12 games are all a man gets before they're on his back and managers come and go at the whim of fans. Hopefully that's how things WERE and the current owner will judge things with his own head, rather than the passionate hearts of the fans.

Who wrote it like?

A jounalist wrote that and an editor let it be printed? Am I mis-reading it?

I don't think it's a mystery. What caught the eye with Bolton was how they'd be up for playing the top four. They consistently got freak results against them under Allardyce, but otherwise they played the same brand of uninspired football that grinds out a lower top half finish that he's brought to Newcastle. It fits with Allardyce's ethos. That is, that you make sure you don't concede against the lower teams you fancy yourself against, on the assumption you'll score from a set piece at some point, but that you know you'll concede against better teams and "expect nothing" from them so you play like you have nothing to lose.

Horribly sad. RIP.

Aye, the fans that pay to watch Blackburn don't bleed their clubs colours like the Toon Army. They just go because they can't get rugby tickets.

I'm also expecting him to settle on a team. We've only named one unchanged side since Boro...when we beat Birmingham. Over the 7 games we've lost we've made 24 changes. Over the 7 games that we've won we've only made 10. Very little of this is down to injuries. I don't care where he decides to play who...as long as he does it regularly.

I reckon we'll get something out of it.

1, 2, 3, 4 & 5 are the same point rehashed, that he's tactically inept, but then, even King Keegan was often found out tactically when attack, attack, attack didn't pay off. Point 6 is just results. Why haven't you included the results against Arsenal, Villa, Everton, and West Ham (who're all above us) in the reasons to keep him? Dour 0-0 with Villa at Home, I would expect to beat both West Ham and Everton at home. The Arse game was a decent battling performance after we gave them a 1 goal start due to more comical defending. As for your comment about JUST RESULTS, isnt this a results business? Are you happy with our performances against Derby,Wigan, Sunderland,Boro plus being arse raped at home by Pompey and Liverpool? Can you see the green shoots of recovery under Sam? Are we playing well? It's a results business and the results have us higher than last year at the moment so Sam will be comfortable that he shouldn't be sacked. Playing well? No, but imagine how much higher we'll go when we hit our form, considering where we are at our worst. Are you expecting us to get better and start playing free flowing, attacking football while keeping things tight at the back or are you hoping the hump it long and get stuck in will work when we sign some cloggers and get shot of our limited amount of creative players who dont fit into fattys vision of how to play football. It may become clearer by his signings , if any, come the window. If we are linked with Kevin Davies and big,tall africans then we know what to expect I'm expecting Allardyce to keep playing the way he's always played. The way we knew he'd play when we took him on and the way everyone accepted at the time as a dirty solution to get us back into the top half and chasing European places. The way I said would have him sacked by christmas when he first came here (he's performed ABOVE my expectation ) I thought the people that wanted him here wanted us to be as intermittently effective as Bolton were under him, over the space of a good few years to make us a more attractive, stable option for a better class of manager. If anything the position is even more poisoned than after Robson, Souness or Roeder and people want us to repeat the same mistake.

Football 365: Seems a bit on the wrong side of impartial. Sums up the meeja's view of Newcastle as a source of hilarity though.

1, 2, 3, 4 & 5 are the same point rehashed, that he's tactically inept, but then, even King Keegan was often found out tactically when attack, attack, attack didn't pay off. Point 6 is just results. Why haven't you included the results against Arsenal, Villa, Everton, and West Ham (who're all above us) in the reasons to keep him? Dour 0-0 with Villa at Home, I would expect to beat both West Ham and Everton at home. The Arse game was a decent battling performance after we gave them a 1 goal start due to more comical defending. As for your comment about JUST RESULTS, isnt this a results business? Are you happy with our performances against Derby,Wigan, Sunderland,Boro plus being arse raped at home by Pompey and Liverpool? Can you see the green shoots of recovery under Sam? Are we playing well? It's a results business and the results have us higher than last year at the moment so Sam will be comfortable that he shouldn't be sacked. Playing well? No, but imagine how much higher we'll go when we hit our form, considering where we are at our worst.

Despite the fact it's a bullshit nothing story I find the response of people fascinating. Martin Jol took Spurs to their highest position in their Premier League, twice in a row. This is a club with a fine history, a big club often compared to Newcastle that had sank into mid table obscurity and were going nowhere fast. They also changed manager frequently and saw little long term benefit from the short term fix. As soon as they had a bad run of results this season the board got rid. The fans were sensible enough to see when they were losing a good thing and sang the blokes name throughout the rest of the game when the news came out. Since the first season of the Premier league, Blackburn Rovers came 4th, 2nd, 1st, 7th, 13th, 6th, 10th, 6th, 15th, 15th, 6th and 10th. It's a record very similar to Newcastle's. But they went one better and actually won the thing when they were flying high. You'd expect their fans to be even more expectant, but the pressure isn't on Hughes, even though his team conceded five times as many as us against lowly Wigan, even though he's only got them 1 more point than we have. Perhaps we need to get relegated and come back up to show people we aren't a "Top side" any more and to cull the instant quick fans who I have no doubt would stop going. I've no doubt that Hughes is playing particularly attractive passing football that leaves the opposition dazzled and is what we want, but didn't we match them all over the park a few weeks ago? The grass is always greener. IF we were to get rid of Allardyce I reckon Jol would be one of the better managers we could attract.

1, 2, 3, 4 & 5 are the same point rehashed, that he's tactically inept, but then, even King Keegan was often found out tactically when attack, attack, attack didn't pay off. Point 6 is just results. Why haven't you included the results against Arsenal, Villa, Everton, and West Ham (who're all above us) in the reasons to keep him?

They don't have to watch it every week.

Didn't Carter get bumped off in the end? might just happen to Sam. "you're a big man, but you're out of shape" Was going to say...more like Alf Roberts.

Knows we'll be a push over for 6 points in the next couple of months if we do.

"Can I just shock you? I like wine. Despite what I just said earlier."

Still has a small club menatlity.