Chris_R

Well that's probably because they actually expect one.

Try the SOL, you can even see it.

It's not possible to keep both. If Ashley stays, Rafa doesn't anyway. So losing Rafa to get rid of Ashley is, whilst sad, a no-brainer.

Yeah, I was probably being overly pedantic. I think we're probably all just worn out and at the end of our collective tethers right now.

If we're talking about an unknown manager, sure, try to convince me what he might bring. But with McClaren we're talking about a very known quantity, good and bad.

Carr was really more of the head of recruitment, so it was closer to a DOF role. I don't think it was a bad call asking him to choose his manager. Choose the man you think can best manage the types of players you are bringing in. I think that's fair enough. Instead the joker went and brought in his friend, which is just criminal. Ideally someone more senior at the club should have had him justifying that choice, which clearly wasn't the case. Tbf it's not terribly difficult to justify bringing in the former England manager, who then went on to win the league with Twente in the Netherlands. You either accept his choice or decline it, asking him to justify it is silly because that indicates you can be convinced, and he could make a strong argument if you let him.

I get why people are saying we should have played the first team, but one thing this match DOES do is show everyone how bad our squad depth is. Our fringe players are not Championship quality.

This isn't entirely his fault, like. We don't have a game for 7 days, there's no reason to play such a changed team. Well it's his fault that Rafa is scared to play someone like Rondon because our only striker (yeah not gonna count Joselu as a footballer) getting injured would almost certainly seal our faith in the bottom three. Well the transfer window is open at the moment so if he did get injured today we could always go out and buy a replacem..... sorry, what am I saying?

I can't believe anyone thinks there might be grounds for suspicion regarding a letter that's supposedly got something to do with Newcastle United. Personally, I'm sure it's 100% legit....

"It's January 4th, just give me a few more weeks to see if I can finalise this" Yep, sounds legit. I'm sure it'll all be resolved some time oh, I dunno, around Feb 1st?

Sell all but Dubravka and a couple of cb's then! How's that going to help? They're the only half-decent ones here who aren't on loan.

You're assuming the club is generating revenue.

It's all just so depressingly predictable. Honestly, just burn the whole fucking thing to the ground.

making a late concerted play for forum divvy of the year I see. Oh Christ this has given me creeper memories of Butt, Geremi, Smith and Nolan stinking up the middle of the park. By god that was an abhorrent time.

Yeah, you're right. Any anti-Ashley sentiment and it'll be the end of your displays.

Have I missed it, or is there any chance of anyone copy and pasting this open letter here for all to see?

Lots of new clothes from Sports Direct. Hang on, I'm not sure I'm doing this right....

I was bored years back. Now I'm bored of being bored.

Only if he's wrong.

There's going to be a lot of angry / confused people come kick off tomorrow.

Yes

We'll probably buy 1 player for £17.00001m so we can say that we've broken our transfer record, and enough idiots will renew to see our record signing in action. Completely disregarding that this figure gets you fuck-all these days and it'll be some mediocre, no-mark journeyman cast-off from a shit team.

Why would anyone rip their pink seats out? Let them pay their own fans to do that, don't do it for them for free ffs.

Nah, it's a ride at Alton Towers. I know the queues can be long, but fucking hell.

What's "local lad" got to do with why anyone should get a game? People should play based on talent, and if you want to make that argument for Longstaff then great, but "local lad" is utterly irrelevant.