Benwell Lad

Just imagine what's on offer from a team who qualified for Europe with a negative goal difference and bottom three xg stat

Osula's goal vs Man U deserves it's landslide, it was an amazing effort and to seal an unlikely last minute win win with ten men gave it all the drama and emotion too. Some absolutely brilliant goals amongst the others too mind.

See Fickle Teddy Mackem has been back on

As soon as he arrived, even though his debut was a disappointing result, it was so obvious that Trippier had the type of quality and presence we hadn't seen in a while and along with Bruno became the main reason we escaped almost certain relegation. Also provided the assist for my favourite Newcastle goal of all time. Legend.

Possibly the shittest pre season friendly ever for a whole bunch of reasons.

Interesting because I've heard he was well liked and down to earth. Just shows how it can be

Supporting Gateshead must be about as depressing as it gets as a football fan. Got to admire those who follow them through thin and thin.

Losing our most effective attacking player in the opposition half for a second year running carries the obvious big risks. I'm sure someone knows what they're doing but it wasn't addressed properly last time, mainly due to the protracted nature of things and the constraints on time it led to, of course. We absolutely have to get it right this time, our summer recruitment has to be bang on.

You really couldn't go a full season without a red card or conceding a penalty in today's PL even if you were the most flowing, perfect, total football team ever. Doing it with Arsenal's grappling, aggressive style and a manager who plays as a winger most games is, well, nigh on impossible. I'd struggle to give a fuck about who wins the league if it's not Newcastle or some other underdog, but I get the feeling their victory is pretty universally despised.

Yeah probably but that's quite different to the statement I was replying to, which was " it's completely ruined the experience for match going fans and even those watching on the telly". Personally I'd rather go to a game with a 3pm Saturday kick off and VAR than a Wednesday 20.15 kick off without VAR if we're talking about making the football experience worse

Probably because the latter have the advantage of multiple replays and angles, versus a real time split second decision.and so should always get it right even if they sometimes fail to do so even with that advantage.

Fair enough, but at the games I've been at goals are still celebrated properly even if VAR is in the back of our minds. If as you say " it's completely ruined the experience for match going fans and even those watching on the telly" I still don't know anyone who's stopped going or watching because VAR is in operation.

As always it's really about the money, or PL clubs losing or gaining business changing amounts because of a wrong decision. Early cup rounds and Championship football downwards just don't those huge amounts hanging over them, or no doubt they'd have VAR too.

That's a tad melodramatic, it hasn't "ruined" the game. It needs to be used more competently for sure. There need to be clear lines so referees and linesmen actually referee games and don't rely on VAR, but it intervenes in the case of clear and obvious mistakes. Pretty much as it was intended to be really. Perhaps the game needs specialist VAR officials, rather than regular PGMOL referees, who won't feel uncomfortable overruling one of their mates. Some of the worst fuck ups have been when it's obvious neither VAR nor the referee want to make a tough decision. Overall though, VAR gets it right the vast majority of times and there are less errors than without it.

VAR though far from perfect has to stay now. A lot of "populism" from usual suspects screaming for an end to it. Thing is, everything is going to be so analysed and TV judged from now on, it will be like VAR still but without the ability to intervene or change a decision. I.E. there will be a lot more wrong decisions without VAR than with it. VAR needs to be worked on and improved not binned off because the people administering it are incompetent.