Rich

I’m loving this first saga of the summer mind! Howay Aunty Joan, get yasel to the toon.

He’ll be grown out of it halfway through the season no doubt. I’ll get him the CL one when we win it.

Not with the Premier League printing lads, I’m not a fucking psychopath.

£127 for the full kid’s kit (9-10) with JOELINTON 7 on the back and the Premier League patch. What a time to be alive.

Ooof

I just can’t see how it can ever work without Howe being involved in the recruitment, which is backwards in itself when considering the traditional model. For him to have no say on bringing Mitchell in was ludicrous.

Howe’s doing the work regardless, though. It’s probably not the healthiest, but it’s how he wants to do things.

This would never, ever happen, regardless. It wouldn’t be allowed to no matter what approach we take. We’ve got an entire department of scouts and analysts working on transfer targets on a daily basis.

We’ve got dozens of people doing this on his behalf.

The fact Howe is incumbent and doing brilliantly clearly hasn’t helped, like. We don’t have to have a traditional DoF/Sporting Director just because it’s seen as the ‘done thing’. We might be able to bastardise the role somewhat to minimise friction with the first team side of things.

Thank you, kind sir.

It’s mainly just people who know a little bit about a few things and can talk a good a game, in my experience.

They’re essentially just project management professionals, who are easily some of the worst people going in the business world.

Mention Jamie Vardy one more time.

Well Eales is off as well, so hopefully that side of things improves.

Howe apparently got just 48 hours' notice of the hire being made, didn't he?

Strong argument to say that Joe Kinnear's been our best ever DoF?

Howe's never been in a stronger position than now. If he wasn't happy with Mitchell and wanted him gone, then good riddance.

Cheers pal, off you pop. These Directors of Fuck All seem to be reet melts.

I would like to see us try and take the piss, too, btw, but something is stopping us from doing so. I think we've shaken on something to get the takeover through, personally, but it could easily just be that it's not the way PIF wants to present itself to the wider world.

Nonsense to say anything other than it was a masterstroke from Wor Mandy at this stage, IMO. How could we have bettered a cup and a top-five finish? You're essentially talking about a title challenge and winning the FA Cup in addition to the League Cup.

Really good point. I do wonder if more and more teams just aren't giving us the chance to play the way we want, though, which plays into it as well?

@Paully, you do realise it's as simple as going to https://archive.ph and copy/pasting the link you just shared (https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6383179/2025/05/27/inside-story-newcastle-season/?source=user_shared_article) in the box, aye?

deed

https://archive.ph/IbOf1