Polarboy

I'd still be there an hour later trying to balance the balls on top of one another.

Yes I'm sure the UN are going to be too busy being dazzled by Jono from Fenham espousing the virtues of Saudi on twitter to be bothered about pulling them up for their next war crime 😉

The people you are talking about were already ignorant of what happens in the middle east, and even they they will now hear about human rights abuses when they wouldn't have normally. Anyone with even the slightest idea about what happens in the UAE, Qatar, Saudi etc. aren't going to forget or become permissive of human rights abuses because a country is pouring money into a football team. This idea that middle eastern countries think they can reform their images through sport is overplayed in my opinion. The main reasons for investing are they need to diversify away from oil, it's an investment, it's a toy for them, and they need to spend their ridiculous amounts of money on something. No amount of sporting glory is going to deflect the images people have in their heads of beheading, crucifixion's, gay people being killed, women being second class citizens etc.

I'm so sick of seeing these stories about sportswashing. The term is fucking ludicrous on the face of it. It like, yeah Newcastle are going to win the league and then people are going to be like, hey don't Saudi Arabia behead people in public?, Nah must be my imagination.

Yeah of course, and obviously Ritchie probably still doesn't think much of him, but it would seem there's been a ceasefire at least given he's in the team. But whatever we think of him he's supposedly very popular in his circle of friends for whatever mysterious reason, so it would appear he can get people on his side when he needs to. He's just missing all that other stuff you need in football, like any notion at all of how to get a team playing in a structured way, or the ability to take any criticism with grace in the media and not act like a child who's been caught playing with themselves at mass.

Wilson has a chance doesn't he? As for Bruce and the game the fact is that, again, most of the players don't seem to mind him, so perhaps Staveley and Co. don't see the value in giving Bruce the heave-ho as soon as. Are the chances of us winning suddenly going to go up if we boot out Bruce beforehand? The only advantage really is short term optics with the fans, as in pretty much everyone, who hate him.

Chris Waugh just confirmed that Bruce will face the media at 1:30 tomorrow. So the most plausible outcome is that he'll be in charge for at least one more game. I think they've likely gone in there and realised that Bruce isn't that unpopular with the players, Jones isn't manager material after his Luton stint, and have decided to hold fire until they get a director in place to pick a new coach.

Insidefootball are saying that Bruce is going to be facing the media on Friday. Fuck knows how true that is given it's Insidefootball, but if it is it would suggest that Bruce will be in the dugout on Sunday.

As people have been saying, Simon Jordan for example who can say the odd sensible thing when he's not licking his own arse, it could be the case that Staveley,, the Reubens, even Yasir Al-Rumayyan the new chairman, were surprised by the speed at which the climb down and resolution over piracy occurred. That really seems to be the only reason the deal wasn't going through. So you can know what the club doesn't have in detail all you want, but if you have no definite date of takeover you can't plan anything or line anybody up.

As people have been saying at decent well run clubs there's usually an infrastructure, a brain trust of executives and managerial staff who have extensive knowledge of football and the football world, and the skills and contacts that enable them to navigate said world. These people, CEO.s, managing directors, directors of football, etc. would engage in detailed meetings in order to decide upon the best course of action in order to move in the direction of a pre-agreed vision for how they want the club to be. Currently at Newcastle we have Penfold and the tea lady.

To be clear, but maybe that's not what you meant, nobody called Rangnick a white supermacist. I was speaking in a general sense. Edit. Oh and those are just the comments I've read. Again perhaps he said or done other things worthy of criticism.

I've read his comments, at least the ones I could find, and if you were to take the worst possible reading of them you could maybe assume he was racist. He was talking about Naby Keita when he was at Leipzig and said that he came from a small village, even though where he's from in Guinea is three times the size of Leipzig, and was being manipulated by his family and extended family. He then went on to say that African players often have a financial responsibility to a lot of people who they send money home to, which again can affect their decision making. Arrogant and perhaps ignorant in some respects, but racist is a word that's thrown around very easily. In fact some people seem to have moved straight onto white supremacist given racist doesn't quite hold the same sting anymore. In any case it seems we're literally looking at the best in class as Gary Neville would say. Campos, Henrique, McPartland and Rangnick seem to be the names being circulated. Campos formerly of Lille, Monaco and Real Madrid sounds very exciting. He's literally the guy who discovered Mbappe among many other massive players, and was the hand behind Lille and Monaco's title wins and great runs in the recent past.

