Theregulars

Whatever the logic and merits and dourness of our situation, we're always better than that shower of shit.

s*** club is s***. Even if I am offending anyone with that, why would I give a s***? I think Sunderland are a garbage club. Some might think we're not very good. Cool. I don't agree, but that's their prerogative.

 

Football, ey.

Well said. They're toilet.

I still thought what he did last year was weak but happy as fuck, he tends to be if not a mackem slayer a mackem shield

Just days away from the derby and we've got people calling for our manager to resign, beyond belief this.

 

Surely the club captain could defend him....oh wait!

 

Nobody needs to defend anybody. Even without colo we have leaders in the dressing room who don't require Colo holding their hand telling them everything will be ok. He's injured, he's flew back to Argie, what's the big deal? Nobody was calling Ben Arfa when he spent months in Paris, players do sometimes go home when they injured, nothing new. People question his commitment for the cause but they weren't questioning that in the second half against Cardiff when he held us together and was excellent in getting us the 3 points required. Overall in his time here, he’s shown nothing but a first class attitude, yes his personal problems got in the way earlier this year but he’s come through that and knuckled down for us. No need to give him so much abuse.

He very publicly tried to engineer a move away from us in the midst of the worst run of form and injury crisis we've had for years. He only stayed and "knuckled down" because San Lorenzo couldn't afford him and it was clear we would have sued the shit out of him. He has been a great player for us on his day but the whole episode was unsavoury and I lost some time and respect for him, completely understandably.

Shotgun CM with Ian W. The Gattuso to my Pirlo. He does the duty, I get the booty.

In

Pirlo

He's done so much more good than bad for us thus far, it's as simple as that for me.

If we win this then their season is a total fucking write off

Its funny, I'm just reading Sir Bob's book at he's currently managing England. He's mentioned a few times of newspapers trying to hang him out to dry with ridiculous stories. He mentions the Sun on a couple of occasions too. Why do they constantly do it to every England manager? I don’t get it.

To sell papers

Because I loved Kinnear's Crazy Gang and can't contain myself at the prospect of him guiding us to total victory.

Every one of our players stops playing well after being in hands for a few months (except Anita, thus far...). Putting aside my contempt for his patronising, dim-witted and obtuse character, he's just so, so, so fucking bad at his job.

He's the worst kind of villain; the one whose motives are completely incomprehensible.

Oh, and "pitiful".

Demoralising.

 

Found a pub to watch the game yesterday but watched the whole thing without getting animated even once. Might as well have been Hull v Southampton. Realised when Remy scored that I don't care anymore. Yeah I was hoping we'd get an equaliser, but even if we had I wouldn't have been jumping for joy. It was the same when Hull scored their third goal last week, my reaction was literally "Wow, nice goal."

 

Five years ago, hell even last year, I'd have been livid when that went in. Yelling at the TV, calling anyone within earshot a c***, all of that irrational, emotional s*** that makes sports worth watching.

 

I compare it with how I feel watching my NFL team, and honestly it's two completely different experiences. I still get mad, still jump for joy when we score a TD or make a big play.

 

Before one of my fellow NFL fans comes in and says "Yeah, well that's because your team are really good right now" I'm saying, hand on heart, that that's not it. I'd still care, even if they were struggling.

 

Why?

 

Because when I look at that team I see an organisation that is dedicated to being the best they can be, to giving me and the rest of their fan base their very best effort, every year, to winning.

 

Newcastle United?

 

I look at the club and see it being run by a bunch of odious c***s who treat their fans with utter disdain, who cut every corner to save every penny they can at the expense of being as good a football team as is possible. And it breaks my heart, it really does.

 

Newcastle was my first love, this should mean more to me than any other sport ever could. I still remember the absolute joy I felt when we beat Man U 5-0, the absolute agony I felt when Collymore closed in, how I lay in my room in tears when Graham Fenton stole the title away from us, how I lept around a PC lab in uni like a lunatic when Bellamy scored in Feyenoord. Even as recently as a year and a bit ago, chainsmoking my way through a horrible derby game against Sunderland in a dodgy little bar in Vietnam, then absolutely exploding when Shola bundled in an equaliser.

 

How can I care anymore though? We have an owner whose only goal is to advertise his other business, a director of football who belongs in a f***ing cemetery, a manager who is delighted to go along with this rubbish while endeavouring to play as tedious a brand of football as is achievable, and a group of players who don't appear to give a single f*** about the badge on their shirt (one or two exceptions aside).

 

I doubt I'll ever be able to fully detach myself from NUFC, there's too much history there between us. But right now, I'm just so deflated by the whole experience of following this club. Barely post in the football forum anymore, gonna be home for a few months soon but have so many other things I'd rather spend money on than taking a trip over to watch us. I haven't been in St. James' Park in years, honestly don't know if I want to see in the flesh with all of Ashley's s*** splattered across it.

 

It's taken a few years, but Mike Ashley and his band of horrendous men have taken the joy out if this for me. And they'd be proud of that, no doubt, so credit to them I suppose.

