magorific

Absolutely honking last night and most of this season. Clearly carrying too much weight and has an attitude. A definite no from me.

Nobody's asking him to be a left-back. They're just asking him to do a very basic thing: track their full-back when he tries to overload us. The fact is that the better teams in the modern game no longer carry "flair players" who refuse (not are incapable, but refuse) to work hard without the ball.

As well as buying Targett, an RCB, a striker and possibly a right winger is the business the club expect to do this summer.

Our owners are having to deal within FFP, whereas City - through the loophole of "sponsorship" money (a loophole now closed) - did not. Ask anyone in the know at the club, and they will tell you that our situation, no matter PIF's wealth, is incomparable to that of City.

This is bollocks. Did a huge amount of pressing.

Absolute nonsense.

Bad take? Or WUM? The lad was excellent again.

Almiron was gash.

I think there's something in that. I always remember around the time that we signed Tino, I read this article by Brian Clough in one of the tabloids. He said that when he was manager of Notts Forest, during their title-winning season, he was very tempted to make sure of success by buying another player towards the end of the transfer window. In the end, he decided to hold his nerve, because a new player at that stage might be difficult to integrate, and might be seen by his existing squad as a vote of no confidence in them. For those reasons, he decided against entering the transfer market, and he now had similar doubts as to whether it was wise for Keegan to buy Tino. We'll never know for sure whether things would have turned out differently if Keegan had done differently, but I've since been inclined to think that Clough made the right call. Tino was a good player all right, but he wasn't the player we needed. Including him meant that the Sir Les - Pedro partnership, which had been so fruitful, was disrupted, with Beardsley being pushed out right. The weak link in the side, and the player that should have been replaced, was Gillespie. We needed a wide player. I recently saw an interview with Sir Les, where he himself said that changing the line-up to bring in Tino was a significant error. It's not that Tino can be held 'to blame'. It's just that he was the wrong player at the time. Sir Les was brilliant and I've got all the time in the world for him, but the truth is he wasn't able to adapt his game to play alongside Tino. Which is not really surprising and can easily lead one to think it was the wrong decision. Personally I thought Les went missing in the second half of the season whereas Tino seemed to be fine when the pressure was on. That finish against Liverpool in th famous 4-3, he was cool as a cucumber. So yeah, while I'm a big Les fan, think that wasn't quite the whole story there. Those figures for goals and finishes bear out his effectiveness and I agree with Optimistic that he got scapegoated a bit. Ferdinand stopped hitting the back of the net, Beardsley started to show his age, but personally I thought the introduction of Batty to the team had more of an impact than Asprilla. Batty was a good player no doubt, but I think the dynamic of the team changed and we were a better team with Clark in the middle. A half decent keeper and we would have wrapped the title up as well. Still hurts like a motherfucker. As much as I love him, all roads of regret lead back for me to Sir Les and the Man United home game. Had we won, that was it - title done and dusted (seven points clear with a game in hand). But, as good as Schmeichel was, he missed a couple of unbelievable chances that night.

Also this has to be a mistake. There is no way we are paying Shelvey £850,000 a week. 850*100 ≠ 850,000 = 85,000

That's not one of the reasons Rafa left though. He felt the money could be spent better elsewhere. Same thing. He left because there was no trust and no ambition and things were not being done right. The situation you describe is just one of hundreds of examples of this in action. Given how hard he'd had to work to convince Ashley to spend £20m on Miggy, I'd suggest the prospect of seeing double that spunked on a player he didn't particularly rate when trying to strengthen a squad desperately short in several areas was a pretty big factor in Rafa deciding enough was enough.

Think he has probably ended Zabaleta's career.

Dear God, give the gimp a pair of clippers.

Jean-Philippe Mateta is the one I wanted more than Joelinton, Saint-Maximin. Proper striker reminds me of Demba Ba. Joelinton will need time to make the striker role his best position. NUFC were offered Mateta for £8m last summer...

Liverpool at xmas and also last pre season got beat 4 nil off sporting braga in a pre season dead rubber. you still got your season ticket marra ? aye Why?

Truly depressing going on the club website and seeing how few season tickets are available - including in areas full of supposedly militant fans (eg the Milburn wing towards the back of the Gallowgate). What is WRONG with these people?

Nailed it. We are being systematically screwed over in a way the McKeags would never have contemplated, and yet sheep now sit where genuine supporters once agitated - and brought about - change. I defended my fellow match-going fans last season - in the deluded belief that the large majority would, like me, chuck it in if Rafa wasn't kept on. Well, anyone who goes - against Arsenal, against anyone - while Ashley remains is not a fan. They are the enemy, plain and simple. As such, they're worse than the fat man himself. At least he doesn't dress himself up to be anything other than a c*nt, let alone claim to care about Newcastle United, any more. These "fans" shouldn't be allowed an easy ride on matchdays. There should be protesters outside every turnstile. "Scab" is too good a word to throw at them. Ashley isn't the cancer destroying Newcastle United. He's just a c*nt. Anyone who now sees fit to pay to enter SJP is the cancer.

