David Kelly

It’s blatantly obvious why Sky are giving so much negative coverage to this. It’s got nothing to do with sporting integrity or the fans, it’s completely down to their fear of losing revenue.

They've probably just realised that Ashley isn't going to sack him regardless how much contempt they show for him so they've decided to play for themselves.

Yeah I'd say it was an even bigger regression. If we do go down it's hard to believe we'll be in a position to come straight back up. The combination of the decision not back RB and then replace him and continue to back cabbage heed is even worse than the decision to sign Joelinton. Appointing Souness while staggeringly bad had some logic behind it. Robson was seemingly getting shit on by the young players who he'd brought in and it looked like apointing a firmer hand was what was needed, even if that person should never have been Souness. Replacing Rafa with this fucking idiot never looked like even a poorly concieved idea based on logic. It only served to bring in someone who wouldn't fight to improve the club. Even if RB's motivations may have been firstly based on himself, they were also for the long term good of the club. Bruce while claiming to be one of us is motivated purely by money.

I'm surprised that anyone who remotely followed us would be surprised at those results. We've gone from playing dull football but with a well drilled defence and the prospect of improving when we could upgrade our attackers to playing much worse football with a bunch of players who have no respect for the manager, a sloppy defence and no idea how to attack other than through the moments of quality from individuals. The only surprise is that we're not bottom of every category.

What do you mean a large pint!

Yeah that's always the worry with him and I guess they thought that if they just hung in he is also capable of going over the boundary once they were into the last couple of overs. But a bit better communication might have seen them home. Hard to cricise either of them mind. Wood was our best bowler and Curran the best batsman yesterday.

Yeah Wood can certainly hold his bat. The only issue with him is sometimes he wants to just swing. Yesterday though he looked like he was happy to sit in with Curran.

It makes sense to try and safeguard a transfer fee for him. He's done fuck all in the premier league but consistantly proves himself as a scorer in the championship. I'd reckon you'd still have teams willing to pay £10m for him to try and get him out of that league. And of course in all likelyhood we will need him to do that very job next season because I can't see Wilson hanging around in the Championship for us. For him I can't really see the motivation. There would be teams willing to pay him good money, especially if they can get him on a free. And the thought of having to play any more for Bruce cannot be a happy one.

I Care A Lot. Rosamund Pike playing a character very similar to what she played in Gone Girl, ie thoroughly dislikeable but impressive in what she does. Not a bad film and quite topical what with all the Britney Spears stuff happening. Dianne Wiest is as reliable as ever in it too.

Quality from Curran yesterday he probably deserved to win that for us. Maybe he will look back at some of the runs him and Wood didn't take and think they should have gone for them. But you can't really argue with how close he got us. Most exciting game of cricket since Hedingly.

It's the closest thing to logic I can come up with.

The only conclusion that anyone watching that game on Saturday can come to is that these players are not playing for Bruce now. The supposed tactics are beyond ridiculous, since Wilsons injury we've strikers as wingers and wingers as strikers. He's fell out with Ritchie and probably others and he's made ridiculous statements about the likes of Carroll and Murphy. It's absolutely no wonder they don't trust him and and it's plain to see. Obviously there is a sizeable possibility that Ashley didn't bother watching the match at all but given his investment in the club he surely has been asking questions of someone as to what the fuck is going on. He may well like the fact that unlike Rafa, Bruce won't say a bad word against him but surely that can't go so far as to allow him to reduce the value of his asset by £100m? I'm firmly of the opinion that Ashley doesn't give a fuck about the club but he keeps telling us that he doesn't have £100's of millions in cash and that his wealth is just a paper asset value. Reducing that value to such an extent that it either makes selling impossible or hits him in the pocket at a time he seems to want the cash cannot be something he's happy to just go along with. The only sense I can make from this is that he's happy to see us relegated for some reason. Whether that's because he's a cunt with a grudge against us or (far less likely imo) he has some deal struck that will get him the money he wants regardless of the division we're in and he thinks he can get the football league to approve the new owners far easier than the premier league will. The above both seem completely unbelievable to me now but they seem far more plausible than anyone thinking Steve Bruce can save us from relegation now. The only thing that can keep us up now that they've chosen to stick with this disgusting fraud of a man is Fulham somehow doing worse than us for the rest of the season. No matter how badly Brighton or Burnley might do, I can't see us winning another game with him in charge let alone doing enough to overtake either of them.

Seriously doubt there’s worse manager out there than Bruce

The most clear thing is that Ashley has absolutely no interest in the club. If he did he wouldn’t allow cabbage heed to put out this absolute disgrace of a side. He wouldn’t allow a manager to continue who thinks we’ve done pretty well recently. After a bit of promise against Everton and Southampton we’ve fallen straight back into the style (and I use that word very loosely) we were in back in January. The fact he has no interest might actually be a good thing long term in that he definitely wants to be as far away from us as possible.

I've not bothered looking back on this thread but I assume everone agrees that Krafth is fucking awful and the worst of the lot? For me Yedlin is not a footballer at all. He is extremely fast that does allow him to get back and cover either himself for being out of position, or someone else. He's about as useful going forward as Joelinton though. Manquillo is a below average footballer but fairly steady. The best of a bad bunch. I'd probably rather see Hayden playing fullback and replaced in midfield with someone who can move the ball forward. Unfortunately we don't have anyone. At least under Bruce. If we had someone that the Longstaff's didn't despise managing us one of them may have been able to do that job.

If them three were back by that point we would definitely have a chance of staying up. If it's not us I fancy Brighton to go down. I've looked at their run in and I don't see them picking up many points at all. I know they look ok but they just keep getting beat. If they hit that bottom three I think they'll struggle to get out of it. But if we continue much longer with the available squad we currently have, I can't see us scoring let alone winning games.

Started well but he’s disappeared as the half has gone on.

You can say the same every time he plays. You notice him making a mistake, but most of the time he just jogs alongside the match.

Bench

It’s up there with the Sheffield selection for shear stupidity. I’m totally convinced this cunt will take us down.

Six goals between them and zero pace. It’s up there with his selection against Sheffield.

Can only assume he’s trying to be sacked with the team he’s put out today.

Ashley has shown for a long time that he doesn't give a fuck about Newcastle United. It really wouldn't surprise me if he had very little part in appointing Bruce in the first place. He probably gives league a quick look every few weeks and sees we're not in the bottom 3 and as long as that remains the case he doesn't give us a second thought. Appointing Charnley to run the club is the bizzare bit. He wouldn't have a got a job running any of the companies I've worked for, and I've worked for some poorly run companies over the years, and none of them are close to the size of Newcastle United. I'd love to know what the opinions of the chief execs at the other premier league clubs are of him.

Almiron and ASM out til April. Dead cert now that we try to rush Wilson back and he breaks down and is ruled out for the season. That's us down.