80

How the fuck Trippier was first in the book I do not know.

Weird to feel as I do about this result. Think my brain has been heavily recalibrated over the past few months It was bound to happen eventually. Move on and respond like champions.

To me, they're the definition of a team we should be playing. Like, I can't stand Everton and hope they go down, but with all due respect to Bournemouth and co. they're the kind of team who in the long run should be up there and winding us up. It'd get boring otherwise.

Surely Hayden would have something to say about that...

I don't think it's possible to go over the top with him. He's put in one of the greatest managerial 12 months in footballing history, no exaggeration. Not claiming he's one of the greats yet, but what's been done so far has been profoundly exceptional.

It is, and always will be, difficult to compare Woodgate and Botman because Botman has the advantage of playing in a far better structured defending unit alongside better defenders. It's not the fault of either of them, and you could argue that Woodgate was made to look more herculean due to how dire the alternates around him were. But all the same, he was utterly brilliant and raised the whole team WHEN he was playing. Botman hasn't had that challenge, yet (thankfully).

I assume it'll be in the eventual fan cam.

I think the wider media really can't get it's head around how mean our defense is. It's not what Newcastle are supposed to do, therefore it can't be happening. This many cleansheets, you'd expect to hear it remarked upon more.

Adjusted above. Second verse: With a Nick Pope here And a Botman there Sean Longstaff, Big Dan Burn, everywhere Fabien Schär

He's basically playing a game of FIFA with Almiron under his control.

People talking about Trippier potentially being a good manager, I think Bruno possibly could be great as he has the obsessive nature that seems to be necessary nowadays.

His reaction to his tackle towards the end of the game said it all about him. Not just an ordinary player.

Didn't rate his performance as highly as some today, but here's a thing - as much as we worry every time both our tippy top forwards are out injured, which has been a lot, we've still come away with results on every occasion. It can't be a total coincidence and we should probably stop worrying quite as much...

Really big goal for him given the break. He's not going away...

Looked like he's back to his old self after that (by his own standards) mini wobble

Proper soldier.

Running the show again, as usual.

Had thought he'd already hit the extension... Unless it's based on games started rather than sub appearances. This latest injury does pretty much put the writing on the wall for him though.

Deserves a large chunk of credit for the own goal last night as he literally barged the defender into heading 'on' target. Not a foul as the reverse scenario is considered good defending...

There's maybe an argument that Potter would be smart to make the leap now if he doesn't like the way things at Chelsea are smelling. Him getting drummed out in the next 12 months plus a bit of bad luck could kill his career.

That's a valid argument. I was thinking more about building for the long term, but if it's a case of football needing immediate results to help fight for having a longer term future, that makes more sense to be fair.

I'll feel relieved when he gets off the plane...

Didn't see the match. Imagine he's absolutely gutted. Pleased he didn't get any on him re: penalties etc. It was the first thing I went to check. Can imagine he'll be fired up as hell for us, and agree he'll probably need a bit of calming down and decompression if anything. Just doing the simple things for us for a little bit will be absolutely fine.

I'd see it as being more about long term squad development, with a view to future tournaments. It's him that chose to take a 17 year old with barely any club appearances to a world cup after all, so I'd imagine he'd be on board with that idea. Unless he thought this was the year Australia was going to win the world cup?

Yeah, it's a fair enough call. I would've just been trying to wiggle it so that he came on for the bare minimum of remaining time e.g. 30 secs.