Benwell Lad

In a season and a league where he has been the stand out player he almost took it to another level yesterday. Imperious, 10 out of 10, and amazing work rate as well.

Yep, I refuse to buy in to it all. Crappy defences mean more opportunities for you to play the hero in goal, FFS Rob Elliot got the player of the year for us from some folks last year. Don't totally get it, obviously a decent young keeper but seems to be a bit flavour of the month hype going on. Pulls off an occasional worldie but also gets in poor positions and looks quite vulnerable on crosses. Don't want to get into blinkered mackemesque comparisons but I wouldn't swap him for KD, who looks a more reliable and well rounded keeper overall.

Has there ever been a more comprehensive win, whatever the margin, whatever the league ?

+7. Cool. Whatever division, as Swansea barely Championship standard themselves.

Like everyone I wish the kid and his family well and hope he can recover but this is just downright silly.

Shelvey rolls around holding his head decision goes the other way. That's how bad the officials were.

In the catalogue of corrupt/idiotic decisions last night this was the one which most illustrated the officials being totally out of their depth. The "tangle" was little more than that and will occur at some time in almost every game. Like you say he wasn't sent off because of a "kick" he was sent off because after the tangle the linesman saw Lansbury rolling around holding his head and thought "I've missed something so better pretend I've seen it". It was totally Lansbury's acting which led to the red card - without the acting it's not even noticed. If that in itself wasn't enough to show up the officials as basically non league standard then the award of the penalty that followed should be enough to send them back to their local Sunday leagues.

Its not a legal case which would require evidence to be beyond reasonable doubt, as its only an FA charge it will be balance of probabilities. However, should the FA rule against Shelvey, wouldn't he be in a position to take legal action against them if he maintains his innocence, considering it could impact on his career and future employment opportunities ? Could get messy for the FA unless they are sure it's "beyond reasonable doubt", even though they don't necessarily have to be.

He must post on RTG when he's not doing football management stuff.

On the surface it seems like fairly flimsy evidence, though of course no one really knows how credible the accusations and counter accusations really are. If that really is the case the FA may not wish to go down the road of finding him guilty as such a serious charge would stick and he could claim it would affect his career and future employment, and take civil proceedings. It could get messy for them at a time when they probably don't need extra workload. That said would a non guilty verdict obligate them to take action against the Wolves players ? Based on what we know so far I reckon it's 7/10 that he'll be getting off, though of course should the evidence supporting the allegations be more substantial than we are led to believe it could be different.

Got to remember the sort of people on these panels. It'll have taken 6 weeks to find out what Cous Cous was and they didn't know what a nonce was till this week. Probably a few things going on the back burner down at Lancaster Gate with Southgate and now "Youthcoachgate" to sort first. They haven't been based at Lancaster Gate for over a decade. Did they move to Lancashire? Should be helpful if so.

Got to remember the sort of people on these panels. It'll have taken 6 weeks to find out what Cous Cous was and they didn't know what a nonce was till this week. Probably a few things going on the back burner down at Lancaster Gate with Southgate and now "Youthcoachgate" to sort first.

Certainly won't be far off a sell-out. Although it looks like they're not bringing many as we've already put two of the 'away' blocks on sale. Would be surprised if Blackburn bought more than 1,000 - especially with their current troubles. Cant see anything other than a routine home win, 3-0 or 4-0. Not even going to bother predicting the team as Rafa knows best and it could literally be anything. Blackburn have sold 1,200. Got a 1,600 allocation I think. In fairness that's probably as many as the brought up when they were going for the Premier League.

Know what you mean but I think Rafa has one ultimate target and will be relentless in his pursuit of it.

Our resident ones on here are becoming a bit unbearable now like. Like Newcastle Online's own version of the Bullingdon Club, poking fun at the oiks and thinking using smileys actually makes them funny. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pseudo-intellectual

No doubt whatsoever that Rafa would have won the US presidential by a landslide whichever party he'd stood for.

They've looked like the worst team/squad for several seasons without going down, though this season they look worse than ever. Thing is, even the worst players can work on fitness and organisation and if their target is only 17th then it's achievable if you set up every game for a 0-0 and fans will tolerate season after season of watching the football equivalent of having pins stuck in their eyes. Boro do much the same, but do it better. The others like Hull, Burnley, Swansea etc seem more prepared to at least have a go and give it their best shot at playing football.

Wasn't Watmore a future England/Barcelona/50M player a year or so ago but now seems to be despised by most of them ?

Unsurprisingly goalkeepers tend to catch the eye in really shite teams.

Good chat with a (Spanish) Barca supporting friend who told me how unfairly he was treat at Real Madrid by both the club and the press and that it still continues with Rafa having been ridiculed on a couple of occasions recently. He said that Zidane gets away with stuff that Rafa wouldn't because he is seen as an establishment figure who toes the line, which is something Rafa would never be. Pretty much summed up that Madrid was the wrong place for him because he couldn't be his own man and he is now at the right kind of club.

Though fairly neutral on the Shields derby I'm glad North Shields won just because they're more of a real club than South Shields, who are the latest club in the league to have a sugar daddy trying to buy them success. That approach has never been sustainable in the long term and as teams go up the leagues and then start losing games the nouveau fans disappear just as quickly as they arrived.

They've always been the best when it comes to self congratulations and mutual back slapping. No doubting either that they were extremely loud less than a year ago when they were singing "Adam Johnson he shags who he wants" although that is probably being airbrushed from history right now.

It really wouldn't be. Northern league is typically about families, OAPs, kids, easy going atmospheres and rival fans and players all having a drink together post match. It's sad when anyone wants to "kick off" at a football match anywhere, but incredibly sad to do it at a minor league game where women and kids will be unable to avoid it.

That's definitely not coming back to bite us in the arse. Even by internet blog standards some of the articles on that site are truly appalling.

I think there may be some misunderstanding regarding the "attendance patter". Who really cares ? Most realise that the 2,000 or so who watch Crawley Town, for example, are as good and arguably more committed than the 50,000 who watch us. What makes it different with the mackems is that they obsess about attendances, particularly ours. They have threads about attendances, they constantly define and redefine imaginary geographic borders to show they are bigger than us and then in almost the same breath use those same "boundaries" as an excuse for their inferior crowds. They make ridiculous claims that all the red and whites they know go to games but the "mags" they know dont. Figure that out ? They constantly pat themselves on the back about having such great support when gate receipts prove that many are using free tickets. The holy grail of having a higher average than Newcastle never happens, even when we're a division below, and it drives many of them insane. Nah, I don't think anyone is really that bothered, but their sensitivity just makes it easy for us to turn it round and use it as another thing to rip the piss out of them about.