TRon

We looked awful out there, whatever the plan was it looked miles off.

For the first goal he looked like he wasn't closing down at all, he was just going through the motions, and wasn't that big a surprise when they walked it up the other end and scored.

Lol.

We've been shite tbh. Can't complain.

If everyone else could follow we could be in this game.

A bit similar to how Ekitike is better than Woltemade.

We seem determined to make all our transfer misses look like the best players in the world.

Howe probably realises it was a bad signing.

I am assuming we are making ambitious appointments and not Lee Charnley types. Maybe that's wrong but time will tell.

It could work if we push Trips and Lewis forward, but I would have wanted Barnes in and around Wolt tbh.

2-0 down in a second leg against Man City is a bit different to starting 0-0 against anyone else like.

I already copped some flak for describing this as a essentially a dead rubber, but I still watch every game I can. Just to see who performs, how we set up, any clues for the direction we might go in future based on the performance and so on. When you've watched as many shite Newcastle sides as I have down the years these days are pretty decent even if the chances of a result are unlikely.

I think you're more than once removed mate. Cue the chorus of "where were you when we were shiiite??"

Ok I'll probably need a minute to untangle that because I am not sure what that means.

So do you have any reason to suspect he's not best in class?

I don't think it's as black and white as that. He has probably got the attention of some of the richest clubs in the world with his performances over the last couple of seasons, and it might be they can tempt him offering him a huge pay rise, funded by their cartel pockets. Until we can match their big boy wages we have to be prepared to deal with this and if we have to sell make sure we get the best price possible, and ideally get his replacement in first.

I'm tempted to say because he's not Lee Charnley, but his former roles include global head of partnerships at Real Madrid.

Probably because a lot of that operational stuff is fluid and dependent on a lot of factors. Infrastructure like new grounds take a lot of planning and there are plenty of hurdles. What would be the point of constant updates on stuff like that? The only real moves which could impact us winning the PL or becoming regular UCL contenders is building a better squad. We need to get past the PSR constraints and I've not seen any realistic suggestions how we could do that without either incurring penalties or spending big now then paying for it down the line as happened when we were forced to sell Anderson and Minteh for pennies.

Summed up very succinctly. All we can really ask for is that we still have ambition, and Hopkinson is best in class territory when it comes to CEO.

With UCL qualification looking unlikely now, we might face the prospect of selling some players and rebuilding anyway. Isak forcing his way out really threw this season off the rails, and it's going to end up changing up our plans anyway.

Seems he preferred to stay in Paris so echoes of the Ekitike pursuit.

We did as well as we could given he wanted to be away. How we spent that money is a different matter, but that's on us.

This is actually where I have an issue with Howe, I thought we should have rotated more when we had most players available. You'd like to think when we spend £30m+ on players we should feel they can win games. If Elanga or Ramsey drop the odd clanger just tell them to get on with it and stick to the plan.

Tbf we are rotating the midfield anyway due to the players out due to injury and yes, injuries have restricted our options to rest players in some areas so it might be a moot point. At least we have all our strikers to choose from.

It does suggest he must be pretty good though.