The Fish

Unbelievable, and on the 21 year 1 month anniversary of the attack as well. You people make me vomit.

Fuck did I do? Multiversal shenanigans are not my wheelhouse, that was Hugh Everett or Dr Strange. I'm more your street level hero. Think Daredevil, The Punisher, or the man who puts your bins back on your drive out of the way of other pedestrians.

Arteta. I find it useful to read the whole post before replying, why not give it a go. It's a skill, but a learnable skill.

Aye, what ewerk says. We've no financial need to sell him, he's playing brilliantly but he's not yet at the level their fans would get excited about (because of their childishness, not his ability), they're not as flush with cash as they once were and we'd ask for the kind of sums that would make Mansa Musa blush.

Honestly can't predict this one. We're becoming a team who play on the ball more, who press high and don't just hoof it Bruceball style. Man Utd are morphing into a team who're happy enough without the ball and will look to hit opposition on the break. They've some excellent players, Antony and Martial are quick and dangerous on the break and Casemiro is, for all his faults, improving their defending. I'd usually expect a loss to Man Utd, nowadays at St James' I'd fancy a win against anyone, so I'll split the difference and go 1-1.

I'd not pay too much attention to Everton's Goals Against column. They've been quite fortunate to have a shot-stopper as good as Pickford between the sticks. Everton's Post Shot xG +/- is 4.3. Putting it simply, given the shots they've faced, you'd have expected them to have conceded 4 more goals than they have. Given they've not won by more than a goal, that would have turned some wins into draws, and/or some draws into losses. I maintain, Old T-Rex gets injured or loses form and they're bang in trouble again.

So does Xhaka's, but it's a very different story. His face is telling more of Red Shoe Diaries-type story.

Aye, we've said it before that had Shearer not got crocked in the preseason game against Everton (another reason to hate them), him and Tomasson might well have built some kind of partnership. Mind, if Howe had been in charge, he would have dropped Tomasson into centre mid and the lad would have morphed into a midfield destroyer, the likes of which the league has never seen.

The thing with Bruce is that, even a casual look at his performance metrics over the past 3 jobs would show someone whose teams don't win, use or shoot the ball well. But if you don't go off stats and you're more likely just to go off vibes, a brief glance through articles from his time at clubs would reveal a man who blames players, fans, and lack of transfers. Someone who takes a LOT of time off. How any owner could look at either of those stacks of evidence and not immediately bin his application, is a mystery.

Speak for yourself. I recycle and indicate before changing lanes, so I'm not saying I should get a statue, but a little blue plaque maybe? Mind, if people were to go through my early stuff on here, some crusty fucking hippies would soon pull any statue down anyway.

If it's too expensive for them to run a house for profit, sell the house.

make that a neck beard stroke and we're onto something.

Could we play Joelinton in that role?

We've probably deserved more points than we have got, thanks to poor officiating. We've not yet had our full first team available either; ASM, Bruno, Callum, Isak, Joe etcetera. Plus we'll strengthen in January. WUHGONNAWINTHALEEEEG

@Dr Gloom

Had a glance at their Steve Bruce thread. First 5 pages are largely, 'He's here, I'll back him', some repeating the talkSport horseshit "He's a good bloke, he'll get us playing better football at least", and some predicting it'll go badly. Then this page, where Albion 79 pens a tome about how Bruce is a breath of fresh air, how he'll get the confidence back in the team and it's all everybody else's fault anyway. Then about 15 posts later on the same page "What a truly poor appointment", "He's made us worse. At least we were decent defensively under Val (who I agree had to go). We look just as clueless at creating chances and whilst we're the perfect example of how not to build a squad, we shouldnt be as bad as this.". This was 15 days after his appointment Page 30 "He is starting to make Alan Pardew half decent. Bruce has proved to be tactically useless. Another game tonight in which we have created nothing and been defensively vulnerable. The decision to sack Val mid-season has proved to a disaster." Page 50 "Even worse than Ismael. 6 defeats in 12. Yes we've beaten both Fulham and Bournemouth and he deserves some credit for that but the defeats have been shocking. We were 6th when he came in and we'll be lucky to hold on to 12th." Pg 75 "I will happily eat humble pie if I am wrong, but I cannot for the life of me see why we appointed Bruce. Hasn't really had a good season as a manager for what 10 years that I can think of. Back in the days with Hull?? His times at Villa, Wednesday and Newcastle were all average or worse. I doubt very much he has what it takes to get us promoted, but will be interesting to see. I do know he failed to implement any sort of quality in our play when he came in this season" Pg 130 "He's had his chance. Just a potato sack of money now." We did try to warn you lads.

Quick scatter plots for attack/defence in the Premier League so far. Thicker blue lines are averages. Bottom right is best. Shows we're creating a good number of good chances per game, while allowing a below average number chances against us. Again, bottom right is best as it shows we're scoring a good number of goals per game while not conceding a lot. This last one shows that we're conceding roughly what you'd expect given the quality of chances surrendered. Leicester and Nottingham are conceding way more than you'd expect, so that's either bad keeping, or getting undone by wondergoals. Everton are the other stand out, they're conceding half a goal less than you'd expect given the chances they give up per game. In other words, their defence isn't as good as their GA numbers would suggest and they're heavily relying on their 'keeper to save their bacon.

Absolutely, only need to look across the water to see which Spanish clubs are a) most in favour of a Superleague to protect the status quo and b) been found guilty of receiving illegal state aid.

I've no evidence for this, but I'd say it's a safe bet that in the last two years, Steve Bruce has been paid more than Eddie Howe.

Try this

Fucking hell that is an unsatisfying Gif

This is disquieting, my Dad knows naff all about football too. Are... are you me from the future?

Hey! My lad saw Stockport batter Walsall for 75 minutes! My lad'll grow up in Bramhall, where I've counted at least 3 Dads wearing Newcastle shirts with their lads now. So hopefully, there'll be 3 or 4 Newcastle fans round here he can have a kick about with, without being accused of being a glory supporter.

For you Isegrim? Nothing.