Howay

I just looked as well and they could easily miss out, Sheffield Wednesday have 2 games in hand on them and are only 3 points behind, and the two others below them in the playoff spots have games in hand too. Even Oxford are only 2 points off with the same games played and are currently outside the playoffs.

Aye Merson is completely pointless. He literally just bigs up the sides he likes and is absurd about the ones he doesn’t, I know most are biased but like others have said he genuinely said Arsenal, who didn’t buy any first team players, had a better window than a side who bought 5 players who all improve on the starting 11 (since Wilson is out). I honestly think we could beat Villa 10-0 and they have 0 shots on target and 5% possession and he’d find some reason why we weren’t very good and Villa should have nicked it.

Brentford are 6 points above us, but we have 3 games in hand and also play them soon. Palace looking poor against them is good as well since we play them soon. Leeds are absolutely dog shit, Everton looked abysmal against us and just brushed them aside. I think Everton are more likely than Leeds to have a turnaround in form and pick up enough points to stay up so I think it’s definitely better they won than a Leeds win. It’s been another good set of results so far for us, hopefully Man City beat Norwich and we get a win tomorrow.

That was their new manager bounce then

The County road bobblers at an away game.

Agreed, if he prefers Milan more power to him he’s not the player for us. He’s highly rated but at the same time he’s had 1.5 seasons in France, and this half season his defence have conceded 35 in 23, while not all his fault I’m not going to cry about missing out on a bloke like that. As you say there’s plenty more about.

Alex Neil is definitely known for his free flowing attacking football. It’s almost seeming like they shouldn’t have hounded the last bloke out.

Glenn Hoddle on the right looks to have hit rock bottom. What is it with them lot and this desperation for ex-players to come and take over positions they have no qualifications to do so? “Hendo marra, the floodlights are out can you tak that tool box and fix them, cheers marra” are they forgetting fucking ‘Quinny’ helped run them into the ground financially? These blokes are just footballers that used to play for the club ffs.

The two hugging at the front, that one is in fucking hysterical tears! Honestly man maybe I’m just biased but I absolutely do not think our fanbase reacts like this when they go down.

What makes that even better is it’s an even worse form of whataboutism they all accused us of. The comparisons we made of them turning a blind eye to where their mobile phones etc come from is much better than comparing our “turning a blind eye to the evils of the house of Saud” to a bloke recording himself kicking his pet cat around. There’s a similar disconnect in the first comparison. Plus no one is fucking defending the Saudis we are all fucking clear on that, but when our choice is take the same approach we have to where everything else is sourced or completely remove our football club from our lives we shouldn’t be harangued for choosing the former. So now, that ends their discussion of NUFC?

Speaking of this, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a player so consistently fall over when he’s about to shoot. I’m not sure what it is but maybe it’s how he plants his foot when he’s about to shoot? Surely it’s something that could be worked on. I know your post before didn’t quote me so you may not have saw mine the same way but I’m not defending ASM btw, his avoidance of the pass is definitely his own failing. I’m just hoping it’s something that can be taught out of him, hopefully by a combination of Howe and players that simply demand more and will hold him more accountable rather than just applauding his enviable talent on the ball. It likely stems from always being the focal point of his sides, always being the most impactful and likely shouldering the lions share of responsibility, clearly Bruce’s entire fucking game plan was ‘get the ball to ASM and cross wuh fingers’ it was probably similar for Nice. If we survive this season he will now be playing for a very ambitious side that has players of a much higher level, I think that’s when it’ll become time to either adapt his game or be pushed out the side. I like the bloke so I’m hoping it’s the former, but it’s something he has to address going forward.

Spot on, I want them in league two tbh. Fuck them. As you say they were absolutely fucking absurd when we went down.

They call us deluded, the fan base that just hounded out their manager who had them third, had the highest win rate in years (as ewerk pointed out), and from reports had them playing the best football they have played in fucking donkeys years. But aye they’re the best fan base ever. Totally not seen as poisonous deluded bastards. This is the same fan base where when they were in the championship their side won more games away from home, as playing at home they were subject to so much hostility . They don’t even have enough people that give a flying fuck enough to hold up a few flags man.

I agree, the lad has insane ability on the ball. The way he goes past players is actually fucking bonkers, there’s very, very few who can do it (as all those successful dribble and take on stats show). What I’m kind of hoping now is if we stay up we bring in quality in these advanced positions, lads like maybe Raphinha, Paqueta, and Isak who won’t put up with him not passing to them, and he will likely have a higher level of trust in them, which I am hoping (along with more team system messaging as you mention) transfers into him releasing the fucking ball when it makes sense to rather than always trying to take the next player on. Btw, imagine seeing this post and me casually mentioning bringing in 3 players of their level 2-3 year ago . What an absolute ride this is man.

