OTF

The most likely event preceding a sale of NUFC is the failing of Sports Direct. If that happens Ashley will want cash in a hurry and it removes the reciprocal benefit to him through free advertising. In the meantime I'm not bothered by us being relegated, principally because if we stay up it's an endorsement of the way Ashley is running the club because that is all he's interested in. Controlling the purse strings as tightly as possible whilst maintaining premier league status. If you support Bruce and the club in a traditional sense at this stage you too are passively endorsing the way the club is being run.

It'd be subconsciously difficult not to slip every now and then when everyone else involved in commentary or analysis does it. As much as it's annoying and disrespectful there's legitimate reason for it with Manchester having two premier league teams that are obviously discussed endlessly by the media, so it makes sense that the shorthand versions 'City' and 'United' are so widely used. When they refer to Newcastle on the odd occassion it's obvious who they're talking about. It used to irk me also, but in my advancing age I've let it go. Also, I'm not suggesting you don't know this, just spelling out my reasons for no longer letting it bother me too much.

Turns out I did want us to win after all. Very enjoyable that, even though they were terrible.

Beautiful goal, he's had an amazing game.

Looking a good shout at this stage.

Schar conceded a free kick by being elbowed in the face, inside their box.

Aye, VAR had a look as well, just to humour us.

ASM, highlights already.

Excellent, Michael Owen in the studio. The host on the cutaway to an ad break just said "Newcastle looking to get a second win over Bruce". Thought it was a mistake at first but he's actually spot on.

Says it all that the new manager already realises that his best tactic is to attempt to revive the tactics of the previous manager. Quite how he will do that will his obvious lack of tactical nous is the question. More likely it's so he can somehow blame Rafa when we inevitably lose.

Hope Dutts can rise to the occasion. Normally I'd be right up for us playing this lot at home in the form they're in, but form is largely irrelevant when you're playing us, and I'm still on the "it's better for the club if we lose" tract anyway. So, like the last match I'm just hoping I get something entertaining again.

Even with the result I much preferred watching the Leicester game.

Lascelles was having a lengthy discussion with Perez after the game, with his hand over his mouth so cameras couldn't pick up what he was saying. Perez didn't bother to cover his mouth.

It was certainly more entertaining than our last match. It is wrong that I almost enjoyed this result?

I can't see, but am ready to be proved wrong, how this can be worse than our last match regardless of the final score.

Shots of empty seats were the only highlight.

An actual fox would have done it. HOST: "Michael, I'll start with you, as a former Newcastle player what would you make of that negative approach?" Michael Owen: "Well, it was negative"

At what stage will they bring out the curtain and put us down?

With no chance of parole.

It's hard to imagine 11 professional football players looking less cohesive. That said with Bruce at the helm we may not need to imagine. Something to look forward to....

Absolutely, we're terrible.

We'll all remember where we were and what we were doing on the night Andy Carroll made the bench at St James' against Brighton.

S. Taylor Love your posts Diego, I hope to visit St James one day, hopefully when Ashley is just a dark memory. Closest I've been is watching them play a pre-season game in NZ where I got to see Steven Taylor's pearly whites up close and personal. He must have liked it there.

Watford were terrible and yet we didn't win. No point in arguing over your interpretations of games under Rafa. You could cherry pick loads of games where the performances were subjectively worse but this would have been a match that Rafa targeted for 3 points. Bruce did as well, of course. I'd say in terms of personnel played it was fine, it was the players that didn't perform and win the game.

Perez was rubbish and Rafa's tactics too negative.