The Fish

Agree that of all the owners, Ashley is least likely to be cowed by a play made in the media, that said, of all the managers Ashley has employed Rafa's the only one who could pull off this kind of play successfully.

Maybe not, but it's the same principle. didn't Benitez say something about wanting a table and getting a lampshade?

Hicks and Gillett, whomever was in charge at Real Madrid during his tenure. I'm hoping this leak tilts the power to Rafa and we see changes in the boardroom, but I expect Rafa will get a satisfactory amount of money to spend in the summer and there'll be no changes in the boardroom.

Worrying read that. With all the shit going on here, in Europe and in the US, I forget there's an entire planet full of total arseholes being total arseholes.

Moaning about negativity isn't the same as saying everything is rosy. Also, most of twitter is panicking again, there's relatively few calling for calmer heads to prevail. Rafa's done this at every club he's managed, it's a power play that gets the fans on side, strengthens his hand in the summer and may well get some better performances from the players.

Read his transcript and tell me that's based on a prepared speech and not just some key phrases he's been told to mention amongst a vomit of self-aggrandising nonsense. http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/a-full-transcript-of-donald-trumps-black-history-month-1791871370 e.g. "Mr President we need to talk about honouring the heritage of black america" When Obama gave a speech you accept that it's been penned in large parts by someone else, but you trusted that he at least had digested some of the information around the subject and would understand the principle. For all his flaws you got the impression that while he might not be able to express himself well, Dubya Bush had an inkling of insight into the topic. We knew what he wanted to get at with his "Fool me once" gaff. Trump won't read someone else's words, and won't bother reading about the topic. He isn't just ignorant on the topics, he actively wants to talk about himself above all things. So when he has to deliver a speech, any information he's given prior takes a back seat to sating his ego.

Thing is, if I were to give a speech where I had to talk about Black History, I'd probably do some research on it so I didn't look like a fucking tit. He's far too arrogant though.

I begrudgingly gave him credit on Twitter for a good piece of defending, then what seemed like minutes later he nearly gifted QPR a goal with poor control near the box.

Seems even when the entire team played poorly, people stick to blaming one player above all others. That's fine when a 'keeper has dropped a clanger, a defender's given away a penalty or a midfielder's got sent off to undo a lot of good work, but in the past two games there've been poor performances across the board and while Perez' failings last night will grab the headlines, Murphy was worse than shit, Lascelles was poor, Hayden had one of his worst games for us and Rafa got the subs wrong.

Wasn't there a fat Newcastle fan whose crotch had split and his offal was on show?

You read what he said about Martin Luther King? He opened by saying what a great guy he was, then somehow managed to bring it back to how mean the media is being about him. I cannot fathom how the majority of Republicans are ok with their party being lead by this man-child. I get why the average American Trump supporter isn't turning on him; they've fully signed up to his cult and he could flipflop on every topic and they'd not bat an eye.

Not sure his role was made redundant, just reigned in a bit. He remains a chief scout, doesn't he?

Doesn't make up for anything, but the opposition 'keeper has been Man of the Match in the last two games imo.

Was their intelligence wrong? We have no idea what they told him, whether he paid any attention to it, whether he demanded a blood & thunder plan to get the bad dudes instead of wishy washy hanging around for another meeting about boring intelligence? What we do know is that he's their commander in chief and if he orders them to go get those baddies that's what they must do.

I wouldn't be surprised if he recieved intel and advice from the military, then he'll talk to his political advisors who shape the decisions that further their agenda regardless of the advice and counsel of the military.

Sure Ir ead somewhere that he was the nominated penalty taker?

Never heard of it. Might be worth asking Twitter?

I'd want a spotlight shone on any annoying tossers. Pause the movie, illuminate the gobby cunts, and ask them to shut the fuck up or leave. Kermode's got the right idea with his code of conduct.

To be honest, I'm hoping he's using a genuine frustration about transfers to divert attention away from what was a shocking performance on the whole, and an indictment of his Cup selection. Yeah, looks like, but Mitrovic's failings against Oxford weren't attitude or application, it was confidence and concentration. Something that won't improve on the bench.

Just reminded me of thing I watched with my parents a while ago that may have been that show, could have been Grand Designs Down Under or whatever. There was an older couple, I think she was an artist, anyway they'd had their dream home built and were describing the decking to the presenter when the old bloke said "Ah I larve to sit here in the morning and watch the bush arand moi dick."

Shocking 1st half, 2nd half was a little better. They were barely awake and we were fortunate not to go in at half time a couple of goals down. Cannot understand taking Murphy off for Ameobi and not Mitrovic. Yes the big mad Serb was poor against Oxford, but he's still a better striker than a tired, poorly performing Gouffran, isn't he? Re: the interview, it is a concern, but I'm not ready to throw the baby out with the bathwater just yet.

Yeah, what he said.

To be honest I'd have loved to see us sign those two Croatian youngsters, bed them into English football. Coric is an attacking midfielder that should have helped Shelvey and Benkovic could have been blooded here and there. But when a £35m bid is rejected, there's not much more we can do. At the same time I would be annoyed if we spent £15m on Townsend, which meant in the summer we couldn't afford to spend £30m on a player to improve on Gayle, or Shelvey. "We were going to be promoted anyway, why buy a luxury player?" etc.

Lets be clear, we're not just 3 points ahead of Reading, we're 3 points, 2 games and 27 goals ahead of 3rd place. Yes, Shelvey is integral and I'd have liked to have seen a player brought in to help shoulder that burden, but Newcastle aren't the only party involved in transfers and if Everton are demanding market-inflated eye-watering sums for James McCarthy I understand why we didn't sign him. If we cannot assure the player he'll start every game I understand why a Premier League standard player (who are the only players we should be looking at) wouldn't want to drop down. If the other team wants cash up front so they can juggle their own squad, I can understand why they wouldn't let a player leave on a loan deal.

But if the next increment is in only 6 months time, is there much point in buying Townsend now? Gouffran is first choice wide left, and while Townsend is much better than Gouffran, he doesn't play there. A Spurs fan I know joked that if you played him on the left, he'd still cut onto his left, take it out for a throw-in and then shoot. If we were in the chasing pack I think we would have strengthened, but we're doing very well and £15m for Townsend is gilding the lily imo.