The Fish

It's the stagnation of commercial revenue that I keep coming back to. Ashley's owned a Premier League club that's bobbled around the Deloitte top 20 richest clubs, yet we've been overtaken by Brighton and Leicester, both teams who were in the third tier of English football in 08/09. I mean, Jesus Christ, Brighton and Leicester have spent 4 and 8 years in the top flight respectively during Ashley's 14yrs, where we've spent 12. It should be mortifying to a businessman of his success to have failed so spectacularly, especially when the Premier League has been so successful a product worldwide.

Wherever he chose would be semi-retirement.

He's got a chance of winning a few more domestic trophies and potentially the Champions League, all the time living in Paris and playing with Mbappe and Neymar etc. Not sure he'd fancy the Premier League, living in rainy Cheshire and playing with Fred and Matic.

Seemed to very highly rated, I would have expected bigger clubs than those two going in for him?

What'll happen to Eduoard?

Space samurais? Should be way cooler than it is.

That's Star Wars, you fool. Marvel is WAY cooler

You seem to know a lot about it Scotty boy. Did the pacemaker put paid to your Power Mincing™ days?

Yeah, but do you reckon those clubs were paying all of their wages?

I dunno, Lejeune, Muto, Saivet will have been on decent wages.

LGF

Yet the Chronicle still run stories about players 'we've been linked to' applying zero thought to the story. e.g. there's a £50m defender who Man City, among others, are after and a 28yr old. Ashley's Newcastle are not spending £50m on a player and they're not buying a 28yr old.

Maybe, I dunno though. I don't think ASM is Benitez' kind of player, I don't think they'd spend £50m on ASM, and I don't think we'd sell him unless the bid is ridiculous.

Recent 6yr deal, would take north of £50m to get him, surely.

Could be worse. Ashley could have thrown a Pardew contract at him. This, for me, is another example of the powers that be showing themselves to be perfectly happy to tread water until the sale to the Saudis is resolved one way or the other. See also loan deals and contract extensions for existing players.

I think the suggestion is that he's always been on a rolling contract and the club have exercised the extension instead of fixing it. So he had 3 years, he's still got 3 years.

Edwards (I know, I know) says he has a 3yr rolling contract.

That ruse didn't even get me the job.

Took a bit longer than that.

Off to the Cotswolds in September, staying near Cirencester. Thankfully all the planning has been done by Mrs Fish, because I know fuck all about the Cotswolds. Edit: Reading that sentence back reminds me that I'm regularly shocked by the ways my life has changed in the past 4 years.

Headrow House is good. Tapped and Brewery Tap are all right. Whitelock off the main street is a real old pub. What Newcastle equivalent are you after?

So, 越变越一样 then?

The fuck are you on about?

Edwards, and his ilk, pin their entire argument on Bruce achieving a similar points total to Benitez, but disregard the context. As if the fans should shut up and be happy that we're not relegated. With the amount that's been spent, and more importantly the caliber of players available to us, we should be able to do better than we did shortly after promotion. We're all idiots, and yet we could all see that the best way to get points with this team was to play a pressing, counter attack style. To use the movement of the attacking players (Wilson/Almiron/ASM) and the solid defence left by RB to ensure we're hard to beat, at the very least. The football under Bruce has, on the whole, been bad. Even with the additions of quality players like Wilson, Saint Maximin, etc. We've been told he's a great fan of running stats, but we don't press. We were told he'd make us play more attractive football, but by and large, we're more passive and defensive than we were under famously pragmatic Benitez, let alone McClaren, Pardew, et al. He's a great motivator, right? Yet we've had numerous stories of discord on the training ground, listless performances and so on.

Last few years they've been offered to everyone by work and, because I've had full on flu before and didn't enjoy it, I prefer to get a little prick, than be a total prick. Proper flu is fucking awful, had me laid out for a week surviving on soup, self-pity and seasons of the West Wing. An unexpected bonus of COVID is that the NHS have me confused for a feeb and I was head of the queue for COVID and Flu jabs. Hope there are more benefits to come. Free cybernetics and shit.