Sky Sports Italy are saying we've gone for Rogers, and it will cost around 16m to release him from his contract. Rogers of course is top of the betting, so maybe this is just them trying to add what they think is two and two together. Personally I'd definitely take Rogers given he knows the league top to bottom and has extensive knowledge in most areas in a club, youth training etc. In terms of a stepping stone manager I don't think we could do any better. Rogers, under the guiding hand of whoever we're going to get as sporting director, could get us into the shape whereby we can go for a top tier manager. I refer to the sporting director because you of course don't want a situation where Rogers buys a load of expensive players, and then when and if we brought a new manager in he'd want rid of half them. This of course is part of the reason why sporting directors who have a fair bit of control over recruitment have become popular. Rogers of course would likely back himself as more than a stepping stone should these rumours hold any weight.

They spread them out over Thursday and Friday usually? And if there's a Friday game obviously they always interview those managers on the Thursday. But I don't recall seeing managers who were playing on the Sunday or Monday take their press conference on a Thursday. In any case, as I said I think this is just further indication that Bruce will be gone very shortly, surely, hopefully, really fucking hopefully, gone, finito, done 😐

Postponed? Granted I haven't seen the Downie update, only read it second hand on the chronicle. So maybe the chronicle got their wires crossed. Wouldn't be surprising of course. How is Friday postponed in any case, when it's a Sunday match to begin with. Friday would have been the normal day for pre-match interviews anyway wouldn't it? Edit. Probably should have just clicked on the tweet to being with. Apparently the interviews they are referring to are most likely the ones that Sky do for the build to the game on Sunday, as opposed to the pre-match press conferences. From my perspective this is actually another indication he won't be at the club. Why would you do pre-match interviews during the week with someone who won't be there for the game. Most likely they'll do something quick with Jones on Friday, or we'll actually have a manager in place, but most likely not on the bench who will field a few questions.

Chronicle and Downie reporting that pre-match interviews with Bruce for the weekend game have been cancelled, so surely a pretty big clue that he'll definitely be gone, probably by tomorrow. Can't see them have him take training all week and sack him on the Saturday before the game.

Outrage has also become a commodified parody.

A bit on the nose, which is still thankfully in the same place as before. But I appreciate the spirit in which it was most likely intended. But aye mercifully it seems like a relatively mild case when compared to some of the horrors on google images. Just don't ask me to whistle local hero for a few weeks 😉

He's definitely gone stale at Arsenal, but there's no doubting his skill as a footballer. His finishing inside the box is ridiculous. In terms of getting players in that will do a job for us for a few seasons I think he could be ideal. There's plenty of time for building a squad for the future, but we really need a short, sharp hit of quality, which is what you can get from players around the 30 mark who have premier league experience.

Tarkowski, Wijnaldum, Lingard and Lacazette is who I'd be going after in January. Burnley seem to want to cash in on Tarkowski with his contact running out, same for Lingard who could apparently go for 15m in January if he doesn't sign a contract, Wijnaldum isn't happy sitting on the bench at PSG and would instantly upgrade the quality of our midfield, and Lacazette could apparently leave in January with Inter the current favourites. All very decent players who are maybe just about gettable for us, given the current state of the club, if we throw enough money at it and have a decent manager in charge to convince them to come. Obviously Wijnaldum likely won't like the idea of the step back at this point in his career, but somebody like Lacazette seems just about mercenary enough.

Thanks 👍 I'm sure I'll be fine, it's just a bit of momentary discomfort that needs to be kept in perspective.

Just reading about Staveley there. Is everybody aware that she's had Huntington's for the last eight years, or there abouts. It takes someone of special character to keep going in the high pressure finance world she's in, and then to even pull off buying the club, especially given how difficult it's been. Hats off to her in any case. Here's me feeling sorry for myself because I have bells palsy, which will likely clear up in matter of weeks.

When someone who was at the top level of the game, albeit when players were still allowed to get pissed after training and eat chips, just lets themselves go like this and gives up, you have to question their general mentality. And I'm not even joking. Rafa seems to be the only anomaly I can think of, but maybe it's glandular 😉

Are there photos of him in existence where he doesn't look that way?

But doesn't keeping a dead man walking around stink up the place, more so than Cabbage already did. Surely getting rid soon as and putting Jones interim would have been the thing to do. I mean I think it's clear that Staveley is trying to be very respectful, but in trying to appear different to Ashley, she may limit her initial effectiveness, but hopefully not.