J7

Worst of all worlds that. The best thing about it is Gallowgate and turning it into another Leazes would be poor. A new well designed ground would be far better than 3 sides of atmosphereless stands like the two we currently have.

Oh well. I can’t go and can’t watch it now, but sounds like I’m paying for it! 🤣

Ridiculous thread. If it was ‘all powerful head coach’ v ‘sporting director model’, then it would be better. I voted Mitchell based on that, but it’s no criticism of Howe. The OP is winding himself up.

There are huge question marks about Joelinton being a player good enough for the next step tbf. I’d have him in my starting 11 at the moment, but he’s hardly irreplaceable. He’s not had a good start to the season and was running around like a headless chicken yesterday. It’s hardly outrageous that a DoF may have thought we needed someone with more technical ability in there.

He was unbelievable for Bournemouth, but it still went stale at the end. We slapped them about and won 4-1 down there with Bruce as manager. I don’t want him to go, but what is happening at the time and the form is still pretty important when decisions are made on any manager.

True to a certain extent, but Tonali was on the bench and the front three were all recent signings and expensive. The performance should have been far better. Just accepting we will have some atrocious performances doesn’t cut it.

We’ve got numerous players we bought for £40m plus. We shouldnt be having many atrocious days.

Where’d you read this? Loony Toons Twitter?

He’s good too when fit. A goal every other game at PL level which is very good so don’t think the smiling comes into it. I agree he needs to be replaced, but let’s not go overboard. I’m pretty sure the ‘Newcastle faithful’ think we need someone in who plays more.

I don’t really like it either. Always thought our ground looked classy with the grey seating (granted it’s looking dated). Don’t generally like sponsors logos on seats in terms of how it looks, though quite happy if it’s bringing money in.

Of course it wasn’t fit for purpose. I’m amazed anyone is arguing it was. We were scrambling around embarrassing ourselves trying to offload players before the PSR deadline and ended up with a dud keeper nobody seems to want. I don’t even see that as a criticism of Howe, and it’s a pretty tame criticism of Ashworth too. It’s pointless going back to the survival season. It was ages ago now. You just need to look at last summer where we spent £80m on two players who weren’t starters at the time, and committed another £28m to another. It’s no criticism of those players either, I think all three are great, but that’s not point. There was clearly a plan to offload a big player, but little foresight on how the window would play out with everyone seemingly hamstrung and not able to spend the money we needed in on one player. There was even talk of disagreement between Ashworth and others in the club regarding the need to sell one of the big players. Some seem to be looking for an enemy here. There doesn’t need to be one. What I would say though, we’re going down the Sporting Director route, like it or not. The Saudis aren’t going to just give a manager the reigns to everything on the football side. It’s not the way most top clubs work and it was reported that it was the chairman who met with Mitchell and persuaded him himself. Losing two respected ones in a year would be farcical and would probably put off anyone decent being interested in it while Howe is there.

This was the team when we drew with Hull in the March. Harper, Steven Taylor, Coloccini, Bassong, Jose Enrique, Smith (Ryan Taylor 75), Butt, Geremi, Gutierrez, Owen (Ameobi 73), Martins. Horrendous tbf.

I can’t really remember who was all in it, but I remember having a midfield as we headed towards relegation which could barely move. Sure Butt and Smith were in there.

True. It even took a while to get Kelly ‘over the line’. Tosin dragged on, as did the boy who ended up at PSG. We were after Slob who went to Liverpool for a while. Even Gordon was linked 6 months before.

Some really wild takes here. People seem to be taking up arms and manning the barricades to protect Howe in some imaginary war they’ve invented. Theres barely anything controversial in that interview.

Surely that Eales job, not his.

Not much to disagree with to be honest. He’s one of the best in the business and needs to be allowed time to put everything in place. Still baffled by the end of the window though. It felt more like zero scouting network, never mind a poor one.

In an alternative universe, Bruno goes for £100m and Tosin comes in on a free. Then they have close to £200m to spend on the Bruno replacement, a right winger and whoever else they’d identified. Shopping in England is still a bit strange though.

I didn’t say anything like that.

It’s been an absolute disaster in my opinion. A total failure. From a club with momentum less than a year ago, we now look a shambles off the pitch. The whole Gordon/PSR affair clearly left a bitter taste in the squad, and we’ve shown our top players we aren’t as interested in competing as they were no doubt sold when joining. Its pointless trying to point the finger in one direction, but I cannot grasp the approach to a window where you need to improve in a number of areas, lumping all your money on one over priced target. We don’t have a good enough squad yet to do that. A few things to add while I’m greeting on. We had the 4th oldest team in the league last year. Done nothing to address that. And we have a number of players out of contract next year, some who really aren’t up to the standard of where we are or want to be in the league, who are going to have to get new contracts unless we go crazy in the market in the next two windows. The player turnover in the next two windows is going to have to be huge unless we’re planning on taking Burn, Krafth, Murphy, Miggy, Trippier, Schar, Lascelles and Wilson into 25/26, not to mention replacing whoever we have to sell to fund the rebuild of the squad. It wasn’t a transfer window to just waste.

Exactly.

The inquest should include how we couldn’t even get this one done when we clearly wanted him.

Yes, but not sure what relevance that has.

It’s a good article because people want it to be true. Hope and Downie had said differently.

Chalobah on loan with no obligation to buy is shit tbh. And why would Chelsea accept it when there’s more chance of us being around them the league than Palace?