Leicester paid £25m for Maddison last year before he had played a single Premier League game. Nuts to sell Longstaff for the same price. So it'll happen...

Hang on. You've continued to go to the match for the TWELVE YEARS that Ashley has owned the club, yet anybody who doesn't pack it in now (i.e. at the exact same time as you have) is being called spineless and various other s*** over multiple posts Man, that's absolutely f***ing hilarious So you can't see that managing to f*** off the best, most ambitious and - crucially - strategic manager we've arguably ever had (KK, as much as I love him, never looked to and planned for the long-term like Rafa did), and a manager who has given us a reason to both stick things out and cling to the cherished ritual of a hone matchday, is not the logical final straw for many of us? If you can't appreciate that THIS is the watershed moment, I pity you.

Well you’ve only gotta spend any amount of time in the platinum club before a game to see the soul has been ripped out of the club. Literally only the corner at SJP makes any noise all through the game, sometimes the rest join in, mostly they don’t. The fans have gone soft but it’s not irreversible. How long is it since you went? The Wor Hyem mob at the back of the Gallowgate towards the Milburn Stand sing pretty much all game, every game, and have improved the atmosphere as a result.

Credibility of the piece not helped by suggesting we want Davinson Sanchez too. Surely CB (let alone a big-money CB) is our lowest priority.

Dear oh dear.

Play-off crowd vs us at Roker in 1990: 26,610 (vs 1989-90 average of 17,777) Play-off crowd tonight at the 48k capacity SoL: 26,641 (vs 2018-19 average of 32,157) Wembley might want to close their top tier...

Spot on. People go on about it being good for the game if Liverpool win the title. As if they haven't spent hundreds of millions and bought favour with refs like the much maligned Chelsea and Man City. Utter nonsense. Aye, let’s just support the isis of football owners because Liverpool man, we’ll never hear the end of it on social media and remember when they killed all those Juventus fans which by the way, was nowt compared to their behaviour at SJP Saturday evening. Every penny Liverpool have spent on players they’ve generated as a club from within and not from some sovereign murdering terrorist state or a wealthy criminal like Abramovic. How anyone could want Man City to win the league and not Liverpool defies all logic. One is loathsome in a football sense, the other is loathsome on a human level. You cannot have a heart, mind or soul if you prefer Man City, just on a football level never mind anything else. If you’re gonna use certain sticks to beat Liverpool with, that’s fine, but be reminded, all football is corrupt, bent and ugly. Man City are no different, and neither is their owners are who corrupt, bent and ugly in real life even more. If you can’t bear Liverpool winning the league because of the OTT jizz fest by all and sundry, you can limit your exposure and cut it all out by not listening to or reading Rawk, social media, Sky, MOTD, newspapers, pundits, ex players or any of the others’ guff which may free up your time which I recommend you use to read up on the owners of Man City and their crimes against humanity and after that you can read about their crimes against football in whatever order you care most about. How about doping and financial fair play? If Liverpool win the league I won’t have to bear any OTT love in because their win will pass quickly, noted but forgotten about because I just don’t give a damn what others say or their fans want to add to it with. Why would anyone not connected to them be any more bothered? Ironically the most level headed, more humble, least arrogant and more unconcerned with what others have to say will be every day people on Merseyside who from experience you’d think were not the same people as those on RAWK, social media, SKY, BT, MOTD and any other platform that generalises fans of Liverpool as self pitying, special, it’s never their fault, we are victims, it means more to us, loveable scallywags everyone seems to hate them for. On every level you have no humanity if you hate them more than Man City and if that’s true, you’re even more detestable than they are both combined and hopefully you’ll be consumed by your hatred of them even more for beating City to the title. I hope it hurts like hell, as a Newcastle supporter would it, seriously? Wow man what a whopper. Who the fuck are you to think you're going to teach me about morality, humanity and hate? I don't need lessons from you about Man City's owners because I knew exactly who and what they were before you'd even heard of their names. I don't give a shit about Man City or Chelsea because I'm not surrounded by their fans, plastic or otherwise. I am, however, surrounded by the most ignorant plastic Liverpool fans you've ever seen, and my "hate" for Liverpool and their fans stops at a football banter level and doesn't extend to real life. Liverpool provided me, in footballing terms, the most painful memory in my time supporting NUFC and my so-called friends lorded it over me for years, so why should I not want to do the same? Ultimately you seem to have a special love for Liverpool buried deep down inside you, and wishing "hurt feelings" upon your fellow Newcastle supporters purely in defence of that rancid club winning the title is petty. Ironically that's what you're trying to accuse "us Liverpool haters" of. Get off your high horse man and if YOU don't like that people can't stand LFC and/or their fans, then you can simply stop reading about it. Well said (although "whopper" doesn't come close).

Darron McDonough?