TRon

Tbf, the clarity becomes a bit fuzzy when you are looking all the way back from the third division.

I fear you're right. Plus we know Ashley connived with Bruce to stitch up the incoming owners with that rolling contract, so he wouldn't have written in the clause that Bruce could only claim his lotto win if he took on another job.

So what's the score with that £8m Bruce walked away with from his failure with us. Since he's back in a job after only 3 months, does that mean his payout should be reduced? As far as I know, Poch's payout from Spurs was reduced when he took another job and surely Bruce needs to be out of work for the full term of his Newcastle contract to claim dole money?

Worried about Dele Alli, not going to lie. After a month or so he'll probably decide he can't be arsed again, but for this match he'll be pumped.

Always liked Jesus when he wasn't getting so much game time, is he still at that level these days or is he starting to drop off a bit?

Same here tbh. Lascelles passing is iffy, but he usually plays it quite safe to avoid getting into trouble. I think he does the dirty work of defending more than Schar does, although Schar is a better footballer overall. Not sure I agree that the stick Lascelles gets is justified in comparison to the other CBs, all of them are below top level.

I've seen his score some cracking goals mind. He can strike a ball at least, I've not seen that from either Fraser or Almiron so far.

This is his third midlands club. Isn't there the same sort of rivalry you'd get on Merseyside or here when you keep dodging between local rivals?

The Three Steves ride again. Hallelujah.

He would have been a great addition in the fight against relegation, but could work out better for us in the long term if we avoid relegation. We'll be £15m richer, and Man U wil be at least £10m worse off. We can use that money to invest in a long term prospect such as Ekiteke. Man U on the other hand will have a player spreading unrest in their camp because most of them will sympathise with him and how he's been treated.

He chucked in Trippier and Wood straight away, so I don't think he'll be shy to start Bruno.

It seems like they tried to hedge their bets by going for Ekitike or Lingard which on top of Wood would have been a decent insurance policy. But with the failure to get either, now the Wood signing looks less smart as a result. We'd probably have been better off going all in on an out and out striker with a bit of pace and power like Zapata. That said, I think signing a decent striker is pretty much impossible in January. Even Wood only came because we activated the release clause.

One of the reasons why I thought a striker was the most important signing this window. We did get one, but he's not really a like for like replacement. We need Wilson back for the last dozen or so games.

There has to be some reason beyond performances for Fernadez being frozen out for the last few months. First Bruce, then Jones, and now EH. I was thinking maybe his legs have gone, but in that one game he came on for against Norwich, he looked fine. He must be creating trouble behind the scenes.

Wow. Bad enough that some Man U supporting twerp was trying to deflect from Mason Greenwood's rape and assault by talking about Saudi Arabia, but now we are doing it ourselves? This isn't about Newcastle United, if you want to have a go at our owners, I'm sure you can do it without relating it to every random crime committed by some prick somewhere.

It's a good point actually, but I suppose bringing in a more defensive LB would allow you to give ASM some licence.

I didn't say anything about us being unfairly treated, I couldn't give a fuck what some numpty thinks about us tbh, but this case isn't about us, it's about a girl who got raped and battered by a Man U player.

Hmmm...good point. let's talk about Newcastle and their evil backers rather than Mason Greenwood's horrendous crime then.

Not really sure how dragging Newcastle or Saudi Arabia into this is doing justice to this case. People who are using it to have a dig at either are just trivialising the actual assault.

Yes but two horses will still give you more output that one and a half. I don't get the correlation between numbers in the box and Joelinton, the second half of Leeds also had Manquillo and Longstaff as big factors. I wouldn't necessarily say the better performance was down to just one thing. But anyway, I think with Joelinton going off injured we'll see Shelvey lining up anyway so let's see.

The vast majority of football chairmen don't really know much about football, they probably get told who's a good manager when they read the football columnist in the Daily Star or whatever the fuck it is they read. West Brom's an easier commute for him anyway, for as long as he lasts there, which will be about 12-18 months I expect.

Disagree on that like, in the match against Leeds, Joelinton's stats in 40 mins were the equivalent of Shelvey's in the full 90 mins according to one source. Just think if you put Shelvey in there in his place, you are automatically going to be conceding the middle ground.

This is it. Shelvey is far better on the ball actually, he protects it quite well, but he does it in useless spaces, we need people who will make runs the box and hurt the opposition.

Well yeah, that's the flaw.

Yep, really interested to see how the manager plans to make these players work together. We all have our theories, but Howe will have his own reasons he wanted certain players in, and how it will all gel eventually. With Bruno in there, not to mention Joelinton if he's fit, there should be a lot more cohesion in moving the ball back to front, and having Burn and Targett should help there too, Burn is meant to be quite good at bringing the ball out.