Howay

We've played 3 games in 7 days, all 3 teams are in the top 5 and away from home, we won 2 and drew 1 how is that not good Noelie? We can't win every game man let alone traveling all over the country playing 270 minutes of football against 3 of the top 5 teams in a week we didn't concede a single goal from open play and scored 5, we're still top and now get to play a few weaker teams.

They're both playing utter dogshit teams, it's no surprise they're winning tbh. We're still going to be comfortable.

Fish just loved Mitro's t-shirt when he signed.

I hope so Andrew because as much as I love Rafa, and love watching the team win, watching Vernon Anita and Jack Colback attempt to play football is hard work.

Aye as you say aside from Gamez. No idea what's up with Yedlin, I'm hoping it's just to rest him as imo he's far and away been our best right back but the fact Anita is on the bench and he isn't is fairly worrying in that respect. Colback is an utter shambles but I suppose Rafa doesn't fancy playing Diame there so there's not really another option until Hayden gets back fit.

He did aye, I've no idea why they're even bothering to try and appeal as like you say it gets worse every time you watch.

Aye I think it was that one. While I think it may have been harsh, as you say they are given and it was just a poor choice to make when you're already on a yellow and have been throwing yourself about up to then. It was in the first half too .

Aye they should tack on another game at least for frivolous appeal. He knew exactly what he was doing and it could have ended up a lot worse.

That's what I reckon will happen as well, we'll flog him to some play-off chasing side for 2-3m after he's done a fairly decent job for us. I like Mitrovic as a bloke but as a player he's took a bit of a step back this season (after what I thought was an impressive debut PL season for a young striker in a shit team), he's still scored an ok amount of goals with the somewhat limited time he has had on the pitch but he has missed an awful amount of fucking sitters. Despite not having a red card he has put in some pretty stupid performances as well, one in particular I remember him walking a bit of a fine line between being sent off. I'd love us to keep him as I do think he has potential to develop into a good player if he could just focus his aggression more and be more patient in some of his play but the way things are looking I'm not convinced he's a player Rafa has much interest in so I expect he'll be off in the summer.

They need 6 to be level on points with Palace but their goal difference is also -15 worse off than Palace . I love that they got a bit excited after their 4-0 win over Palace, since then they've lost 3 on the bounce scoring none and conceding 8. What a complete and utter waste of space they are, well past time for them to be relegated from that league.

Aye that's it like. In much the same fashion Jack Colback wasn't ever a Premier League level player, and after relegation has shown he's probably not a Championship level player either. Paul Dummett is a revelation though and I'll have nowt said about the lad, I've never seen a player love to defend so much that he's willing to simply give the ball right back to the opposition so that he is able to defend some more. It's also worth pointing out that Burton Albion are currently out of the relegation spots, this means the mackems have a chance of playing the team they were all excited for us to be playing .

Spot on, they're ignoring what a slog the league is. If you're a half decent side at this level 80% of the teams are going to park the bus and look to counter, breaking that type of opposition down (often) 2 times a week isn't easy even if the teams you're up against are weak.

Aye that's it in a nutshell really. Their performance this season is about on a par with what Aston Villa managed last season, I'm not sure how on Earth anyone could think without massive investment they would fare much better than Aston Villa. The funniest bit about their turnaround regarding how relegation might have them enjoying watching winning football again is it's far more likely they'd be struggling like fuck like Villa rather than looking like us or Brighton.

Aye good post Fish. I agree about the misconception regarding sides in the PL being able to walk the Championship, Villa have clearly shown that to be the case and that was after spending a fair whack improving their side. I think a fair few Championship sides comfortably outplayed Premier League sides in the cups this year, while those are one off games and the Championship side could be argued to be "more up for it" Huddersfield reserves got a goal against Man City's first team at the Etihad, in fact they put up far more of a fight than Sunderland did against MCFC at the weekend. I've often said this league is shite, and it is, but the bottom of the Premier League is also full of shite, I mean Hull looked to play spoiler against us and they were the PL side.

