OTF

I heard a couple of things, not sure what to believe at this stage. First that he was unfortunately lost at sea, and second that he retired at Bristol City. More to come.

The stunts to cu.... ratio is horribly off in this.

Sorry for your loss Brokendoll, great name for your dog as well. We've actually just welcomed a new dog into our family and so far she's an absolute treat. Our last boy passed away a few years ago after a very good 17 year innings. Between my folks and sisters we've now got five new dogs in the family (my SIL had her dog bred and we have one of the little or two). Dogs are amazing.

Love his face after the swig of water like "why does this pop taste so bland". Are we sure that this isn't Ricky Gervais with some prosthetics and make up?

BDB should have been brought into the picture when he was at Brighton, more heart than the rest of the central defenders combined.

Nice work Sepp and FIFA you corrupt pieces of shit.

Eddie clearly amused by Adam demonstrating his preferred fisting technique.

Shola got plenty of caps playing for us.

Should be good for a fair few bore holes.

He's going to have a shocked look on his face.

I'm still torn. In your corner also, we will be less ready for the additional fixtures next season than we will be the following one.

Agree. It's not simply about protecting your best players, you also need to keep your alternates match fit and pushing for a spot in the first team. Looking at the stats we were still well on top (unless I hear otherwise) so should still have been able to win without needing the penalties.

Botman can at least feel better having seen Bruno's attempt. At least Sven was on target. Our first three pens were great though, and that's where it was won combined with Pope making a nice save on their first.

Well at least now we won't have to pretend we're happy about being eliminated from the cup so we don't have it as a distraction.

Totally, though it would be horrendous to get rid of Howe for anyone. You can tell how well respected Howe is by other managers, including Pep, through their comments and body language, which is in stark contrast to Bruce before him where their pleasant platitudes were as empty as Steve's crisp packets. I'm looking forward to seeing how Howe reacts to the inevitable challenges we will face as the season progresses; cup team selections, injuries, switch up tactics mid-game and the pressure that will come from being where we are on the table.

I get what you saying but what do you expect? He does what I expect of a manager in such a situation but does it well by listening to the questions and answering them honestly without giving away too many specifics. It's not like he doesn't say anything, he frequently comments on how well he thinks we played in games regardless of the results, and what we need to work on. I believe that his comments about taking it a game at a time, although cliched, are so for the reason that that is absolutely what you have to do. He doesn't get drawn into speculation or mid-long term commentary which again is appropriate. Sure it might mean there are no grand media grabs, nor potential banana peels but that's not exactly a bad problem to have in my book. Of course he will be different behind the scenes, but I wouldn't call it a front, just his media persona. I'm glad we don't have a raving lunatic who pretends to be your best friend until you ask a question they don't like, or someone who blames everyone else, or holds a grudge, or is negative towards the players/ fans/media as all of them would just cause undue distraction. Here's here to manage the team not tickle the whimsy of reporters out to create a sensationalist headline.

I knew very little of Howe before, just that he had progressed Bournemouth steadily up the leagues over a lengthy management tenure there. Having heard and witnessed plenty of him and watching a lot of his press conferences you can see that he would have interviewed extremely well, and of course with his massive bollocks he was not phased by the relegation that we were staring down the barrel of. He could see beyond it, to the progression that we could make with the financial backing and intent to achieve that the new owners were bringing. It's been a match made in fucking heaven and you're right that he could well become a Newcastle legend in what will be an unprecedentedly short period of time.

If it wasn't for the TV broadcast times I think we would have got it. And also the corruption, mostly the corruption.

Watch them live, that way there's nothing to stop you watching them apart from your own will. It's worked well enough for me for the last 20 odd years.

Obviously, because what happens at Liverpool dictates the health of the sport in its entirety. If Liverpool were to disappear tomorrow the sport would effectively end for all intents and purposes (and for all intensive porpoises too).

Burn has been caught out a few times with how long it takes him to change direction but otherwise he's defensively very good and almost guaranteed to win any headers against wide forwards. He's also actually not bad with the ball at his feet, surprised me on a few occassions, though it always feels risky when he pushes high. My explanation is two fold, he's known to be a great leader so brings that attitude onto the pitch in every game (his urgency has saved our bacon multiple times and only cost us in that game against Everton last season where he was CB) and secondly he's bloody huge so has a massive role to play both in our attacking and defending of set pieces. Howe will keep playing him whilst we don't pay for those occassional moments where he's not as agile as a smaller player is, but at the same time I do believe that he does have full faith in Targett being able to do the job there too when the time comes. Finally what a shocking time to be only able to catch our highlights. What's going on in NZ that you can't watch the entire games?

Unfortunately they're geoblocked for me, I saw the first one he scored which was not amazing. Always liked him as a player though he's slow and uses his arms a lot when defending. Lasting memory will of course be the two goals he scored in added time against Everton to earn the draw in a game that we were otherwise atrociously bad in.

To be fair to you it's possible Fraser is going to the World Cup to be inside that La'eeb headdress ghost sting-ray mascot thing that they refuse to identify.

MOTM Florien Lejeune. Not really, I have no idea, just know that he started.

They'll love playing in Sports Direct Rich Energy Stadium with Wolf Data Systems and House of Fraser proudly emblazoned on their Donnay strip.