Ashley17

If it’s anything like their tennis coverage, make sure you’ve got any score notifications off on the device you are watching on. A good 30-45 seconds behind

Put in a lush cross for Clark last season against Arsenal. He’s not bad on the ball, albeit not as good as Schar

I would say Sterling is more likely to be rested than Aguero. It's Pep though, nobody really knows.

I think we're all desperate for change, at least Kenyon has a track record of running a football club and making it a success commercially (IIRC). A handsome man wrote this recently: https://www.shieldsgazette.com/sport/football/newcastle-united/fan-blog-why-newcastle-united-has-lost-its-soul-639179

Nobody running a takeover bath? https://www.shieldsgazette.com/sport/football/newcastle-united/exclusive-gacp-sports-and-peter-kenyon-take-big-step-towards-newcastle-united-takeover-formation-two-new-companies-643078

No he was garbage really. Seem to remember a cup replay against Plymouth where he put in about 100 crosses that hit the first man. Only other good memory of him was him piling in from the subs bench for the celebrations down at Bristol City when we got it back to 2-2

We were better than I thought we'd be, especially when I saw their team. The tackle on Ritchie was awful, looked a red although I haven't seen it back. Atsu and Muto both did well physically against their defenders which was a surprise. Longstaff junior started well but faded badly, he was knackered by the end but we'd used all our subs. Willems is a total maverick, I can see him becoming a bit of a cult hero. Some nice bits of skill tonight, an awful dive and then finally injuring himself tripping over the ball. If all the injuries from Sunday are legit then this goes down as a good effort in the circumstances, however we all know the likes of Joelinton and Almiron are just hanging back for Saturday. Obviously our cup record under Ashley is a joke and this is another one for the list but in isolation, this wasn't a surrender and it was streets ahead of the Watford game in January. Though we went on to beat Man City a few days after that so the end justified the means. Let's see what Saturday brings.

The countdown to the big Sam rescue act is on

The cynic in me makes me wonder why nobody else has come in for him if we've been pissing about for a few months

Midnight BZG time. Smart.

Joining a lot of dots together I think they have submitted everything but a lot of their money is tied up in investments. MA will want the cash up front or something ludicrous and the delay will be making it liquid. Whether they can do that in time or not is the concern and why Martin Hardy says August. I genuinely think if it goes through Mourinho will be manager but that’s just personal opinion.

Suppose you can look at two ways really. They've used the takeover as a smoke screen following it being apparent Rafa was leaving or they haven't appointed a manager for nearly 2 months because there's a takeover in progress. Either way, what a fucking carry on.

Can definitely believe there was a release clause. It’s a necessity in Spain and presumably his agent works on the theory that he will get a cut of said fee one day. It’s a massive sum yet still £5m less than we got for Carroll nearly a decade ago. Don’t really care if the new manager gets to spend it or not, we are only heading in one direction as long as Ashley is here.

Ignore NewcastleGoals they are notorious for seeking attention. It’s a shame because the account used to be good when it did what it set out to do

It's almost certainly Bishop bollocks. The only other possible scenario is that the takeover is indeed several months away (reported by Martin Hardy) so offering a one year extension was seen as a compromise - the new owners would have to pay up a relatively small sum to remove Benitez whilst the club can continue as "normal" until a takeover is complete or falls through. It has been widely reported that Ashley decided to pull the trigger on Benitez last weekend on a whim, so maybe something had changed to cause that. It still doesn't make any sense though. Why wouldn't new owners want to retain a hugely popular and world class manager? Why is Ashley taking BZG's wishes into account if they aren't the only bidders? Why are they trying to appoint a new manager at all (although could this tie in with the story about Vieira being approached by somebody from the prospective owners)? Prepare for the "couldn't come up with the funds" statement any day now.

Rafa got a team with Gayle and Joselu as the forwards to 10th. TENTH FOR FUCK SAKE

That is Saj from the BBC for definite but no idea what his source is.

Most journalists have been. Who is that Liverpool poster who gets on here? I'm sure he said it was a pattern at Liverpool as well, whenever there was a disagreement between Rafa and the board there would be stories from the same journalists giving Rafa's side of the story. It's noticeable with Martin Hardy especially. They obviously are on good terms from his book and I think Hardy has suggested he is leaving for every transfer window he has been here.

Fuck I skipped from page 316 to 321 and we're still talking about fucking biscuits.

Is he back in?

He should try texting him

Actually read through those pages where it looks like Pardew is going and it's basically a mirror image of the forum now Some highlights: Neesy is exactly the same: https://www.newcastle-online.org/forum/index.php?topic=95667.msg5350937#msg5350937 I made the same Simpsons joke: https://www.newcastle-online.org/forum/index.php?topic=95667.msg5350947#msg5350947 General hatred for Lee Ryder: https://www.newcastle-online.org/forum/index.php?topic=95667.msg5350837#msg5350837

Wasn't Pardew ITK, that was Golfmag. I think he did get the team news though. Golfy was the main man but Penn had all the team news from the time. Also this: https://www.newcastle-online.org/forum/index.php?topic=95667.msg5350858#msg5350858 You don't see any "Penn is a dope" posts now do you? Anyway, this is a pointless discussion. Back to waiting.

Penn was the Pardew ITK a number of years ago wasn’t he? Was the first to reveal he was leaving and used to post bits of team news.

This is it now like. We're either in the middle of the greatest wind-up since Beadle was about or this is serious. At worst it might be a case that any buyer has to prove they have a UK company to take over the shares but even if that's as far as it has got, it at least shows they are serious. Considering they seem to think they bought it back in April all of this would be a massive coincidence now surely?!