The Fish

I get why people use that term, but it does make me chuckle. Like they're a maverick copper in an 80's movie, rather than a dickhead.

How do you stop an isolated, disenfranchised, radicalised lad in Solihull hiring a car, driving down to London, ploughing through a crowd and stabbing some people? There can't be as many warning flags in his behaviour prior to the incident as there would be for a more complex, coordinated attack? I mean, obviously the plan would be to stop them becoming radicalised in the first place, but once they are...

Rather spend that money on someone who's building a career, rather than one who'se waving goodbye to it.

It's the "dude" that makes it.

Just think Shelvey struggles to impact the game if he isn't getting plenty of time on the ball.

I know you can, but you've not been bemoaning the style of football, stressing about what the chasing pack are doing, worrying what might happen if the wheels come off.

And is he?

One trouble I see, is that there's a few players who've been integral this season that might not be up to scratch in the Premier League; Gayle, Shelvey, Yedlin. They've been good in the Championship no doubt, but it's not like it was last time, it was clear than Jonas, Coloccini, Enrique, Harper Taylor et al could do the job in the top flight. Because there are so many new faces and so few with lots of Premier League experience, we may need to buy players from the Premier League and I can't imagine Ashley being ok with paying out for that.

I might have had some ideas...

Not much we can do about their results though. Maybe it's because I look at our rivals' boards and see how much they're panicking

But if we're not playing brilliantly and we're still​ top why the concern? People say "what if we drop points", well sure, but Brighton and Huddersfield are as (if not more) likely to drop points than we are. And given our wobble coincided with an absence of key players, wouldn't it be more reasonable to expect their return to be reflected in better performances and better results? People need to stop worrying about the worst possibility and concentrate on enjoying the fact we're winning games, and we're top of the league. Unless we're relegated again next year I can't imagine we're going to have many seasons with as many happy Saturdays as this.

Don't ask question on here, just google, this lot are all cunts.

SUCK MA PLUMS THOMAS, SUCK THEM LONG AND SLOW.

I absolutely understand being frustrated with Dummett going forward, with Perez's inconsistency and Jack Colback's existence, but I cannot understand the negativity. The criticisms haven't been X was shit, it's "we're shit", when we're clearly not.

And missing 1st choice players in key positions. Look, I'm not pretending we're playing brilliant football, or arguing that you shouldn't be allowed to criticise poor performances/results, but I am baffled at the air of negativity. We're top of the league, we've scored loads, conceded few, we're playing effective disciplined solid football (just as we did under Hughton) and when everyone is fit and firing we can play some really nice stuff too.

We could lose every games and miss out on a play-off spot, we could win every remaining game and break Reading's record. These are possibilities, but not probable, so why bother worrying about them?

They don't, but there's enough mithering to make you think there's a decent number who think alike. 'We're not playing pretty football, we're not pissing the league, it's already March and we're not mathematically assured of promotion yet!'

I agree that if Huddersfield were further adrift (although 8 points + ridiculous GD is pretty adrift imo) there'd be less people worrying, but that's because the worriers are daft. Aside from beating the title challengers when we meet them, there's nothing Newcastle United can do to affect the results of other sides. I've briefly looked back at this period of the Championship season and Huddersfield's PpG would have them in the Auto spots 8 season out of 10. Only once in that 10 season period has the average PpG for the top three bettered this season's. That was 2014 when Leicester were already on 82pts, Burnley were on 79 and 3rd was way back on 69 (wahey).

I mean, why even suggest this scenario? Saw this on another Messageboard So, people need to chill.

Do you think people have forgotten that we don't need​ to win the league and can finish 2nd and go up? At the beginning of this "wobble" we were 2nd, a point behind Brighton and 5 ahead of Huddersfield. Now we're 1pt and 8 goals ahead of Brighton, and 7pts and 34 goals ahead of 3rd placed Huddersfield. Huddersfield were 4 points clear of Leeds, now 1 weekend of fixtures could have them leapfrogged by Reading and Leeds! Maybe I'm arrogant, but we're clearly good enough to have a bad run of form and actually improve our position in the league.

Of the players we have available, which absolutely need shipping out of the club and replaced in the Squad?

Literally every team on the planet can drop points even when they're dominant, every team leading their league can struggle with complacency. I think the expectation levels at Newcastle are daft; we're 1/50 to go up , we're on course for a 94pt season which has been enough to win the league in most years, we've more wins than anyone else in the league, we've the best attack and the best defence, we've 3 of the best players in the league and we've a manager with more trophies to his name than all but the elite clubs. What exactly do they expect? Winning every game 3-0 and playing like 1970s Ajax? I understand being frustrated at individual incidents or results, but I cannot understand the pervading air of negativity given our circumstances. Maybe the other fans are right, maybe Newcastle fans do have unrealistic expectations. Honestly, the amount of times I've had to remind other Newcastle fans that we're top of the league is fucking embarrassing.

Aye, like fuck will I ask for advice from you cunts again.

Getting frustrated with the perception that Newcastle should have walked the league and despite being top and on course for a >94pt season we're somehow not doing as well. Bought a new team, (1 keeper, 2 fullbacks, 2 centre backs, 4 midfielders, 2 strikers) specifically because the one we had wouldn't have got promoted. Imagine what Benitez could have achieved with Coloccini, Enrique, Jonas, Nolan, Carroll et al. We're 2pts off where we were last time at this stage of the season and that team was much better than this one.