The Fish

Because it’s 20 past 11 and I’m not sober and have work in 8 hours

Had hoped a brace from Mitrovic would be enough to send them down, just like I’d hoped a brace from Dummett would send Pardew down. Ah well, I’ll have to find another way to enjoy it. This time last season we were top with 84pts, 20 more wins than they’ve managed, our most recent coming against... you guessed it, Burton Albion

Won't there need to be caveats? The club could be sold, Benitez could be gone, etc.

Her offer was closer to a reasonable valuation of the club than Ashley's reported £400m. I've faith in Benitez, I've zero faith in Ashley. And just because his gambles are coming off at the minute, doesn't mean there's not a snake eyes round the corner.

This season. But this season is aberrant, imo. Three sides who would traditionally occupy the middle of the league are going to be relegated (as things stand). There's been underperformance across the board, Man City and Liverpool's attack aside, the league has been poor. Man Utd have been poor for much of the season and yet sit happily ensconced in 2nd. Man Utd, Spurs, Chelsea, Arsenal, Everton, Southampton, Stoke, West Brom, Crystal Palace... all will say they've had a disappointing season. When the club's strengthen, and they will all strengthen, simply hoping to repeat this season's performances in 18/19 will lead to calamity.

Just because a gamble's paid off, does not mean it wasn't a stupid bloody gamble. The lack of investment in last season's winter window was proof positive that the man is idiotic when it comes to football. Every man and his dog knew that the price of players was only going to go up and, at the time, we were in 2nd only 6pts clear of 3rd. Given we had the money, given play offs are a gamble in themselves, given the club was an easier sell then than it was in the previous summer, given Rafa, given everything... that's when we should have invested. Loan a young player from an elite club, with a view to buying if we went up. Buy a bit of quality from a struggling side to carry us over the finish line. Spending less than he promised is one thing, to be outspent by Brighton and Huddersfield is ridiculous. Don't forget about the nonsense surrounding the failed takeover too. If Benitez walks, do does a significant chunk of the club's resale value. If we're not a Premier League club, we're worth far less. He could have banked a profit on the club and walked off into the sunset, never needing to worry about the mean Geordies ever again.

What do we need? Well I'd say a Right back, a left back, more quality in the centre of the park, a number 10 and a striker or 2. Plus the youth teams need heavy investment. Say we sign those 2 permanently, and a striker for £30m. That's £55m. Can you see Ashley investing the £50m needed to strengthen the rest of what is a decidedly average squad. For me, it's only if it's from players sales (though quite how we'd raise that kind of cash from this squad is a mystery). He's going to put the tv money into the bank, either pay himself some of the money we owe him, or "into the running of the club". He's not going to dip into his pocket. The biggest issue is if Benitez thinks he's being taken for a mug. If he does, he'll walk, and there's few managers who could get the same tune out of this lot, and fewer still who'd want to manage Mike Ashley's Newcastle United.

I think he's aware. I just think he's arrogant enough to gamble that whomever he gets in will do enough, on the limited budget he's willing to release, to survive in the Premier League. Every chance he's had to make a sensible decision he's not taken it. Appoint a manager who's willing to operate under a Director of Football model, appoint competent (if more expensive) directors who actually know about football. Don't appoint a lunatic whose previous position was 4 years ago with Nottingham Forest. Stick with the team whose spirit and togetherness was vital in promotion from the 2nd flight. Sanction investment into a 5th placed squad, bin off a manager who was only taking us in one direction, appoint an actual manager to steer us to safety instead of the garbage monster Carver. Don't antagonise the fanbase. Don't rebrand a famous old stadium. Don't make promises you've no intention of keeping. Don't antagonise an elite coach who is steering the club back to the top flight. Sell revenue space inside the ground for actual income, instead of hawking your tat-store. Don't get in bed with a payday loan company. He might be great at taking a distressed brand and running it into the ground for a tidy profit, but he's incompetent at running a football club.

Because he can run the club at a larger profit, get his tat-store on the tv and doesn't give a monkeys about competing. If Benitez does get fed up, we'll be back to the poundshop for managers, which, like you say, will mean greater expense if we're to stay in the top flight. Keeping Benitez sweet might be costly, but he can turn a poor side average and and average side good. The majority of managerial candidates out there can't claim the same.

