Chris_R

Many people absolutely did walk away under Ashley. Thousands and thousands of us. And whilst the fans wouldn't walk away from their club over the super league, they would stop attending as regularly. There's no rivalry. No history. Part of football is office / pub banter, how many Atletico Madrid or Roma fans do most people know IRL? And once the novelty wears off, how many are going to still be travelling overseas to see them play the same teams again and again? Interest will wane. Even top clubs find the novelty of European football wears off, and that's with different clubs to play each year. We suffered it ourselves. And once the stadia are half-full, sponsorship will dry up and it'll all die. Might take a few years, but it'll happen.

Yet I can't recall him saying or doing a single thing in that time. Money for literally nothing. Got to admire the grift.

I guess you're right, FIFA and UEFA are thankfully beyond just doing things for money or backhanders that otherwise make no sense at all... Oh.

Just stick 12ft.io/ in front of the link.

As things stand, all this does is shaft Everton, Arsenal, Brighton etc who have shareholder loans interest-free. It doesn't help us, it just harms them. Though you could argue (with good reason) that hurting many other clubs in turn helps us, it just doesn't directly allow us to open a cheque book now. What will happen is the rules must be re-written as there's no way they can say that the clubs listed above now have a PSR deficit of £50-80m each, PER YEAR, just from those loans. Easy way is for the "allowed losses" that are what, £105m/year, to increase to £150m or even more per year instead. That would help us. Of course a real cunt's trick would be to split the allowed losses so that clubs can lose £105m on the things outside loans, and then allow a loss of £50m/year on loans separately. I don't know the law enough to say that would be illegal, but it feels like it should be, though I'd not be remotely surprised to see it tried because it would pretty-much allow the status quo to continue without bankrupting Arsenal, Everton and Brighton and also not allow us any more spending power.

Why, are we going to build it out of chocolate?

Not our money, who cares how much it costs? Also the money will go into the region, paying people to build it. It's not like someone just creates a bonfire and burns £4bn KLF-style and then a stadium magically appears from the ashes. In that sense the more it costs, the better. Redistribute some Saudi oil money to the good people of the North East.

Calvert Lewin wouldn't get in our first XI but he'd certainly get in today's striker-less team. Bonkers to suggest otherwise.

HeS nOt TrYiNg BeCaUSe LiVeRpOoL bId

12ft.io/https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5778538/2024/10/04/newcastle-st-james-park-fence-land/ For those without a NYT subscription.

Come on, it's not like it was arranged this morning. Also loads of people keep bemoaning the "day trippers" being there and that "proper fans" aren't getting in, yet I doubt there's many day trippers in there tonight.

Odysseas is there so he thinks he's sub keeper and maybe to partially substantiate his stupid value, whilst Ruddy is there in case we actually have to play another keeper.

The person running the Twitter account doesn't know what Howe will do. Nor should they. There's debate on here about how the back 4 will line up. Plus even if the person running Twitter DID know Howe's intentions, they shouldn't give anything away. This keeps the opposition guessing. I think it's good. Small margins and all that but keeping things unclear for our opponents is more important than informing the fans.

You'd have had an aneurysm watching Pav repeatedly go to kick with his right then drop his shoulder and leave attackers on their arse, then casually stroll off up the pitch with the ball. Used to do it every single match and from memory it worked every time.

Shirley recording the match on your phone is illegal? Or at the very least some kind of breach of rules / terms? Should just have the stewards go round and confiscate everyone's phones who does this, and hand them to the police for their prosecution? Or send the police to their house later? Only have to do that a couple of times (give people fair warning first about the crackdown) and people will soon behave. Or be prosecuted and banned, which is also fine.

Yeah he repeatedly called it a new stadium too, rather than an expansion. But said it would be on the same site. Sounds awesome to me, only issue would be where we play for the next couple of years whilst they build it.

And remind me how that worked out?

I think what you mean is "I went on Google and someone else had made up £50k/week off the top of their head" Nobody knows what any player is paid.

Badly

Hard to give the ball away when you've stuck it in the opposition's net.

Barnes and Tonali need to be on immediately. Seen enough of Long staff to know he's nothing but a runner, and Murphy isn't great either.

Didn't he miss like 6 months with a sore finger, or something equally ridiculous? Remember it being a running joke at the time.

Worst player out of position was definitely Shola on the left wing for me. I mean he was shit enough as a striker, but to put him on the wing was just a crime against nature. At least up front his height and lumbering stature were a benefit, despite his inability to actually play football.

On the contrary, I'd suggest you had an entirely rational dislike of Geremi.

Fucking hell those were grim times, seeing those 3 line up together in midfield was just soul-destroying. You knew you were in for a long, awful match before kickoff. The only midfielder I've seen regularly play for us who could consistently out-shit that triumverate was Amdy Faye.