LiquidAK

Why was I ever nervous

That was an utterly filthy assist

Was getting worried then, we hadn’t scored for nearly 10 minutes

Ahahahahahahahahaha murphy thundercunt

Big Fab to Big Jo - name a better duo. I’ll FUCKING WAIT

Yesssssss

Howay! Let’s fucking have em

Wish I’d just slept until 2pm, this wait is killing me

I’d have preferred Targett too, but keep in mind Burn managed to keep Saka quiet earlier in the season. He’s out of form and probably needs a rest though for sure

Hopefully Murphy’s directness on the right will get some joy against an unconventional fullback

Tbf wasn't he absolutely ridiculous for a while? Like I think I remember he was at something insane like 3 goals from 4 free kicks. Was never keeping that up

Massively anxious about this now. Villa was the first game all season I didn't watch as I was away for the weekend - the natural conclusion is that because I'll watch this one we'll be back to our best and absolutely coast through

Get in

Villa and Liverpool both drawing at half time. Be great if they each drop points here.

Genuinely hope you're right.

Ah man, that's such a blow. Don't know enough about the women's game to know if we've got an obvious replacement, but she's seemed like such a leader at the back.

Guarantee this won't be the group opinion once their machines are locking us out of titles on a regular basis. It's really dangerous for them to become this absolute behemoth imo, will be so much harder to compete with in the future. No matter how much investment we have we'll always be seasons behind. A more open league in general is a great thing for us personally as Newcastle, but also just better from an entertainment perspective. 1 team smashing it every single time is just shit

You're right that the difference is big, but I don't think it's as clear cut as that. This could very well be Arsenal's dip, same as we had around the cup final. They're better than this and are still well in this fight

Would love Arsenal to win it tbh, City becoming the Bayern of England is boring af. This Arsenal team (manager aside) is so likeable too

That was such a brilliant last 20 minutes

Joe is class imo. Definitely takes some getting used to though, can definitely see why some would find it annoying Love the TIFO podcast tbh, some of the tangents they go down have me trying not to crack up in the street walking to work. JJ especially is great

My bad

Feel like this is massively oversimplifying things. With Rafa we were on an upward trajectory and the performances matched that. With Bruce he was being pulled out of the fire by Willock going on a mental scoring run and Maxi doing some magic (in Pardew-speak). Just looking at the points doesn’t tell the whole story of how utterly clueless we looked most of the time under Bruce.

I watched most of our games under Rafa. The idea that the football was "soul destroying" is complete bullshit. It was pragmatic and well organised and frankly massively fucking refreshing after McClaren. We went into every game looking like we had a plan, it was great. You don't have to be playing free-flowing tiki-taka to be an enjoyable watch, and defensively sound =/= shit. It's revisionist history.