Chris_R

The England team would look orders of magnitude better with Gordon on the left and a left-footed fullback behind him. Astonishing that Southgate can't find a better left-footed English fullback than Trippier, given there's 3 I'd rather play there at Newcastle alone. Love Tripps, but he's shit at left back and just nullifies anything going forwards down that flank.

No

I can't even comprehend feeling anger at a mackem in Newcastle city centre wearing Sunderland kit. Instead I'd just find it a mix of funny and sad that a presumed adult has done that thinking they're achieving something in some way. Same for Newcastle fans doing it in Sunderland. It's not hard, it's just pathetic but crack on I guess? Plus even if you manage to do it safely, all you've proven is that you're an antagonistic prick but the other city is quite tolerant and bereft of dickheads, which isn't the win you think it is. Just odd behaviour all round.

This. Even if it costs us a few million, it's worth it in the long run to show that these tactics cannot and will not work. Plus if we accept some shit lowball offer now, it sets an entirely different precedent for future negotiations too. Short term there's a reasonable argument for accepting whatever we can get, something's better than nothing etc, but long term you've always got to stand up to bullies because that's the only way their behaviour changes.

Wood was fine. We obviously weren't paying to his strengths but he held the ball up, brought others into play and led the line well. He didn't score much, but we also finished 4th and had 4th placed form for the half season after he first joined us. You could further argue (tongue firmly in cheek) that we then sold him and only finished 7th...

That's quite funny TBF.

Could be classed as constructive dismissal of Ashworth, meaning he can leave for free and probably sue us for loss if earnings. What we should do is employ his replacement in a completely different role, have them do the DOF role anyway in the meantime, then change the job title of the new person to DOF after Ashworth leaves.

Once the club secretary has finished typing then up on the typewriter, they get pinned to the notice board outside the changing rooms. Someone then updates them with the scores in biro as the season progresses.

Set up a friendly at St James' Park, to be played almost immediately so nobody can react to the below Corporate tIcket price £1bn per ticket MBS buys 10, either uses them himself or has them handed out for free or even just doesn't go (seems OK on Wearside and still counts?) Repeat as often as needed

Fair point, but it still doesn't seem likely we're can afford him without a big sale. We're allegedly up against it already, and whilst we might still only pay 1/4 of his fee this year, we've still got similar quarters of Bruno, Isak, Gordon, Tonali, Barnes, Botman etc fees to pay next year after similarly kicking those cans down the road in seasons gone. I still think Olise in means we'll lose someone significant out

If we are signing Olise, especially for cash up front, that doesn't exactly tie in with our "close to FFP" rumours. Who's leaving? Feels like it needs to be someone significant.

Bit of a stupid argument from them given we only got one of those finishes with a (disputed - see below) £400m spend, 7th, and it was the most injury-ravaged campaign I've ever seen and that's before you even add in Tonali's ban. The 4th place finish was achieved before Tonali, Barnes, Livramento, Hall and Minteh (I know, but they'll be adding the cost of the signing in) signed, whilst we escaped relegation and finished mid-table before buying Isak, Gordon, Botman or Pope. And as I suggested I'm not sold on that £400m fee to start with. Plus of course we sold ASM in amongst all that and got most of our fee back for Wood. Oh, and we haven't even paid for Hall yet. But hey, let's not let facts get in the way of the mackems getting worked up about something.

A transfer bath? In this economy?

I strongly object to that. I am not spotty.

Haha it probably sounded more like that than I intended, but I can assure you that 'working on multi million £ bids' doesn't make me rich or important haha. Half the company has probably worked on them in some capacity, filling in this and that, preparing a document or 2, going through compliance matrices, reviewing other people's documents etc. It's tedious grunt work that involves people at all levels of the company. It does give you an insight into the concept of bid processes though, and whilst not all of that is directly trasnferrable to bidding for footballers, a lot of it will be so I can see why it takes time to do these deals.

Well true, but probably more likely he was told the transfer budget (players will need sold to generate anything) and how much control he'll have over incomings and outgoings (none) and the expectations (promotion), and suddenly being unemployed looks a lot more attractive.

I've worked on numerous multi-million £ bids for my company, and they can take weeks or even months, even between established customers.

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.