 

Sums me up too man. It's shocking how little I react to goals etc when we're playing now. Just falling out of love with football in general mainly because of NUFC.

 

It's not about us winning or losing either. It's the fact that everything good about the club is being killed off and everything we're proud of is disappearing and there's nothing we can do about it. Ashley couldn't care less. He's ruining the club and he's going nowhere any time soon.

Same for me. I haven't watched any games this season properly, I might keep my eye on the score and I still get excited if we are winning, but while I always care, I've lost interest in putting myself through it. There's not even the hope that it's going to pick up anytime soon. The club that gave me some of my happiest days is long gone.

You've drifted towards the idea that it's Ashley's fault that Cisse isn't playing well.

 

I sense that Cisse is becoming isolated, but my guess is that it's more complicated than a loss of confidence. He acquired a big reputation in the early months, that he hasn't been able to live up to. However, he's still acting like he's a prince who's been turned into a frog, and any day, when his so-called form returns or when his team-mates present him with more chances, it's all going to change. In reality, he's an ordinary striker who hit a lucky streak early on.

 

If he comes to terms with that and knuckles down, things will improve. If he keeps operating in a fantasy world, they won't.

I don't think so at all. I mentioned Ashley's regime as being part of a situation which isn't ideal for a person with the mental make-up I think he has. I think you might me to keen to shoe-horn my view into the pro- or anti-Ashley black and white stance which this forum has develped.

Your argument is an interesting one, and suggests that there is an immaturity to him too. It's not that he's insecure/down on himself, he's actually spoilt. That's an interesting counterpoise.

I've been thinking long and hard about this one, because I simply don't believe, based on his first 6 months here, that he's a bad player. Players have had amazing purple patches and played out of their skin before, but for 6 months, he was as good as Cole, Ferdinand or Shearer in their pomp, and I seriously believe that. He isn't as good a player as any of them, but teams feared us because of him, which is the mark of a serious striker worth his salt.

My conclusion - and I'm open for it to be wrong - is that he's weak mentally and quite an isolated person. I think that's more than just that he's a confidence player and he's totally devoid of confidence - that's part of it - but I think there's an element of fragility, a really strong element of self-doubt, that's battling against. You seem him a lot walking around with his head down, looking around a bit listlessly. I wonder whether he's in his own head, talking to himself a bit, maybe even having a go; frustrated because, objectively he knows - on the basis of his body of work when he arrived here his by all accounts strong record in Germany - that he's a good striker, but I wonder whether subjectively he believes it himself. My worry is that it has got to a stage where scoring a goal or two doesn't set him calm and get him feeling comfortable, if anything it adds more pressure to him. Along the lines of - "look, there's more evidence that I can do it, so why can't I do that more regularly? Or was it just a fluke" type of thing. Perhaps he overthinks; I have no idea, I don't know the chap, but based on a completely unqualified hypothesis from his body movement; his listlessness; his disappearance from games and his childish behaviour at times when frustrated (often a sign when an insecure, unconfident person kicks out externally against other people but's its really anger at themselves or frustration with their own performance/situation) just makes me think that he's a spot fragile. Maybe having Demba Ba when he arrived here - not because they were mates, but because he was effectively a really, really nice bonus and there was no pressure, and/or he slotted right into a very comfortable, functioning and smooth unit as we were then - was the reason that a fragility, or cloak of self-doubt were never really exposed. They never had to be. He was a bit off at the start of last year, and to my mind he was nowhere near ready to become the "main man", mentally at least, to take the mantle of our number 9 not in just shirt number but in talismanic status. I think he's been burdened by it and he doesn't truly believe he can do it.

There was also a lot of bad luck involved last year - some incredibly incorrect offside decisions/goal line decisions, he hit the bar and post more than average, and maybe that's weighed on his mind and has him feeling that luck is going against him, which weighs in on the self-belief. I don't really know. I'm just somewhat stoned and having a little wonder down Frasier-level psychology lane.

I don't know if it's something he's going to get out of, especially in a club where everyone know seems to know and believe the awful truth, that we have no ambition, that making money is the order of the day, that any player will be off (against their wishes if need be) if someone else comes in for them and pays what Ashley thinks is good money (the uncertainty of upheaval, family life, personal life and relationships is probably not considered by us as fans because we think "fuck you, you get paid in a week what we get in a year, just man up") they'll be off and they have probably sussed that Pardew is a very limited manager who may not develop them to their peak as footballers. This isn't the right situation for someone who has the issues that I suspect consume him.

He's shat himself and reverted to type

Cisse, man

4-4-2

How many fouls, man?

This guy's a player

He deserves praise today, well done.

If Steven Taylor, Tiote and Jonas are fit they all start automatically. Don't kid yourselves otherwise.

Just hoy in your best players is what Sven did to no avail.

 

Seeing as how i've never seen half the side have a prolonged run of good form, I don't even know who our best players are.

You must surely know that they are fairly indubitably Krul, Coloccini, Cabaye and Ben Arfa on the evidence of the last 2 years? Indeed, the frequent absence of all 4 last year was a large reason (not as large as the manager) that we were shit.

It would be copyright infringement.

Not necessarily.