midds

Last minute winner written aaaal ower this one.

Not another og is it? Great finish to keep it down.

It's alright, I'm sure Carr has been given the green light to go out and buy a top-notch tricky winger to take his place in the first team. After all, the needs of the squad are the most important thing and genuine investment in January will be forthcoming.

Comfortable away win.

BOOM! Been waiting for that one to go off for a day or so.

Obvious bait is obvious.

Seen a few Newcastle fans slagging off Villa's crowds. This attitude of 'our attendances are better than yours' has to change in English football if fans want any power back. It was fine when games were £2 on the gate but not now, supporters deserve to see something back from their money, some sort of accountability for poor performance. This attitude of turning up out of 'loyalty' is just giving people like Lerner and Ashley licence to take the piss. At a certain point around 1992, the relationship stopped being "club and supporters" and became "club and customers". We stopped being an integral part of the clubs, it became a business relationship, and that meant them treating us no different to the way M&S treat their shoppers. This whole thing was entirely of their making. if people don't turn up week in week out to watch a load of offensive shit, then that's a direct result of them changing the relationship, with all the enormous price inflation that meant. They can't have it both ways. Newcastle's gate income for 2013 was circa £28m. The increase in the new tv deal was worth approximately the same, so in effect the club could play in an empty stadium and, financially, be no worse off than the previous year due to the hike in tv cash. In the past the fans mattered because a club couldn't run without the cash on the gate. If your gates crashed and fans boycotted for whatever reason the chairmen had to act or they couldn't pay the bills. Fans mattered, their opinions and feelings mattered. Now that Sky pump in billions the folk who continue to turn up week after week don't matter any more. If gates dropped by 50% then the net effect is negligible to the accounts, the clubs can get by quite happily treating the loyal fans like shit because the chairmen are not totally reliant on gate income any more. Cunts like Ashley and Lerner can get away with it because the game's fundamentally changed. It's barely a sport any more it's just an exercise in making money. Fuck it.

MotM

Bang. Been coming.

Ref's lost it here.

Would be astonished if we go anything close to £16m for him like.

Classic display of the benefits of loaning out young players then integrating them into the first team. He's clearly come on a lot out in Greece, gained a bit of confidence and played really, really well today. This is how the system should be used and the club have got it right for once. Always maintained we've got a good set of players in the squad and it's only now that the useless fucker has managed to get them organised.

This is classic Pardew. Reverting to type.

...but Ashley....

Chats like an absolute spacker. Fuck's sake.

I'm just pleased we've got a few young lads who could be worth a lot of money in the next few years. That's the main thing. Phew.

Not to the naked eye though.

Fairly extreme innit? Don't think is tbh mate. Most players are bought by other clubs because they fill a specific role in the team and they'll add more attributes to the squad. We buy with the sole intention of seeing their value increase so we can move them on at a (large) profit. The contribution they make to the team is pretty much irrelevant. It's not "what can this lad add to the team?" it's more "how much could this lad be worth in a years time?", the priorities are wrong and that's why the majority of results and performances have been so horrendous for the last 2 years. The needs of the team come a very poor third to making/saving money and promoting Sports Direct and it fucking stinks.

Only a matter of time before we start hearing about how highly rated he is and how difficult it's going to be to keep him etc. The only reason we buy players like him is the hope he bursts onto the scene and turns the heads of City, Chelsea et al. He's not being bought for the benefit of the football team as such, he's been bought to make money for the club imo.

I would happily accept ten more years of Pardew in exchange for a trophy That would take me up to 48. 10 years is a fucking long time for a (poxy) League Cup tbh. Not happening anyway. Beat Spurs and you've got chelsea, Liverpool or Soton over 2 legs and then a final against another one of them at Wembley. We did well tonight, no arguments, but it doesn't even begin to paper over the cracks we'e all seen over the last 2 years.

Liverpool away.

All I've wanted is for the manager, whoever he is, to get this squad playing and playing well. The last 90 games or so have proved to me that Pardew simply isn't capable of doing that on a consistent basis but he does have a canny knack of getting little purple patches of form/results and we're in one of those right now. He deserves credit for getting good results and performances but also deserves criticism for the abysmal runs we've all seen recently too. Tonight was a good one, he's got to be given some credit for it and I'm fine with that. The last 10 days doesn't alter my opinion of him as a manager though, he's still awful and I still want him gone asap but he does deserve a bit of credit for these 3 results. Fair play.