They really are a gift that keeps on giving. This is EXACTLY the same thing they did to stay in the PL all those years, flirt with relegation, sack manager, ride the new manager bounce, stay up by the skin of their teeth, watch the squad weaken as the money invested become less and less. To constantly sustain a play off push has been costing them money, they’re clearly reaching a breaking point where the money is drying up, and while they’ve been using a new manager bounce every year to boost them into play off positions I assume the squad has degraded from the one they had first season down (they of course won’t admit it). If they don’t get promoted soon they’ll surely drop off this constant playoff push level. Even if they do go up they’d be massive favorites to go down, but that would probably help them refresh the squad quality and club coffers a little so they can establish themselves as a championship-League One yo-yo club.

It is eh, maybe I should show more respect since he’s absolutely destroying Sunderland.

That’s what it looks like to me anyway. It’s just weird the way he’s been shifting %’s of ownership about but I’m fairly sure he maintains majority ownership, just looked it up and BBC say Donaldson has minority ownership but there’s no percentages of ownership I can see so he could still own more than this kid with the amount of %’s that have been handed out. The whole situation is weird, and unclear which kind of suits Donaldson.

As ewerk said they don’t have anything to spend. This “billionaire” owner just isn’t actually a billionaire, it’s his possible inheritance which as MF mentioned is currently his mother’s money. I mean imo he’s also not their actual owner, it’s still Donaldson tbh who himself has a net worth similar (or possibly less) to Jonjo Shelvey. Donaldson is exactly what basically everyone on here said, he’s an opportunist and a carpet bagger, he got the club for nothing (just had to repay the parachute payments) and he’s sold percentages off to these two dozy trust fund kids that are happy for a day out tbh, so he’s probably doing really well out of his bleeding of the club and he’s still there despite pushing this kid front and centre. They deserve him mind, how much did they go out their way to talk about how fucking amazing he was despite it being pretty obvious what he was? I will always remember how buzzing they were to have that snake Methven involved . “A PR man is exactly what we need” and all that guff, then they began to hate him when he did exactly what PR men do . Couple that with Rentons point about the fans being fucking ridiculous, they’ve been in that league for 4 seasons now why do they have this delusion that they should easily get one of the automatic slots? The manager had them third and they were demanding him out for fuck sake , they highlight a rough spell but he still had them in the playoff spots. At least they have their faux morals to fall back on eh. They said it themselves they’d rather have their owners than ours, so crack on.

Btw I know he was only on for about 5 minutes but Bruno looks exciting. Could have even ended with an assist if ASM’s late chance went in (I know it was great play by ASM who had a lot to do but the slide pass from Bruno was the type of vision in CM we’ve lacked). Immediately got stuck in to that midfield battle as well, which the Everton lot were shirking.

There was a point in the second half where the Everton players clearly got frustrated and started making some snidey tackles, think it started when that drip Gordon went for Trippier. Trippier then wound the little urchin up and he clattered ASM, what followed that was about 5 crunching, clear the player out type tackles from our lot and the Everton players wanted absolutely no fucking part of it . Absolutely brilliant stuff to see from a side that’s looked devoid of any interest to one that completely dominates the physical side of a match like that.

Just rewatched the second half as I missed it with work, fucking hell what a player Trippier is .

Absurd mackem and all round bore Glendenning already had his completely fucking wank argument decimated. Looking through his replies really shows mackems can’t talk objectively about Newcastle, he makes absolutely no relevant points and is basically reduced to screaming that Watford were above us and therefore better than us.

The manager they were hounding out while he had them third? That manager? Who’d have thought their pretend owners wouldn’t have a fucking clue what they were doing so would just try to placate the fan base. If only it was absolutely obvious to anyone that looked at the situation for a minute eh . They will of course be absolutely blind to the fact they as fans are, and have been throughout this decline, part of the problem. I really like the idea of them getting wound up about their result being called out, they know it always is if they’re playing on the same day right? It’s just an added laugh after we smashed 3 past their beleaguered scouse counterparts.

The same Lescott that was confident Everton would hammer us iirc. That Everton side are absolutely painful btw. That CM of theirs who is one of the most Scottish looking people I’ve ever seen in my life, Gordon I think? (Just looked him up and apparently he’s a scouser )Wow he was fucking shite, spent half his time trying to injure everyone then when Trippier had a go at him about it he legged it behind his own players. Look forward to playing them again