macphisto

The New Era hats are pretty cool. Picked up a trucker cap and bucket hat at the weekend. The jacket felt quite big, normally a medium in everything and went for a size smash one in the the end.

It's what we'll be come May unless we spend big in January. It is what it is, next summer will tell us all what we need to know about the intentions of the club.

I find it so weird that people make the sound of booing. Sound like an idiot and something children do. Grumble, swear, moan (all natural sounds) but booing is so strange and unnatural.

That's what we are.

Who have they sold? Can we compare to them in terms of quality of players to move on? No idea about Villa but I don't see a lot of clubs lining up for our players. Hindsight is a wonderful thing but selling a few players after we finished 4th was the time to push on. Wilson and Willock would have been prime candidates but were they already injured by the end of that season?

There's plenty who are very average. Howe, nor any other manager, should be under pressure to be higher than we are as our team just isn't strong enough. Momentum has also stalled for two consecutive summers. 1) Tonali's ban at the beginning of last season. 2) This summer's transfer window.

It makes you think about the job Ashworth did for England. A long-term plan should have been in place with coaches embedded within Southgate's set-up and Under 21s.

We don't know the full story there. Maybe they were promised certain sponsorship deals that fell through. Personally, I think it was certain Bruno was going to be sold but at some point that changed. I remember reading an article (maybe a Q&A) in the Athletic, well before the summer, where they seemed certain Bruno would be off.

Hoddle from Chelsea? From memory he was doing a decent job as it was pre-Abramovich.

As the rules claim to be about financial sustainability, I find it crazy that the key metric is not external debt.

That is a huge presumption without a previous example in the past. Those regional sponsors, in the case of PSG and Man City, hugely inflated their deals as a way to boost growth to the point where the clubs did become organic. In the case of Newcastle now, we have two commercial partners from Saudi Arabia, they're hardly banging down the door to sponsor the club. @Jonas 100% agree with what you say but the initial growth isn't organic that's the point I was making, maybe cross wires.

100% and it's always been like that, certainly in the Premier League era and introduction of 4 Champions League places.

How do the current rules prevent organic growth?

You can't get to that level without a massive initial investment.

Will City's legal fees be counted in their FFP calculations??

Did we, who?

Also applies to RW not being feasible without shifting Almiron. This is why Howe is doing a great job, so many of our players are bang average, evidenced by the fact we can't find buyers.

Doesn't fully explain the difference but I wonder how much it has to do with the players at their clubs? An extreme example would be Son at Spurs who must have a huge Korean following online. Regarding Newcastle, it would be interesting to see what impact a modern day Asprilla or even Solano would have on our social media followers.

Just picked up the long sleeve shirt in Thailand. Thought it interesting that it got almost the same number of likes on Instagram at Thailand's specialist football store as Man U's George Best collection.

I do view 7th as average, not troubling top of the table and not in the relegation battle.

Is it not a case of form is temporary, class is permanent with many of our players? A lot of them were never going to be able to keep up the form from two seasons ago.

So have plenty of other teams. We still have a lot of average players, the fact at can't find buyers for many of our players speaks volumes.

No, but a mixture of some players getting older and that it isn't realistic to expect pre-takeover players to continue their improved form over more than 12-16 months is why we are a mid-table team. When I say mid-table, we might get a lower European place but that's about it.

Do we? This is what we are, a midtable team. We'll win in style some days and be atrocious on other days.