Yorkie

Apologies for the controversial take. Seeya next weekend, lads.

Disappointed we couldn't get the win. Glad we didn't lose. Not enough goals in the team to put the game to bed. Just the same old story.

I don't think he's been terrible but it's madness how much of a stick Woltemade is to beat Howe with. He's very flawed.

Mixed bag. Liked how we started but didn't fashion a meaningful chance until it went end-to-end, which speaks to our inability to craft opportunities with possession football. It's like we need to game to be open sometimes. Good to see Woltemade involved. Needs to repay the manager's faith now.

That was pretty close from Sandro.

Playing pretty well.

Woltemade not even attempting to win that header barely ten yards in front of goal. Some striker.

He's at LCM by the looks of it

4-3-3 after all

Generally always a fan of the 3-5-2 because in principle it has good balance and it enables the deployment of our battalion of massive CBs. Wing-backs need to not be shit, though.

Look at the blue...

Frankfurt, but it's quite different.

You're probably right. There's subtle differences to the earlier leak, too (Adidas stripes/placement of the middle stripe). Not sure about the weird interlaced fabric incidentally. I don't love the blue shade either; think it's a bit garish and what they've used this season would be better.

With a fanbase like ours, they're always going to sell millions of units regardless. So for Adidas there's gains to be had in producing something a bit divisive but immediately recognisable (and engagement-driving), especially if there's a bit of crossover fashion appeal. Got to assume this season's Juve kit did well for the brand.

I didn't realise the middle stripe was off-centre. What a ludicrous kit. I'm in.

Apart from being in the top five all season... I suppose they did quite overtly throw the Spurs game the other day. Hopefully you're right and there's still hope that the circumstances of schedule is one thing which might trip-up the Europa League's future PL entrants. My fear/assumptions is the difference in quality/budget means there probably isn't any set of circumstances (beyond serious under-performance/freak result) that will stop the PL teams from routinely walking to these titles. The format is just so forgiving. Palace couldn't beat Larnaca or KuPS and yet still have found their way to the final no bother.

You bet your sweet wage-reducin' ass.

Surely you see the difference now though? There's been dominance but what's happening now with the format change is basically facilitation. For a PL team not to win the Europa League every season would represent a massive under-performance. I had wondered if those horrendous Spurs and ManU teams cantered to the final only because they both phoned-in their league campaigns - and any serious team would succumb to fatigue - but Villa have immediately disproven that theory. For Conference League, see above but replace 'under-performance' with embarrassment.

I do sit here, fwiw. I only go flying in when I don't think there's enough weight applied to the mitigation. But yeah, we've done it to death haven't we. I'm looking forward to a new season with hopefully some reduced expectations.

Sorry, I just think you'd have to be on another planet to think that was achievable, considering how good Isak was and how we were blocked from signing anyone off even vaguely comparable to quality. Flirted with relegation is an exaggeration but I do agree that the Isak sale shouldn't have led to such a poor league campaign. No one has said that though. Anyway, sorry @r0cafella. Appreciate i started it this morning.

Because we lost arguably the best striker in the world and weren't allowed to replace him with anyone of anywhere near his quality. Regardless of Eddie Howe, it honestly blows my mind that there isn't a consensus from Newcastle fans on this.

*with only a selection of obviously far inferior players to choose from.

TheBB said "we spent a quarter of a million to improve the squad" which isn't even true, let alone dismissing mitigation. I wasn't saying this.

I agree with basically everything you've said, my point is about the bit in bold.