PaddockLad

My in-laws bought the hardback for me for Christmas....might have to get the kindle version to read it though

Jo Swinson new leader of the Lib Dem’s. Would.

Looking forward to next week’s coronation of “Bozzymandias, king of kings” (stolen from this week’s Marina Hyde column 👍)

This summer's most predictable deal. Kill me now

@Ant @sammynb https://consequenceofsound.net/2019/07/beastie-boys-pauls-boutique-remixes-b-sides/. 👀

Jarrod Bowen would appear to be the championship winger we’re in for. Plays for Hull City. Wonder how he came to the club’s attention?

We’ve done it before for a one off game to great affect but this was a league cup game... http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/league_cup/7626827.stm

https://www.football365.com/news/lets-stop-pretending-arsenal-and-man-utd-are-shambolic

Think this is a parody....might not be though https://richardajkeys.com/index.php/blog/212-why-steve-bruce-was-right-to-take-newcastle

What in the name of holy fuck were they doing out on the piss in Morpeth?

He’s not giving Bruce 90million. Bruce will be given some players that Rafa wouldn’t have accepted in a month of fuckin Sundays

I was at both games. Still scarred. Sam set us up for a draw home & away. Wasn't as bad as Wigan away on Boxing day that season though. Wasn't going back after that. Then He got the sack

Newcastle United, summer 2019:

Absolutely. Rafa was offered that Tosun who bisto tits wasted 25 million on at Everton but passed. Am sure he’ll be proved right on this caper too.

You could buy almost 3 Rondons for that

George Caulkin: In February last year, I was asked to write a piece about Aston Villa. They were second in the Sky Bet Championship and so the time seemed right to appraise how they’d got there and their readiness or otherwise to return to the Premier League. Speak to people in and around the club, I was told, gauge the mood, reflect the atmosphere. Perhaps I could give Steve Bruce a ring; after all, I’d known him for a long time. That last bit, though, was not on the agenda. Joe, Bruce’s dad, had just died and Sheenagh, his mother, was in hospital with a serious illness (from which she never recovered), and Villa’s manager was reeling, juggling his work with thrice-weekly trips up the motorway from his home in Cheshire back to Tyneside, where he was born and his parents still lived. In those circumstances, pushing for an interview would not have felt appropriate. So I talked to a couple of fans, arranged a chat with a member of Villa’s coaching staff and decided to drive to Birmingham, to stroll around Villa Park and to pop in to Bruce’s regular pre-match conference. I sent him a text as a courtesy, just to let him know I’d be there. Within 30 seconds, he rang. “Why are you coming all the way down here, son?” he asked, even though he was in the middle of the same journey. “Save yourself the bother. What do you need?” By the time the article appeared in the paper, it was no longer about Aston Villa. Bruce spoke searingly about “the horrible pain in the stomach that grief gives you,” his sense of “powerlessness.” Towards the end, Joe would often ask his son why he still put himself through the wringer of management. “It was his way of saying, ‘What are you doing, Steve? Are you mad?’” Bruce said. “We all ask that question of ourselves sometimes.” Perhaps this is not much of an anecdote but, in my experience, it is a small illustration of the kind of man Bruce is; considerate, helpful and fundamentally decent. None of which are qualifications to manage Newcastle United, although that is precisely the point. The people who say that Bruce is not good enough for Newcastle have got it all wrong; he is too good. Way too good for Mike Ashley’s works team. There are two reasons why Bruce, who has signed a three-year contract as head coach, should not be within a million miles of the job at St James’ Park. The first is that if Newcastle had even a modicum of ambition then Rafa Benítez would still be in the role, but after having the wit to appoint a manager who could still see the club in terms of potential and stature, they failed to understand what it entailed. That to improve means investment, imagination, speed of thought. After Benítez, almost any manager would represent a step down, but he was the exception at Newcastle not the rule. Take the Spaniard out of it and Bruce is following Alan Pardew and Steve McClaren, all English, all experienced, all greeted with either bemusement or hostility. In both emotional and footballing terms, Benítez held the club together, keeping them in the Premier League and giving supporters a reason to believe. That glue has dissolved. And so the second reason is more personal. Ashley’s Newcastle chews good people up; Benitez, Chris Hughton, Alan Shearer, Kevin Keegan. If anyone thinks it will be different with Bruce ... well, the last 12 years provides compelling, distressing precedent. At best, the club is unconventional and at worst it is dysfunctional, incapable of putting two good decisions together. Something always lurks around the corner. The mood is noxious. Newcastle have lost Benítez, Ayoze Pérez has been sold to Leicester City for £30 million, Salomón Rondón, so impressive on loan from West Bromwich Albion last season, is not returning and they are yet to sign a player. Plenty of supporters are jettisoning season tickets, others are campaigning for a boycott of Newcastle’s first home match of the season. This is not fertile territory for optimism. It will be said that Bruce knows what he is getting into, that by working for Ashley he is complicit with the regime, but nobody knows; not really. Benítez believed he was joining a club with designs on Europe, but is now working in China. McClaren believed he could change things; within months of his appointment, he and Paul Simpson, were given written warnings after the first-team coach spoke about transfers in public. Bruce will back himself and so he should. “This is my boyhood club and it was my dad’s club, so this is a very special moment for me and my family,” he said today. Sheffield Wednesday and their supporters have a right to feel bruised, particularly regarding the timing of Bruce’s arrival and departure, but the 58-year-old has a chance to go home, into the Premier League. Like all managers, he will look at the peril and reckon he can wrestle with it. New additions will arrive, belatedly. Newcastle have long been fixated on Joelinton, Hoffenheim’s Brazilian forward, who will cost around £36 million. They pressed the 22-year-old on Benítez, who demurred; he liked the player, but not at anything like that price and, if there was that much money available, why not let him spent it on his own choices? Who makes the recruitment decisions will be interesting. And what about the club’s ‘takeover?’ Where does that now stand? At this mute club that shuns responsibility, everything Bruce says will be dissected and thrown back at him. He will be a very different figurehead to Benítez and, initially at least, the atmosphere will be toxic. As nufc.com, the independent fans website, put it, “this is the very opposite of ambition, but an appointment that nicely mirrors our grubby, unloved, derided shell of a football club”. I wish Bruce luck and victories. And I wish he wasn’t there.

What a load of irrelevant bullshit PR drivel.

Did Sheff Weds not accept their resignations? I hope they take Ashley to the fuckin cleaners...

I smell large scale Hun infiltration of the away end, there was still 2000 tickets available last week Full disclosure: I'm going as we'd arranged to take my Hearts supporting brother and his family. It's becoming less and less appealing for obvious reasons and now it looks like we'll have the presence of Glasgows finest too

Loving how people who wouldn’t dream of going for a variety of reasons are the keenest to tell every other fucker what they should be doing

A lot of journos were reporting it last night. Why the fuck would Allardyce lie? It would be easy for any NE based reporter to confirm whether it was true or not. Rafa told them he was leaving in mid May. It’s now mid July. Sheff Weds have far more potential than NUFC under Ashley. Alex Bruce already getting abuse from mongs on Twitter. My money is on Bruce turning it down too. It’s Redfern in charge v Arsenal iyam.