The Fish

Harder this time around. Don't think we'll get megabucks for many of our players in this market.

Weren't they all on hold until the club's case against the PL was resolved anyway? Plus KSA vs QATAR, plus, plus plus.

I honestly think it's because Ashley thinks of himself as a fan of football because he's been to a few England games. He hasn't a clue about league football, and too much arrogance to employ people who do. Any decent DoF could have delivered what he's after on the budget he's happy with and saved him 2 (maybe 3) relegations. But Fanks Mike wouldn't give up control.

So, best owned by someone competent at cutting hair then? Cockapoo, Aussiedoodle, Poogle. Stupid names, great dogs.

Ian St Gone

The amount of miserable, beaten-down blokes I see walking one of those little fuckers is ridiculous. Those 'dogs' should only ever be walked by a hairdresser, or a trophy wife.

#FishEnergy #69pACrate #busybusiness

He's got form for this, What was the game where the players were literally shouting at Bruce for instructions? Was it Willems debut?

Surely they'll go back down because the demand will plummet, and people will turn to less fashionable breeds as well. We were looking to get a puppy in the summer, but we've both started new jobs recently so we'll park it until the end of the year. Hoping the prices do come down, but using friends with dogs to get us in touch with reputable breeders in the hope that if we do end up forking out a lot of money at least we're not getting one stolen from the park.

I have. The benefits you miss out on in the private is covered by the extra ££, imo. More likely to be a more progressive outfit as well. My experience of Public sector is it's a bit of a leviathan, but even huge private companies are a bit more agile. Tend to attract better HR as well.

Dunno what to say Scott... Be better?

Got a new job, so I'm on gardening leave until early April. I had hoped Boris would announce the country was opened up for me and me alone, but apparently not. Sounds like I'll be able to meet actual friends just in time for me to start working again instead of dossing about the house.

I think that's something that bothers me way more than it should. These people are paid good money to have an expert opinion on football matters. It's so, so easy to look at a club's form, their injuries and given we're 25 games into the season it's really not a stretch that you will, in your role, have watched Newcastle United a few times. Be objective, if the fans are up in arms about the manager don't dart to the stereotypes, see why. There's a bizarre disconnect between the football we've played and the manager. They've blamed the players; their effort, their confidence, their quality, etc. They've also criticised the pressing, the movement, the position of the players on the pitch. Surely it's the manager's job to motivate the players. Those players aren't world beaters, but they're better than the football we've been playing. And there's obvious evidence to that. The pressing, movement and position are entirely the job of the manager to implement. All this is compounded by Bruce's managerial record. His teams never have a definite identity, they are busy but lack cohesion. The only reason Bruce isn't being criticised explicitly is because he's liked by the pundits and because the pundits aren't very good at their jobs.

Course it will, but there's a thing that we, as a fanbase, do. We overestimate the quality of our rivals, and underestimate the quality of their opponents. At the same time as underestimating our quality and overestimating the quality of our opponents. As shit as we've been we have a 3pt gap on a team that's receiving plaudits for the way they play, and we're 1pt behind another. If we're in the relgation conversation, so are Brighton, Burnley and maybe even Southampton. We're 7pts off Leeds in 12th, and we were told that a 7pt gap was nothing.

We can beat West Brom even without Wilson, I'd fancy us to pick up at least a point against Brighton. Fancy us to grab a point against Wolves, Villa or Spurs.

Yup. My previous confidence was taking into account losing these last two games. We lost them but played well enough in spells to give me confidence that we'll be able to beat lesser teams. And once Wilson returns, we'll have a true-blue goal scorer. Fulham had their run of games to catch us on points, they are still 3 pts behind. Next up they've got Palace (winnable), then Tottenham, Liverpool, Man City and Leeds. 0-4pts from that I reckon. We've got Wolves, WBA, Villa, Brighton, Tottenham. 4-7pts from that. Especially as Wilson is due back for the Villa game. They might over take us on GD this next game, but I'd expect the gap to return over the following few games.

Yep.

Tickles me that a state that prides itself on rugged outdoorsy burly blokes isn't handling a black out. Aren't they all survivalists, hunters and cowboys?

Fulham might well reduce the deficit to 1pt over the next 3 games, but what about the rest of their games? And the rest of ours? Wilson will miss the next few, but should be back before the end of the season. We were improving and I'd say the Chelsea performance would have been better if we weren't missing our only legit PL striker. Fulham beat Everton, so did we . Lets see where we are in 6 games time. I'm not stressing yet.

And I helicocktered my wang to completion.

I was and we did. So, there's a learning opportunity there for you all. Forget about xG and PpG for a minute. Fulham are still 7 points behind us and have been poor for the majority of the season. A win against a below strength Everton isn't making me wet the bed.

So he'll be out for a couple of months, which is a shitter, but this system, this formation should still mean we can beat the beatable teams like Wolves, WBA, Brighton e.g. And he'll hopefully be back for tougher games like Tottenham, West Ham, Arsenal, Leicester.

7pts points off us which means they need two wins and a draw and us to lose every game, just to get level. Even if they managed that over the next 3 games, they've then got a run of games where it's highly unlikely they'll maintain the 1.5PpG they'd need to get safe, and it's unlikely we'd maintain a 0ppg for the rest of the season. Fulham could easily lose to Burnley and Sheffield Utd who are both getting 2PpG from their last 6 games. We're playing better football and while Wilson is the only Premier League striker we've got, it's the midfielders that have been scoring recently (5 of the last 7 goals). Play Gayle with ASM, Fraser, Almiron and WIllock and we'll have plenty of movement and pace. I don't think we'll get points from Chelsea, maybe a draw against Man Utd (depends which Man Utd turns up), but we can beat Wolves. Clark's back, Lascelles and Fernandez aren't far off a return.