Chris_R

I've been away, what's the Tindall stuff I've missed?

They're going to sit so deep, and it'll be hard to play through them so hopefully we're not shy of taking one on from distance if the opportunity arises. Might not be the best day to try and walk it in.

Isak is a decent winger, sure, but he's one of the best strikers in Europe. Absolute madness to play him on the wing long-term or with any regularity. Can you imagine if Man City found Haaland could time a tackle so they started playing him at DC?

I don't care what Liverpool do, it's not on their hands. We just need to not implode, and given everything we've seen about the team since Howe came in, we'll not implode. Let Liverpool win all their games, it won't matter.

Be crazy to sell ASM or Almiron without very decent replacements lined up. We only have competent 4 wingers now, and next season we'll have far more games to play. If anything we're already short there, not blessed with extra we can get rid of.

Anymore? I've never considered them rivals, not even when they had Juninho, Ravenelli etc. In fact for the most part I wished then well, including on there UEFA cup run a while back. I understand they hate us, but they're irrelevant to me. It's like if Darlington or Hartlepool got in the top flight, I'd probably wish them well too.

FYP

An I reading this wrong or do they have a broadcast income of MINUS £2.2M? Have they paid to be on TV? Surely that can't be right.

It matters little to me what some stuffy cunt in a suit says, that was a phenomenal assist and I'll never refer to it as anything else.

This. I was one of those too, and it was always shouldn't, not couldn't. He's almost exclusively played centrally before, and we didn't pay £60m+ for one of the hottest strikers on the planet to lump him out on the wing just because he's got some good footwork. Of course he 'can' play elsewhere, but he's a centre forward. His goals per minutes ratio this season shows that.

Delighted to see Targett get a start, hopefully he justifies it but he deserves it for patience alone, and at times Burn has looked a weak link.

Exactly. Someone pointed out that we had 9 Ashley-era players playing v Spurs. Sure, we've made signings but if anything considering the dereliction of the club for the previous decade and a half, we've only spent what was due. But Howe has worked miracles with what he inherited. And credit to the players too, for buying into it because you need that too.

Some fans would have understood. Most, maybe. However even now, just a couple of weeks ago we had someone on here defending Bruce and attacking Rafa, and that's with 20/20 hindsight.

Again, not really disagreeing with your general point because I agree with you, but I don't think it's really that easy because "I wanted to play for Rafa Benitez, not Newcastle United" (However you try to word it, that's how it'll be portrayed) isn't going to go down well with anyone in the game at all. Not fans of your current club, not prospective new clubs, not fans of any new club you join in case you do it again, it's just going to make you something of a pariah. Also there's so many shit managers around that you could end up bouncing round all over the place trying to work with a decent one. Often as well, settled players think they can probably ride out an incompetent manager. Sometimes it works, like for Schar.

So you hear what you want from the manager, it all sounds great, you sign a 5-year deal and then in no time the manager's gone and being replaced by Steve Bruce. Before you know it, your tactical instructions are "let's play" and you're doing cool downs in a wheelie bin. I agree absolutely with your point, but manages generally don't last long these days, trying to pick a good one who might stick about is almost impossible.

So true. Howe has probably generated the club 10* his wages just in increased player values. Those people who say "it's about the players, not the manager" or "the players need to take some responsibility, it's not the manager's fault" are fucking idiots. But we hear it all the time.

The NETD thing was about league placings, not derby matches. We've been winning it for years. Would still like to give them a shoeing in a match though so not bothered if they come up. Only issue I have with their possible promotion would be that it gives them over £100m in the bank, and that makes it less likely they'll continue to fester and rot in obscurity. It's all about us for me though. Wouldn't trade a single point to see them stay down.

Stuck £20 on a double of them going up and us not getting top 4. Insane odds that would mean if we missed top 4, I'm not ashamed to say that I'd be in the pub cheering them on if they got to Wembley. Was tempted to do Spurs get top 4 and Sunderland promotion, which nets nearly £10k, but figured other teams could sneak it and I'd best not be greedy.

People are missing the importance of getting good English players. We cannot keep buying foreign players because we're going to be in Europe hopefully regularly from now on and there's squad rules. Same for PL registration actually. We've paid an English premium for Gordon, to get a player who will be good enough to take us forward and be part of our English quotient for some time. We need at least 8 UK-grown players long-term, ideally 4 of them home-grown at the club. Burn, Trippier, Dummett, Ritchie and Wilson won't count long-term because they're are the wrong end of their careers (Plus a couple aren't good enough even now). So we're left with Anderson, Willock, Murphy, Longstaff, Gordon and even though he's 30, Pope. That's only 6, including Gordon, and there's a couple in that 6 who you'd want to see upgraded or improve too. So after that we're looking at people like Lewis, Shortstaff and Lascelles to make up the other positions. We need Gordon, and other players like him who are clearly PL quality and can improve lots still even if he's not at present and maybe never will be (Though I hope he is) a world beater. He doesn't have to do what Bruno has done for the team to justify a £40m price tag, because we bought him for a very different reason.

We've just not learned about Watkins at all, just let him keep finding space and let them keep getting the ball to him. It's been woeful and too easy for Villa. Plus please no more Dan Burn. He's just a lumbering oaf. Like the guy, and he has some good attributes, but he's a real weak link in the side.

Our best player in the first half was the woodwork. Desperately need to improve.

Impressive that it has a correctly-used apostrophe, too. Clearly we produce a high calibre of graffiti artist who take pride in their work.

Yeah that was definitely still there when I started going in '92, and for quite a few years after that.

Yeah I think that's clearly someone being self-aware enough to take the piss out of themselves a bit, you'd think. Surely? I mean in the days where even Onion articles of a few years ago have come true, it's hard to be absolutely certain, but that can't be a serious comment.

Indeed. Historically there's only 2 teams compete for the title most years. It's perhaps 3 recently with Atletico but I doubt anyone, even their fans, expect that to be permanent and it'll shortly be back to 2 again.