Chris_R

Yeah that TBG post is probably the worst post I've ever read on a messageboard, anywhere, ever. Quite impressive given the competition it has across the whole internet.

Gardening leave is his notice period, because he's put in his notice to leave. You can do that at any place of work without having somewhere else to go, this is no different. He'll serve out his notice period (gardening leave) and then he's free to do whatever he wants with his life. What we feel about how Man U have handled this and whether we have any recourse is entirely separate, and doesn't depend on if he ultimately goes there or not. We're asking for compensation to shorten / waive his gardening leave.

Fans don't want the ESL. Can you imagine every away game being in another country? It would only take a year or so and you've got basically 0 away fans. There's no history or tradition with these matches either. I can feel something towards any English club, be it Man U, Liverpool, Wolves, Southampton, whoever. There's history there, there's geographical identity too in that we can relate to each other and know people who are from these areas or support these clubs. But Bayern Munich or Atletico Madrid or whoever? Sure, interesting and exciting the first time, but there's no workplace banter with Dortmund fans, we've no history with Atetico Madrid. It'll get stale VERY fast, even for the home games. And once the fans stop giving a shit, TV audiences dry up and the sponsorship disappears too. ESL would fail inside 5 years, even if it did happen. Then what do the participants do? Come crawling back?

Yeah my sole point was that having a relegation on your CV doesn't make you a bad manager in and of itself. Thought it would be clear? Good or even great managers have suffered relegations, Howe & Benitez spring to mind, and it doesn't by itself make you a bad manager so saying "Southgate was relegated with Boro" doesn't by itself mean he's shit. You need more than that. For the record I don't think he's a good manager but I base that on way more than something that happened 15 years back when he was in his 30s and just cutting his teeth in management at a club that historically competes outside the top flight and has a very limited budget. The flip side would be that he kept said club IN the PL for 2 years prior to the relegation, which in itself is at least a decent performance.

Did either of you read what I wrote? I'm probably Howe's biggest supporter, I live in Bournemouth. I've wanted him to manage Newcastle for a decade.

To be fair you could say that Howe's only (substantial) club role saw him get Bournemouth relegated. Not slating Howe or defending Southgate, but throwing that over thing at him that happened 15 years ago when he was in his 30s probably isn't terribly relevant.

I'd honestly rather just take a 4 point penalty. Firstly, 4 points isn't worth £32m in prize money - Probable even if you included it being the difference between what competitions we qualified for the year after. Secondly, keeping Bruno would more than make up those 4 points anyway.

Well that sounds perfectly fair and fine.

He just has to stay with us for the next 8-10 years and stay relatively fit, we don't need to be on any kind of trajectory. A fit Isak scores at least 20-25/season across all competitions. Shearer was 26 when he joined us IIRC. Isak's 24 now, and already has 35 goals for us. He's just got to stay, and stay fit. If we *do* go on the trajectory we hope (and expect?), Isak can absolutely demolish Shearer's record and put it beyond anyone for a very long time.

No, you're forgetting football was invented in 1992. You must be thinking of a different sport.

Blackburn started it, a little club buying itself a PL title. If it was OK then, it should be OK now. Nothing's changed except transfer fees and wages have gone up.

Says something that Newcastle have won a major trophy more recently than England. And we've been to a major final more recently too. Anyway, England football has always felt more like a London / Manchester / Liverpool thing than anything that I, as a Geordie could get behind with much vigour. At least since Shearer stopped playing, that is, though I accept that's largely because we've been shit since then. Having Trippier and Gordon there will definitely help and give me something I can latch on to. It's always felt hard to cheer on Kane, Rashford or whoever into winning more trophies, to becoming national idols that our players will never become, to be further celebrated by their own clubs. It's just a bit hollow to cheer people I'd normally want to fail. That said I obviously always get swept along with it and do want England to win, but I'd take Newcastle winning a solitary League Cup without hesitation, over a generation of repeated success and multiple trophies for England.

Shave (Shear?) his head and he looks uncannily like Alan Shearer.

I was very fast, quite tricky and could hit a shot. Poor in the air though and couldn't tackle for shit. I was also a 10 stone weakling. As such I played best as a winger or striker. I never tried Sunday League (well except once when I played emergency right-footed left back for some mates), preferring a lie in and a bit of relaxation so pretty-much stopped playing after my uni days. Certainly wasn't good enough for club trials or anything, but I was decent enough amongst school mates and for park kickarounds. Also used to enjoy playing in goal as I loved diving about and was pretty decent in nets, but was never tall enough to take it seriously. Closest I've got to a claim to footballing fame was our works team played a pre-season friendly against Blyth Spartans, away, and I came a whisker from opening the scoring from a corner. But they then thrashed us, think it was 5-0 or something like that with them literally walking round the pitch whilst we chased shadows. Proper men vs boys stuff, even at that lower league level. They basically stopped attacking at 5 after putting the game to bed, I guess they worried one of us might get angry and take one of them out? Not that we would. But they could have scored with every attack if they wanted to.

So the ready-made replacement for Isak is the man who Isak was bought to replace? Fucking genius. Who's his ready-made replacement for Bruno, Sean Longstaff? Seems pointless buying players really when you already have players.

Yeah I'm old enough to remember seeing Ball play and he was never more than a mediocre trier. Worked hard but was little more than competent. He was a poor man's Lee Clark, who despite being decent would be a ridiculous selection in any of our all-time XIs. They only rate him because he was good enough to play at their level but too shit to get a bigger move, which they confuse for loyalty because of their constant need to be loved and liked. Plus as a hard worker who used to put in a few tackles, that also taps into their psyche of judging everyone and everything in terms of how hard they are. This probably stems from them being measurably worse than us at everything for decades and so the concept of being 'hard' is firstly nebulous and unprovable so they can claim a prize that nobody can dispute, but secondly requires no actual on-pitch talent or any requirement for the fans to even turn up and pay to watch matches. He's perfect for them.

So players move/stay for money then, not Europe? So we're (Not you, people generally) getting our knickers in a knot about the wrong thing. Europe isn't the big thing people are painting it to be, at least not missing it for a season. If Bruno leaves, he may say "but I needed Europe", but what he'll really mean is "££££££££" because it's distasteful to say you've left for money but saying you left for European football is more palatable to everyone and makes you look like less of a mercenary cunt. It's the same for every player, ever. And quite rightly. We ordinary mortals move jobs for money too.

Whilst I agree, loads of fabulous players have a year or so out of Europe because their team doesn't qualify. Chelsea have some great players who've just spent a year out of Europe, nobody twisted and demanded a move. Happens every year that at least one big club underperforms (not saying we have, we're not at that level yet) and there's never a mass exodus that I can remember?

I guess the defence last year were playing *slightly* higher, and the goalkeeper a fraction higher too. But the midfield is no different, if anything LCM has dropped back. On reflection it may be enough to have made a difference in some matches.

Massive difference.

Yeah Bruno wanting to be an 8 isn't a help. We need to put a dedicated DM in there and unleash him. Pope in goal and faster DCs and we're absolutely golden IMO.

Nah, he's never scored against the mags.

Many, many years ago (like 25 years back at least) I swear I saw Brown Ale on tap somewhere. Anyone confirm that was a thing?

So you want us to breach FFP?

Does it matter? We've got to play everyone twice anyway, what does the order matter?