We're top because we've beaten loads of negative, crappy sides looking to catch us on the break though. We've only really had about 5-6 matches this season where the opposition have really come at us. He's good at disposing of dumpster fire sides like Sunderland tbh. As I say though I'd be more than happy to see them relegated, stay relegated and never play us again, as there is no upside to playing them, if we lose they act like they've won the world cup and talk about it forever even release dvd's (or more likely VHS's) of the games, if we beat them they go into mopey cunt mode and act like we've been talking about it for years 2 days later.

Absolutely. They're not exactly much off the same position they were in this time last season yet they were fucking buzzing then and now they're going on about how it would be better to just be relegated than have another year like this. Of course assisting with that feeling is the knowledge that our lot would probably batter them next season if they managed to do their usual and refuse to be flushed.

It would be typical of them if we went up and went on to have one of the best sides we've had in yonks under Rafa and they spent the whole time a division below, they escaped most of the Keegan years and a fair few of the Robson years that way iirc. Saying that I'd be more than happy for that to be the case, in fact I'd be happy for them to have that for the rest of my life if it meant they were in the lower divisions and we were in the PL.

That's it like, the most minimal bit of thinking about what a deal like that would be in reality completely disproves any chance of it happening. They barely ever sell players at a profit so it's clear that they just cannot fathom how we could possibly be making around 28m profit (well only taking transfer fees into account) from a player none of us really liked or rated. I've absolutely zero sympathy for them, we said all of those things to them repeatedly last season and got responses around the level of "da Premier league is all that mattaz lol FTM". They're now essentially turning around and saying we were 100% correct but don't see any irony in it, fucking thick bastards. The post someone put up where they basically put their squad up minus Defoe, Borini, and Pickford and said it was better than our is just outrageous, if the poster in anyway believes that is the case they know nothing at all about football. How many goals has Defoe contributed of their total scored? it must be 75% or so, how could they ever take him out the team and think they'd be okay when they're dogshit even with him in the side? Like Rayvin was saying without a massive injection of money into the side they're in serious trouble of kicking about the bottom half of the table down here. The only success they've had this season has been counter attacking, we've seen how teams play against the newly relegated sides down here and they wont get much chance to play on the counter. They also keep talking about the current NUFC team as if it's exactly the same shambles we saw under McClaren except in a lower league, but that couldn't be further from the truth. Rafa has coached this team to the point players are nearly unrecognizable, I've not seen an NUFC defence look as comfortable under pressure as they did in the Huddersfield game for absolute donkeys years.

That Sissoko rumour is fucking class tbh. Who in their right mind would think the club would sell a player while having absolutely no idea how much they will get for him? It'd be the only instance of a deal involving yearly payments that could effectively end at the buying sides choosing, it's also worth noting that Everton were also bidding but the Mackems think Spurs had enough power in the negotiation to create one of the best buyer friendly deals I've ever heard .

Aye they definitely do. I just can't be arsed when pundits just trot out cliched sayings like what you're pointing to during the forest game, like aye Shelvey can be a divvy but he was kicking at thin air while being booted by that little slimeball Lansbury. It's just lazy on their part and it's just a bit pathetic when you consider that is what they get paid to do, it's like what I mentioned during the match the commentator at one point said that "Jack Colback is a brilliant player to have at this level" it's just utter fucking bollocks borne from the fact that commentator has never bothered watching us properly or even doing some research, he's just seen a bloke that has played a lot in the PL playing in the Championship saw him do one half decent thing and made that comment.

:lol: They were almost unanimous that they'd rather have had Fat Sam over him. edit: I will say even though I'm calling them shite that Wagner is a good manager, I can't say I really rate many of their players and he has them 3rd in the league. He needs to learn that a goalkeeper just touching the ball doesn't mean he can't be challenged but aside from that he seems switched on.