Is it in line though? plenty of money from player sales and losing a few big earners from the wages, whatever pittance we got from promotion and Championship tv money, the first tranche of Premier League tv money, and so on. I think we've spent naff all and significantly less than Ashley promised to Benitez. Even if it's just £15m, that's a £20m striker instead of Joselu.

But even with the addition of the 3 loan players, you'd have to be worried that it'll be spun as investment in the 18/19 squad, when really it's money that should have been spent in the 17/18 season. It was stupid to fail to invest when we finished 5th, it was stupid to hold off from sacking McClaren until it was too late, it was stupid to fail to invest in the January window when it was obvious the summer would see an inflated market. That something is stupid doesn't seem a big enough deterrent for Ashley and Co.

It was there that I knew that I belonged. To me, it meant being somebody in the neighborhood that was full of nobodies. They weren’t like anybody else. I mean, they did whatever they wanted.

Based on what though? The club made plenty of money before the summer window closed and further investment was possible in the winter. Ashley assured us that Benitez would be allowed to spend every penny the club made, and while the club made a lot, we spent sweet F.A.

And I will continue to ignore your gammony fury and continue to use whatever tools are available to get a better, broader idea of what's going on.

Sure, but don't you remember when a substitute teacher came in to cover and you could smell the fear on them? Even the best behaved kids in the class would be dicking about. I warmly remember Mrs Firth on the brink of tears as our top set English GCSE class set fire to paper airplanes and launched them about the room.

It was Derby gifting them the chances rather than good play from Sunderland, by all accounts. This is what experimental361 says about their chances of survival

I have some magic beans to sell if you're in the market?

I mean, good grief! Even if that's true, even if the senior players didn't respect him, why aren't the ex-pros providing comments asking why? Why is Gareth Barry, a respected and respectable professional acting like a kid on his first holiday with the parents? That article mentions his treatment of two young players and if the accounts are true, it's fucking disgraceful. Perhaps things like that meant the senior players couldn't bring themselves to give him the respect his performance and behaviour doesn't deserve.

Seen his record when he was last in charge of them? 37 games, 31 losses.

In what world were Huddersfield good for a point?! 14 fewer shots than we took, and not a single one of their 4 shots were on target. They had less possession, and a worse pass success rate, (less than half as many successful passes as we managed). Their heatmap looks like a ghost who's terrified of the penalty box. xG alone paints a picture of a fairly dominant home performance 2.54 v 0.28. Bizarre to try and claim they were anything but well beaten. Much of what I took from the game has already been mentioned; need for a striker, impressive improvement of players like Diame, Dummett and Lascelles importance. Important also to recognise Dubravka's influence imo, the defence look far more assured than they did with Elliott and Darlow. Brighton are the only team who can leapfrog us next round of fixtures and if we can beat Leicester and they slip up against Huddersfield we could open up a little comfort zone. Are people worrie that once safety is mathematically assured, the team will relax too much and throw away a comfortable 10-2th placed finish for a suddenly disappointing 13-15th? Not sure why this slipped under the RADAR? Jason Donovan is doing commentary on a Premier League game? What the Hell is happening in Australia?!

Has anyone checked in on Paddy Barclay, Ian Wright, Mark Bright and the rest of the pundits. I know they'll be busy penning their apologies to Newcastle fans as we speak, but it must be with heavy hearts and if we're honest, they're the real victims in all of this.

Well they survived in the Premier League by swapping one shit manager for another, maybe they think it's a winning formula?

@Ayatollah Hermione You throwing up as well or is it just the hot snakes? If it's the former you might have the Norovirus? Had that a while ago and lost a shit ton of weight and despite needing to be near the khazi didn't feel too bad. 7/10 would recommend for fatties and boxers.

It's not just West Ham and Huddersfield that have bad run ins to be honest. Southampton play 4 away games (WHam, Ars, Lei & Eve), and 3 home games (Chel, Bou, Man City). Hughes might get them grafting harder and give them a bit of confidence, but you'd only really say Bournemouth at Home is on the easy side of things. Each of the other fixtures are tough as Hell. Stoke need to hope they're not cut adrift during this shocking run of 5 fixtures; Ars (a), Tot (h), WHam (a), Bur (h), Liv (a). Brighton conversely need to get points on the board now, their last 4 games are pretty shocking; Tot (h), Bur (a), ManUtd (h), Liv(a).

I have an idea why.