80

They all form a circle around him in training and throw bits of animal shit at him as a bonding exercise

It was tripe, man. If it were true he wouldn't even be on the bench.

I've thought that myself, but if so, then who is controlling things? I think I remember hearing Eddie say they pretty much leave it up to the kid to make a choice based on the offers that have been made. But that sounds so unprofessional I halfway discounted it, but maybe I shouldn't have.

Superficially, it's probably the biggest single question I have over the whole Dan Ashworth/Football side of the new ownership. I'd have thought they'd have wanted this area nailed down a long time ago already.

He definitely has/had exciting qualities but ultimately there are loads of interesting kids who don't make the cut for all kinds of reasons. Experiences, luck, injuries, and probably personality is the biggest one. There's probably a thousand English 33 year olds who could've had more of a top flight career than Dan Burn based on talent with a ball aged 18, but he's made it and they haven't.

That's why I'm gutted.

They created very similar moments to that, just without anyone performing the Gazza role, which was their downfall.

The one I've seen had them on approx 1.75 versus our 1.2. But whatever, as I say, I don't really like relying on it for arguments for reasons like the video clip I just posted. I'd say Fulham looked fine in the final third, it was the final tenth that was the problem. I agree we might've played for another hour without them scoring. But it doesn't mean that was purely a result of our good efforts, and on another day they could have converted several, in the same way it was freakish when we put 5 past Tottenham in 20 minutes

Is this a clear chance? Or not, considering it didn't register as a shot?

They didn't deserve to win because they couldn't shoot for toffee. But they were underperforming versus the opportunities they were creating. I don't obsess over xG, but they beat us on it tonight, and that won't be counting all the times they failed to apply the final touch. In contrast, almost everything we did - which wasn't much for the first 75 minutes - broke down outside their area, apart from the two we scored, one of which resulted from a lucky deflection.

They're all shots on goal, just not accurate ones

I can go along with most of that, but on balance of play I'd have to say they deserved the win. 3-1 to them would've been a perfectly understandable result. They had 2-3 shots on target, but it's deceiving if we ignore events like that shot they screwed wide towards the end when it looked easier to score. Defensively we weren't awful, we weren't collapsing at all, and I wouldn't call the rest of the performance awful either, but going back to how this started, honestly I expected to win and put in a much more convincing display tonight, and that was very far from the case.

Doesn't count mate.

They had 14 shots on goal? Not counting the fairly marginally offside goal and the ball whizzing across the face of our goal untouched by attackers or defenders several times. Maybe this is some strange new breed of defensive genius I'm not familiar with.

Being carved open is being carved open. This wasn't a steely, forbidding defensive display, it was a smash and grab, with unlikely goalscorers making up for our main attackers fumbling almost everything they touched.

Easily, with a proper striker.

It was more the dearth of alternatives. We were lucky to win tonight, they could have had 5. We got a lot more cute with our football at the end of the match, so hopefully it's boosted our confidence.

We're gonna have much bigger gaps between games for the rest of this season, so I'm hoping we've kicked that problem into the long grass for the time being

Surprisingly disappointing performance. When your goalie is a big candidate for man of the match in a win, there's a problem. No big issue with the subs though, apart from the Hall situation being weird. I expected and wanted us to put our best team tonight. I just thought the rest and prep would've delivered us more than spending most of the night penned in. Thank god Fulham were allergic to goals!

Maybe a little shot towards the board too? With a view to creating fan pressure over getting a deal done.

Are you thinking the Saudis have the money to suspend Leazes Terrace in the air, allowing it to remain in place while the Earth's natural rotation drifts it out of position towards Beamish?

Sun's setting on his career but there's no need to be jealous of Isak, and when Isak is due a rest, Wilson can light the way as the moon, and is happy to be at Newcastle. Obviously.

£7m on the second bid! Fucking clowns.

Pathetic...