Aye, it was a hard shot right to the nads on both. Their players had started to think (along with a lot of the dickheads in the press) that they were better than our lot, both those games were a massive reality check. As Haydator said the Huddersfield fans can delude themselves that they were the better side in that game because they held the ball for long stretches, but as I and many others have said on here you cannot say that if your side do absolutely nothing at all with the ball. It would have been one thing if it was like that game we had against Fulham all those years ago iirc Mark Crossley was in nets and we absolutely fucking peppered the goal from inside the area but couldn't get past him, Saha scored from 4 counter attacks and the ref gave us a hand when Bellamy climbed all over a defender to give us a late consolation. Even then though being the 'better side' means fuck all, you didn't win and they cannot point to anything in that game that went against them imo (the pen was soft but the player did clip Ritchie, and then they got a soft pen given their way). People can piss, twist, and moan all they want but they will not convince me that Huddersfield were hard done by or that they were the better side in that match, we controlled the game without the ball, they only had possession in areas we allowed them to have it and once they tried to encroach in an area we didn't want them to have it our defence put a stop to it (anytime they came central about 30 yards from goal, or anytime they cut into the box from the wings). Their crossing was beyond pathetic, their free kicks and corners were quite frankly fucking embarrassing, and they had zero incisive passing moves through the middle of the park. As I said earlier after seeing them and Brighton I'll be fucking buzzing for them two to come up with us as they'd be cannon fodder unless they massively improve. Also nah NJS I agree with you, I've seen people (mostly mackems) mentioning refs being in our favor or us being lucky and I disagree. I said in another thread, for the amount of possession we have had over this season particularly inside opposition areas or on the edge of their box we've had a suspiciously low amount of penalties and near free kicks compared with the amount given against us despite the fact possession in our area is fairly rare. The Nottingham game was an out and out disgrace and I still feel that needs investigated, the bloke done absolutely everything he could do to give them 3 points. To a (slightly) lesser extent the Sheffield Wednesday match was similar as he simply wouldn't stop the Wednesday players from committing flagrant fouls anytime our players broke away despite the same players doing it 6 or more times. In comparison to the way Wednesday were treated vs us they had two players sent off against Brighton, one for violent conduct but the other was extremely similar to the type of shit he was getting away with against us. Massive post I know but I'm just honestly sick to the back teeth of the mackems (pundits and fans of other Championship sides) belittling the job our side are doing, it's pathetic on all their parts (particularly the pundits/commentators). The amount of fucking excuses they're coming up with as to why bilge teams like Huddersfield, Brighton etc are better than us is a joke, they were even doing it before a ball was kicked about Norwich and Aston Villa "oh well Alex Neil has experience getting a side promoted whereas Benitez doesn't". I'm glad they're all seething as we cruise to the top, I hope we hang on to Rafa in all and have a belta next season. We all know that'll be the next thing from the mackems mind, "aye well Rafa will be off once your up" well he was utter shite when he 'took us down' wasn't he? They all need to make their fucking minds up, or perhaps they should just focus on their hovel of a club who have a manager that seems to be a decade past his prime with a face 3000 years past it's prime.

Even holding the fact that it's not even something that's in the works by our lot their lot actually did that, so how can the obsessed tag be hoyed at us over that? It would just be a reciprocation of something they've done... twice iirc? They've also spent the entire season talking about us, despite saying how we were irrelevant and they don't bother with the "lower leagues" as they would be too busy enjoying the Premier League... I mean I went on there from Sparta's link, a fucking ton of pages on a thread that isn't even hiding the fact it's been started to discuss one of our games and was started by a mackem not one of the toon fans that loiters on that mental asylum.

Spot on, as I said earlier to Strawb the last two performances have given me more enjoyment than many in a long time. I even had a feeling of nervous excitement leading up to today's game, something I've not had about a toon game in absolute years and the lads on the pitch and the coaching staff didn't disappoint me at all today. As you say, we're the best team in the league it's been a quality season imo.