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Form since Christmas has us knocking on the top 4... But like you say, a fresh season might have it's own teething problems. It took Robson nearly two years to crack the code and get us out of midtable, it shouldn't be forgotten.

Ambition? 7th. Target? Top half. Less than that? A bit of a pity on first sight, dependent on things like expenditure and luck. Relegation shouldn't be near consideration though. Plus an obligatory cup run - hopefully we'll have enough squad depth to do something there without screwing up our bread and butter. Might get us a place in Europe via the back door, so shouldn't be treated as frivolous.

It looked like we'd put some serious work into our attacking movement early doors yesterday. Pleasing to see. More to come, but it looked like we had some new ideas going forward.

I find myself wanting to say more negative things about him than positive. Not that I feel more negative than positive about him, it's just there's more to discuss on that side. It's partly about effective outcomes. The thing is, with our current squad capability at least, what are they supposed to do even if they do anticipate what he's going to attempt? Bearing in mind he's far from guaranteed to successfully skin all 3/4 players, it means half our team needs to drag itself out of position to support him and risk getting hit on a transition. It becomes a question of whether it's actually useful to beat 3 or 4, or better to beat 1 or 2, pass and move to receive a return - which is something the rest of our team as it stands could actually keep up with. Certainly. There was one point in the match where he nearly had his shirt ripped off his back, Dan Burn style, right in front of the referee and it was just ignored. There's a photo around of it. I was very interested in his start to the game. It was clear the team had put a lot of work into attacking movement since Spurs, and I think having him in a floating role was very effective, allowing double-ups with Fraser/Almiron etc. Made us much more of an unknown quantity for Wolves to defend against. For what it's worth, I also saw him 'trying' to fit in with various gameplans and not being his stereotypical self. He certainly didn't always succeed, but the effort should be recognised and appreciated. If he keeps trying to improve and be more cohesive, the club can keep trying with him. It's obvious he needs to be loved as a character and will respond far better to ambition for the future rather than criticism of the past. Re: Everton, I think we all need to forget that performance insofar as his outcomes (his actions multiplied by Everton's failures) were unreal. It's both unfair of us to hope for him to hit 'that kind of form' again, and naive for us to not realise the opposition played their part in that amazing display. TL;DR - He and we need to calm down. Sensible people know he has special qualities, but he doesn't need to continually prove that to his and our own detriment.

Don't know, but could try contacting the club?

To me, it's the same conversation as the penalty. According to the modern implementation of offside rule, it was offside so no complaints, but I think morally it (and VAR generally) is stupid and lessens the game.

Was pleased to see him in the side ahead of Manquillo last night. From what I've seen, he's more reliable as a defender and doesn't shirk anything. Obviously, not a superstar, but I had very low expectations for him and, like others have said, he's making a solid contribution to the team. Fair play to him.

That's it basically. The authorities have happily driven the game into the dirt for this sort of thing, so we either get dirty or get beat. I don't like it, and want it to be changed, but until it is, Wood played it right last night.

Imagine him playing with Bellamy. Ouch.

Makes total sense. But just from what I've heard about his mentality, the cup game in Brazil etc, I can see him being up for this in a big way and trying to drive us on in every way he can. There's only so much one man can do of course... Certainly expecting a tough fixture against them.

Somehow wouldn't be surprised to see him singlehandedly win the Wolves game. Literally drag us across the line.

True, though I've been checked out of the forum for a decade so I might have just gleefully ignored it all. I just like the idea of an Australian heading to bed and really needing to vent about a two week old football match before he could rest. Bearing in mind half the team totally shat themselves for the Everton goal, not just Burn (Manquillo, Joelinton and others from memory).

The team put too much pressure on themselves to win, bringing about the loss. Somehow they managed to go into the last 15 minutes feeling like they were the team urgently needing a goal to settle their season. It was Everton that should've been shitting themselves.

Which is why people really need to chill out a bit right now... The physical and mental legacy of him will be lingering around here still until at least our next preseason is done and dusted.

Strangest vendetta I've ever come across.

Simple as that. The club would lose serious credibility as an operation if it behaved in the way some apparently would have it.

