The Fish

Was down in London Wednesday night and yesterday. Finish a meeting and dart from Paddington to Euston just in time to get in my seat for the 18:20 back up North. I've got settled, plugged in my phone etc when there's an announcement that there's a delay due to an incident on the line. 5 minutes later all trains to Manchester are cancelled for the foreseeable. I go to Kings Cross jump on a PACKED Sheffield bound train, manage to get a seat but have to endure a couple of pissed up FreeMasons on one table and a very chatty Yorkshireman on another. Both tables within earshot, neither pause for fucking breath for two fucking hours. Then, just as we're pulling into Sheffield at 22:00, all Manchester bound trains are cancelled. Fuck this, says I, and get an Uber home. Finally get into bed at midnight, at which point the wife asks if I could get her some water. 4 and a half hours after getting to sleep I'm woken up by my little lad, who gives absolutely zero fucks about how tired his dad is. I've logged in for hero points, but am I fuck doing any fucking work today.

Cool kids want to be outlaws, not Sheriffs.

3 minutes in and he hasn't mentioned PpDA, trequartista, mezzala, segundo volante, so I'm out.

Stick it on in black and white, I don't fucking know I'm not the fucking FA. Jesus Christ!

No, they don't have the scores or teams on the screen you gobshite.

The who?

Take it back! You fucking take that back. He's not a well boy!

£35-50m on a striker in the same standing as Nunez, plus a right winger who can contribute goals and assists for c£30m. Sell the likes of Ritchie, Gayle, Clark, Lewis et al for a combined total of about £20m. Boubacar Kamara, Nketiah are both out of contract in the summer.

He's also one of those players (like Gayle and Shelvey) who look miserable whether he's on a hattrick or subbed at half time.

Honestly, if Saint Maximin carried on like that, I'd be pissed off with him myself. I'm understanding of players going down easy under a challenge, or killing time. But he rolled around like he was shot after he headed the fucking ball.

Listened to a podcast by the bloke who wrote Blindside, Moneyball etc. He was talking about the NBA version of VAR, apparently they sit in a room watching live feeds of the games with no team names, or scores or anything on the screens and found that since it's inception home advantage diminished dramatically. Made me wonder if Stockley Park has all the potentially influential information (score, team, stadium, etc.) scraped out. Or, are they still watching an incident obviously involving Liverpool at Anfield at 0-0?

I love it when a pundit gets too excited. Even if it's cringey as fuck it's immeasurably better than the commentators for whom commentating on a game seems to ruin their whole day. The "Aguerooooooo", "SheaRAR", "Ohhhhh glorious, if the rest was cake, there's the icing." All of that stuff makes a moment more momentous, for me. I like bias too, Carragher telling Richarlison to "Get Up" made it better. I've never liked Lampard. As a kid, as a player or now as a coach. Entitled Tory Cunt.

Didn't they have similar but against Coventry on the final day of 97/98? Same season, I think, Bolton had a perfectly good goal ruled out.

Someone give Scholes a job, as a left field appointment.

In the past 29 seasons of the Premier League, 64pts is sufficient to get 6th on average and 5th 13/29. However, since the window closed (1 Feb) his PpG is 2.15, projecting 81.85pts across a 38 game season. Now, obviously I'd not expect that kind of form to continue, but it shows the upper limit for this group of players. And he's managed that without a reliable goal scoring forward that benefits most from this style of play. If Newcastle can sign a reliable goal scorer and add some quality to right wing and centre midfield, I don't think targeting top 8 is an unrealistic aim. However, given the nature of the task ahead, I wouldn't be disappointed with midtable and better football. By that I mean more possession, more fluidity, closer to the game against Norwich and further from the games against Crystal Palace or Leicester.

I hate the way you think.

They have silenced him.

Longest of longshots, but if anyone knows of anybody with a spare for Liverpool, holler at your boy. Cheers thanks ta

No, because we're not entitled cryarses.

Well, technically straight after kick off we level in our 14th game meaning a 'live table' would account for that point.

That would be the only time I think I would join in with the Celebration Police.

after 14 games

Hold on there ya chode, you've screen grabbed (I presume because either the context makes you look stupid, or you're too stupid to work out how to link to the page) me obviously joking about being mathematically safe in February?! fwiw the table at that time looked like this; and ended up So we were mathematically safe.