Wullie

Boro free kick from yesterday: Assume both their centre halves had gone off by this point or they'd surely have humped it to the back post.

Good shout, had it with Ajax (won), Lillestrom (later) and Arsenal/Man City BBTS/>2.5 at 30/1, so just need Lillestrom and a City goal.

Dunno like, I quite enjoy looking at Colback opium sweats.

Well, does the water go down any quicker? Laughed too much at this.

Dull as fucking dishwater.

God knows.

The bench.

Piss off.

Bellamy was way more effective, for sure and for a period he was probably our most important player. Dyer had similar problems to HBA I guess. But then neither of them has/had the status Ben Arfa seem to have amongst Newcastle supporters, despite doing way more for the team (Bellamy). That's simply not true. Ben Arfa is moreso because it's ongoing and not ten years ago. Bellamy was absolutely worshipped amongst those who could see what he was worth on the field and it upset me for years afterwards seeing him play for others. I was very much in the Bellamy camp but there was a sizeable proportion of Newcastle fans who backed Souness 100%, and offered some of the exact same arguments - bad attitude, nobody likes him etc. Morons then and morons now.

Wasn't as good as some as Gouffran's passes back to Coloccini last season. Wow. That boy can play.

Alan Oliver is exactly the sort of fan that Ste will have been talking about when he said those outside the forum didn't rate Ben Arfa. Useless thick bastards. It's like when you listen to 606 after any England game, about 80% of the callers will say that the main problem is that players/manager don't have enough passion. As a football public we love it here, passion, work-rate, get stuck in. It's best to work from a starting point that most people know fuck all about football imo, rather than taking a majority view and assuming that has any merit.

We have no idea about what's going on behind the scenes. It's been reported that Ben Arfa isn't very well liked within the squad for starters. I'm not saying that this isn't Pardew's fault, but I don't think Ben Arfa is as innocent as some might think. "Within the squad" is a fairly sweeping statement. If Dan Gosling and Rob Elliott didn't/don't like him, who gives a flying fuck? There doesn't appear to be a problem between him and the French lads, who, let's face it, are probably just about the majority. I'd bet any money you like that there's more within the squad who dislike the manager than dislike HBA. Also, there's people that we all work with that nobody likes, you've just got to fucking get on with it, you can't just ask the boss to tell them not to come in. This is meant to be the manager being professional and HBA being unprofessional is it?

The majority (at times) used to think the same about Laurent Robert. Suspect it's mainly the same clueless fuckwits this time round.

Pretty sure they were worth about 35p.

Agree with this. Pardew deserves stick for loads but a good Pro would have knuckled down and proved his manager wrong. Proved him wrong in what sense? I don't see how that could have been possible. He'd have to change his game entirely (and become Gouffran/Jonas) to ever be a permanent presence in that man's team. When it's 1-0 and we're defending a lead at home to Norwich, Ben Arfa is persona non grata.

Apparently not, sure I'd heard that somewhere. God knows what he's doing.

Think they released Ruiz.

Whilst I disagree wholeheartedly, it's not just the football aspect of Alan Pardew I have a problem with, it's his total lack of respect for the football club, its supporters, its history. Unlike the rest of the managers in the division, he has absolutely no interest in the club being at all successful or even interesting. He's a leech, hanging onto a once great institution to feed his own ego whilst bringing it down to his level so that he can remain employed. That's why I can't support the team whilst he's in charge. In short, he's a cunt.

Some knacker: Where's that from, Facebook?

Wonder what sort of reception they'll get at the City Ground. None too welcoming I should imagine.

"Our team, Team X, have for too long relied on high balls into the box and set pieces, with very little pace and movement up front and we need to change. It is for this reason that I would sign Andy Carroll."

Except that fact does fuel a lot of the invective. Aye, Shay Given, Paul Bracewell and Barry Venison all used to get the same. Don't talk bollocks. Thanks for your valuable insight into our local rivalry. Opposition to him, from page 1 in this thread, has routinely been about him being a Mackem and his antics after scoring against us, as if what he did was some crime against humanity. You yourself have called him a "Geordie traitor" or something to that effect at least a couple times in this thread. It's small-time and petty. There wouldn't be nearly as much opposition to him as a Newcastle player had he not played for Sunderland. He'd just be a totally inoffensive, boring player we signed on a free. Eh? Of course the opposition is about what he did after scoring, and generally being a complete cunt to our supporters every time his new manager has let them walk all over us. That's very different to just playing for them. If you say so. I'm not at all convinced. And even if that is the case, it's still petty. Being petty over these rivalries is what being a football fan is all about, no matter who you support. Arsenal fans wouldn't dream of putting up with an Arsenal fan who had previously mocked them wearing a Spurs shirt. Bayern Munich fans campaigned fervently against Manuel Neuer's purchase because he had played for Schalke and mocked Oliver Kahn, and some still maintain that he is not allowed to approach a certain area of the ground as part of their demands for putting up with him. This is football in Europe and it's not changing any time soon.

Except that fact does fuel a lot of the invective. Aye, Shay Given, Paul Bracewell and Barry Venison all used to get the same. Don't talk bollocks. Thanks for your valuable insight into our local rivalry. Opposition to him, from page 1 in this thread, has routinely been about him being a Mackem and his antics after scoring against us, as if what he did was some crime against humanity. You yourself have called him a "Geordie traitor" or something to that effect at least a couple times in this thread. It's small-time and petty. There wouldn't be nearly as much opposition to him as a Newcastle player had he not played for Sunderland. He'd just be a totally inoffensive, boring player we signed on a free. Eh? Of course the opposition is about what he did after scoring, and generally being a complete cunt to our supporters every time his new manager has let them walk all over us. That's very different to just playing for them.

Except that fact does fuel a lot of the invective. Aye, Shay Given, Paul Bracewell and Barry Venison all used to get the same. Don't talk bollocks. Thanks for your valuable insight into our local rivalry.