Totally ridiculous watching how some go on, on both sides of the coin.

Agreed that they're not mutually exclusive, but the research itself is often driven by the need to be financially realisable and eye-catching enough to secure further funding. Often times the key is in playing with the definitions of words to make a small disorder widely applicable, and in making poorly founded extrapolations of findings to large sections of society. E.g. 13 million Brits counting on us adjusting the drawing of a seahorse's eyes. Anyway........ We're probably going to go severely off topic at this point...

Fair play for the proper response, I appreciate it. Re the banner's top edging, I think that's one of the worst parts of his design. It looks like a Fisher Price reproduction. I can negotiate the Newcastle font. There is too much clarity on the new seahorse faces, the eyes are creepy. The originals represent a design effect rather than a lack of clarity, I would say. The lion on the original is much smaller which explains the face, I don't mind the new lion design but it's outsized and unbalances the crest in my view. With respect, I think the 20% and 13 million figures are sophistry in the extreme. I certainly don't accept that even a quarter of a million people will have their lives improved by his crest version replacing the current one. And on that basis, how many people with ASD will be distressed by changes to the aesthetics? I'm not even fully joking. Advocacy industry mathematics are usually riddled with deception, unfortunately. I recall these were the same arguments given 10-20 years ago over why we should ditch our stripes, at least on the back of our shirts, in order to improve appearances and legibility for TV cameras etc. They were given short shrift at the time. Rather than being a lucky by-product, I think it's more a case of bottom line chasers grasping at positive sounding arguments to justify their real motivations and not especially caring how true they are. A bit like trying to drive the removal of physical money due to it's cost of handling and untraceable nature and claiming it's to improve hygiene.

It really seemed like the club was going out of its way to diminish itself and turn itself into the Alan Shearer appreciation society at the time. He was a 34 year old current player, ffs. Him outscoring Millburn was seen as a more important target than qualifying for Europe. It was a psychodrama.

Not being argumentative, I just genuinely don't get it. What is there that is hard to access on our current crest? If someone can't read 'Newcastle United' on the current crest, I'd say there's a 99% chance they can't read it on this guy's crest. And that's just a font, at the end of the day. Did you think the crest was a visual mess when you were 14? Why did no one spot what a mess it was in 1992? Why do all the lines need to share the same thickness and be less intricate? Who does that exclude? Again, I literally don't get it. I don't outright hate what he's done, for what it's worth. But where you see clean, I see sterile. Same thing, different emphasis. Previously, all the justifications I've heard for this have related to cost effectiveness of reproduction on marketing material, and ease of copywriting (yucky capitalism, Kid).

And I do think we can blame the decline of the club on it backing Shearer over Robson in their conflict...

No, the point is it was emblematic of the thinking that caused the decline of the club.

The original is much better than his effort. Not that I want it changed in the slightest, but if I did, I'd go for a more radical redo than his thing. I'm no expert in this stuff, but I don't understand why 'digital times' mean images need to be less detailed and more homogenous. And fuck it, if we're going to be the richest club in the world, presumably we can afford to stand out from the pack and develop imagery around aesthetic ideals and luxury, rather than being pushed around by marketing budgets and design graduates. Re Shearer's, on one hand, I agree with @manorpark. Respect to the owners for trying to clean the club and restore it to better times. I think they're doing their best. That said, I never thought Shearer's should've existed in the first place. It was a huge sign of the club going in the wrong direction fast at the time, with Freddie Shepherd clinging on to selling a fading cult of personality alongside Graeme Souness rather than developing the fundamentals of the club as Robson had wanted to. It was the kind of thinking that brought us Michael Owen and proper football. In a roundabout way it was one of the things that set us up as marks for Mike Ashley to later target. December 2004. Bad memories.

He was handy in his prime, but so was Peter Beardsley and there was no argument for bringing him in from Hartlepool in 1999. You have to deal with the here and now. Gallacher was alright, but extremely meh as a signing. Worked hard, filled a gap, provided an ethos. Retired 54 appearances after signing for us, having played for 4 different clubs and scored a total of 5 goals in that time. Tells it's own story. 'A damn fine player at the top level at the time' - are you sure?