The Fish

Hull are surely one of the favourites for the drop, but sunderland can't be far behind them. well, I suppose that story will sell a few papers on Wearside at least.

Trouble is, when the points needed to get them to safety mostly sit in the "Surprising Result" column, it's hard to see exactly where they will get the points from. It's games like Hull, home to Swansea or Stoke. Currently I don't expect them to get any points, regardless of the fixture. Obviously that won't be the case for the entire season and they'll start scoring, or stop conceding. But can you honestly see where they can expect to pick up 37 points from?

Hope Mitrovic starts with Gayle. Mostly so Gayle can stick wor Serbian Psychopath with a Tombstone when he celebrates his goal.

I think a lot of it is a type of jealousy. Newcastle does get a lot of attention, perhaps disproportionate to their successes? I know Norwich fans were bothered that the BBC football twitter "announced" that we'd gone top of the league. Leeds fans are generally livid because we've spent money, which is delightfully ironic given their history. There's also moans about FFP, which tends to mean the complainant doesn't understand FFP. There's genuinely a mackem who thinks we're broke because of the loyalty and agent fees incurred in the summer.

I've seen it from exactly the type of football fans you'd expect; Villa, Leeds, mackems et al.

There's plenty of opposition fans baffled by our regard for Rafa, and our disregard of Pardew. They see Rafa as culpable in our relegation and Pardew as the man that took us to 5th. They can't fathom that there were mitigating circumstances behind both of those things.

Compare that to Rafa's behaviour; no courting of the limelight, no blaming the ref, or players, or Science. He actually connects the club to the fans.

Yeah, they beat Burton at home but Burton had more possession (46-54%), more shots (10-18) and more key passes (8-14). Had Ipswich given that kind of freedom to a better side, they would have been punished If Ipswich give us 14 chances in the box, I'd fancy us to put a couple away at least.

I'm basing my prediction on carefully weighing up the form and strengths of both sides, CT bases his on what he'd like to see.

4/5-0

Yes he can.

When we moved house, my lass had her first ever Steak Bake from a motorway services' Greggs. She's a convert, but only for hangovers apparently.

No doubt Yedlin is better going forward, but he's suspect at the back still.

Don't mind Rafa sticking with a settled back four and bringing on the new lads later on in the game to be fair. Especially against teams who can trouble us at set pieces which seems like it's our biggest problem.

Plenty of attacking options on the bench there. Hourihane starting for Barnsley is a negative, apparently quite the set piece delivererererer.

The fact they have 11 appearances between them is a cause for praise, rather than scorn. Southampton have consistently produced players of a sufficient standard to play in the Premier League, sometimes they're too good for where Southampton are now (or at least show sufficient promise to be considered too good), players like Chambers and Shaw. Sometimes they're not the type of player Southampton need, but go on to represent another Premier League side. Now, they've benefited from a huge catchment area thanks to Bournemouth and Portsmouth being a bit shit at that time and the investment from their owners. We should have made the Academy our focus years ago, we know it's harder (and costlier) to attract players to the North East from London or wherever, much easier if they grew up in the area.

Depends, there's a few clubs who produce footballers not up to the standard they need, but who go on to represent other top flight sides. Chelsea, Man Utd and Liverpool certainly seem to provide squad players for the lower reaches of the Premier LEague. In terms of clubs who produce players capable of representing their own club? Not sure, maybe Southampton, Boro, Everton, Spurs?

I suppose a risk is spending hundreds of thousands of pounds on facilities, staff and support, but if the kids don't come through the ranks to any standard, it's money down the drain? If 2 years of prospects haven't the ability to play professionally, there's little you can do about it? /DevilsAdvocat

Is that so different to what's happening up and down the country now?

Even if the standard of player you produce is below Premier League, you can still flog the players to go towards paying for the running of the academy they came through.

Surely as the tech advances it'll get lighter and end up resembling something littlemore robust than a sleeping mask.

It's especially frustrating when there's quite a few of North East players who've gone on to have top flight careers. Given our respective standing in the game, why haven't we been able to attract kids who've chosen sunderland or middlesbrough instead?

.. I know, I was doing the "21 or 28" chant. Nevermind, I now know how Van Gogh felt like. Unappreciated in my own time.

He was at Newcastle before he joined Carlisle, wasn't he?

We weren't, but these pernickety bellwhiffs need every sentence to have caveats and footnotes.