Wullie

This will not be the name of the stadium for the games so surely it shouldn't be used in this article?? That won't stop the BBC in their quest to get Mike Ashley's adverts in as many football articles as possible. Good result for West Ham at Upton Park this weekend though, wherever that is.

If I was a Senegal fan, I'd be fuming tbh.

Makes a big difference to them when either Lennon or Bale is out because it generally gives teams the opportunity to double up on the other one. I'm not holding out much hope, a point would be an amazing result.

I'm well happy with my half Newcastle, half Villa scarf I got yesterday, so fuck yous all.

The FA never retrospectively review incidents of serious foul play.

Looking forward to tomorrow. COYS.

Long ball is exactly what Villa's cavemen at centre half will hope to be up against.

Crazy not to put someone up against with Warnock, Ben Arfa should be in there for sure. At least there's no Obertan.

I thought you had a season ticket Yorkie, did I make that up?

Not like Mike Dean to bottle a decision.

Mark Douglas.

Its 8 isn't it. Not if this stays as it is.

Fuck's sake, only six points behind us now, fucking scumbags.

If I hadn't seen such riches, I could live with being poor.

He is.

Is Kamara changing his hat every time? Definitely different between those two reports.

How, out of interest? Because 99% of the time it's absolutely harmless and just handbags. Unless somebody's been chinned I don't see any justification for it. It causes danger to nobody and it doesn't affect the game negatively in the same way a cynical tackle to stop an attack might. Yellow card offence, let's stop being such a bunch of tarts. Just a disclaimer, i'm all for getting rid of nancyness in football. However, i don't think there's ever a justifiable reason to raise your hand to another player's face. I don't think it's very sporting and a sending off is a fair punishment. Rules like that are in play to prevent mass brawls, which do happen from time to time, which are very ugly and disrupt the flow of the game. There's nothing more likely to get a crowd of players involved than a hand to the face. That being said: I don't agree at all, I think players are far more likely to go in for a mass brawl if they think somebody's put one of their colleagues in real danger with a bad tackle rather than someone giving another player's cheeks a squeeze. Players trying to cheat is another spark, as we saw the other night with Ryan Taylor. Someone mentioned Nicky Butt and David Batty the other day, having each other by the throat in the 5-0. Both would have been sent off today and to what end? I don't see how that rule is good for the game at all. Grown men sometimes do daft stuff in the heat of the moment, the FA need to get over that and hand the decision back to the refs. Such hypocrisy is spoken about it imo. Example - Gervinho gives Joey Barton a little push in the face, Barton goes down - general reaction "It's a red card but Barton's no need to go down, he's hardly been touched" - then how the fuck is it worthy of a red card and a three game ban if he's hardly touched him?? I totally agree with the point that if you do it, you deserve to go for stupidity because you know the rule - but the rule is wrong. Stupidity's not enough to justify three game bans when you can do a Solskjaer, kick someone's legs out from under them when they're through on goal in the last second... and get one game.

How, out of interest? Because 99% of the time it's absolutely harmless and just handbags. Unless somebody's been chinned I don't see any justification for it. It causes danger to nobody and it doesn't affect the game negatively in the same way a cynical tackle to stop an attack might. Yellow card offence, let's stop being such a bunch of tarts.

Absolutely ridiculous red card for Huth. The FA need to get a grip of their tackling rules. Pisses me off even more that it's Martin Atkinson. Fucking mug.

The "raise your hands" rule is absolutely ridiculous imo.

One of the really great tragedies about the way the modern game has gone is the way it has affected the World Cup, and the Euros for that matter. There's no mystery about it anymore because you know all those players better than ones in your own division sometimes and I think that's the reason I have a hard time differentiating one tournament from another in my memory, especially the very recent ones.

Getting up at dawn on a Saturday to watch Transworld Sport on Channel 4 for five minutes worth of highlights from the MLS or the fucking Uruguayan league amongst an hour of bloody cycling and skiing. Every week I'd think "Jesus not much football this week" and every week I'd get up. At least Football Italia was on after it.

I used to like doing the Bamboozle sports quiz on C4 text with the Reveal button.

Flair players simply do not play well every single week, it's the nature of the beast. Messi is the exception, not the rule. David Silva's been shit for weeks incidentally. I can feel all the old annoyance coming back, arguing with people who were happy to see Robert benched and Bowyer on the left because he ran around a bit. Don't get me wrong, I'd watch Newcastle no matter what league we were in but when we're in the Premier League and especially now, near the top end of it, I expect us to try and get the best out of the most talented at our disposal because that's the way to compete. I really think we can make the Champions League this year if we play our cards right and we won't push our way ahead of outfits like Chelsea and Arsenal, however flawed they may be, with graft alone.