The Fish

I will not.

Oh, Toonpack, you do make me laugh at you.

This is the GEET BIG AS OWT 7 before last nights game

I dunno, 'Alex' is pretty spot on.

Have a look through that thread on twitter, it's filled with luddites "why call it a half space? Isn't that just a smaller space?" No, you wilfully ignorant fuck, it's not. Fuck 'em.

Compare and contrast

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity

Bruce made a mistake and put it upside down.

How about "New-fangled", "Just call it tackling man", "Not like that in my day", "it's just change for changes sake!"?

There's a thread on there about where they'll finish in the Premier League next year, most are predicting comfortable safety. Why do they do this to themselves every season?

You're shit.

Tried to shoehorn in a premature ejaculation joke, but no luck.

I like bad losers, shows they care. Much better than avuncular, "well y'know", praising the winners, roll up wuh sleeves horseshit.

Away from reliable data and using the eye test, I'd say we struggle to break through a low block deep line with and without Bruno, but the problem is exacerbated in his absence. It's tricky because while there are certain teams who play a specific style regardless of opposition there are plenty who'd change their style depending on their opponents. And when it's pretty obvious that we struggle to breakdown an entrenched defence, that's true of every team, really. Even Arsenal and Man City have found it difficult to unpick a stubborn defence, and they have an array of world class talents, where we do not. It's not as easy as pulling the press back a bit, teams wouldn't necessarily venture out and the efficacy of our press would be lessened as the opponents would have more space to play around the press with balls across their back line. When we press high we're trying to force them into trying long balls or passing/dribbling through the press. Personally I think we need to be quicker on the ball when we win it back. Get the ball to Isak or ASM while they're still resetting into their defensive position. For that you need a technician, someone with vision and alacrity of thought. Bruno, Shelvey, Maddison have those attributes. Longstaff, Joelinton and WIllock do not.

Settle something for me; Wife works in HR, shes just been asked if it's ok for the CEO to say in his speech to a senior director who's leaving the following "XXX often says that she likes her coffee like she likes her men; hot, black and throbbing" Now, bad writing aside, Mrs Fish thinks it should be ok if you change 'black' to 'dark'. My contention is 'black' isn't the problem, it's the "Throbbing". 'Hot, black and strong' is a fairly commonplace innuendo. 'Hot black and throbbing' is not innuendo, it's very clearly about a penis. Because penises can throb, coffee doesn't throb. Ever.

I don't shut up, ever. I never stop talking and I'm usually talking about football. In all my days talking about football with fans of other clubs, not once have those oddities ever come up in conversation. There've been fans of clubs who hate Newcastle, those that don't care and those that have a soft spot for us. They've never pivoted the conversation to talk about Sunderland, unless it's to say how funny that Netflix show was. If real life were anything like the fantasy that these fuckers create, I'd be having my eared chewed off by a Barcelona fan saying how much he respects the job Tony Mowbray is doing, or a Wimbledon fan saying how much he prefers Sunderland fans to us, or a Man Utd fan saying that the Poznan was just a lovely bit of banter from a classy bunch of lads. It doesn't happen though, because nobody else cares about them. To the wider football world, they're just another football club. Like Coventry, or Reading. They exist, and they get bums on seats for 70 minutes or so. When away fans have to follow their team into Mordor, they either stay 15 miles away in Newcastle or get the fuck out ASAP. When they get them in the cup it'll be shrugged off as another unglamorous tie. Their football is mediocre, their managers are uninspiring, their stadium is generic, their atmosphere is flat, their city is a shithole, their people are at best insular at worst bigoted. The only thing that raises any eyebrow of recognition is because of their link to us. The only light that reaches Sunderland is what's left over from the massive spotlight that's on Newcastle, like that faint corona that remains as the sun is obscured by the moon.

Telling that even in Renton's wildest imaginings, we barely scrape by Man Utd.

Mrs Wykiki booted him out after she caught him hate-wanking to that lass off the podcast.

Another draw, I think. We don't lose at home, the fans will be up for it because of the opposition, Liverpool will have one eye on Real Madrid 3 days later. 1-1

I'm not a Doctor, but I'm not sure that's the panacea you're after.

Especially this season where the quality of player we need is either at an underperforming side (Chelsea/Liverpool/Leicester) or for our contemporary rivals.

You can find the first five minutes of Up online as well, if you're really leaning into the Blue Monday thing.

Yeah, I'll be grand. Doing the right things, dropping the wrong things, talking to the right people, ignoring the wrong'uns.