Chris_R

Not sure how you can ever have a minimum expectation in a cup competition, we could draw Man City away in the first round we're entered in. My expectation is to do well against teams lower in the league(s), that's about all you can hope for surely? Top half for the league though.

You just know he's going to be working himself into a frenzy at the upcoming 4k milestone. He may well stroke himself tumescent looking at saggy-titted MILF hookers and pubescent YouTube wannabes as a warm-up, but his cumshot next Thursday will be accompanied by a yell of "Four Thousand Days!" as he fires his slop over a photo of Adam Johnson's noncey police mugshot.

Never mind that, we may need to get him to pass it into the opposition net.

Giving away fans 10k tickets is unlikely to help us get good results. I think that's a terrible idea.

I've seen a few people say this, but surely its the other way round? Unless clubs need or want to sell, I'd imagine we'll need to bid more and more as deadline day approaches. From what I can see we're bidding for players clubs want to keep. If players were transfer listed, fair enough. But we're trying to take clubs' major assets.

When all the locals get in for free, you've got to charge someone.

Bored of all the transfer talk tbh, just going to forget about it all for a bit and have a Pacqueta crisps.

Leicester will do well this season. Expect to see Vardy reinvigorated, as he knows he needs his goal bonuses to pay off his wife's legal fees.

I'd rather us buy a winger to play as a winger. We need someone out there who can beat a man and put in a cross.

I think he gets grace for 2 reasons. Firstly, the attitude and effort that he puts in. But secondly there's nothing inherently wrong in hoping your (one-time) record signing comes good. I'd add in a third that he's largely played out of position too. He's just not a right winger.

I'd love Maddison, he'd be a fantastic signing. But he's not in a position that I think we should prioritise right now. He's not a striker or an out and out winger and I think we need to fill those positions first. Clearly if we fill those positions as well, and sign Maddison, I'd be insanely happy.

What was their flag display like?

Whilst I don't doubt Ritchie a) looks shit and b) is past it, judging him as a right winner seems ridiculous. It's not his position and never has been.

Fans in "enjoying winning matches" shock. As a Newcastle fan, I enjoyed our last 2 Championship campaigns. Doesn't make it a "better league" than the PL though, that's just bobbins.

I think whether a loan is good depends on the manager and facilities at the loaning club. For example, playing under someone like Bruce would be a really bad idea, even if he got 90 minutes each game. Howe I really, really rate as a coach, he has a proven track record of taking mediocre players and making them PL regulars. Bournemouth survived in the PL for a good while with a good few regulars who played for them in L1. In other words game time isn't everything, not by a long way. If he gets a loan, it's imperative it's to a team with a good setup and manager, or he'd be better staying and learning under Howe.

Sell a handful of "premium tickets" at £20m each. :lol:

As well as our wealth making new signings more expensive because people know we're rolling in it now (FFP aside), it may also have an impact on sales in that teams looking to buy our players may think that a) we don't need the money and b) we're desperate to get rid of players to make room for better ones. When half your squad is "for sale", it's hard to demand top dollar and play the hard-nosed seller.

I'm not watching highlights of anyone until they sign. Absolutely gagging for us to sign a forward player of some description. I turst the club and the process, but I'm like a kid waiting for Christmas here.

Why would he? They don't serve beer and kebabs there.

It's literally all they've got left. Need to get us back for the years and years of "5 in a row" we sang to them. Oh hang on.... most of us didn't even know about it until 6 in a row became a ring and we looked back. Such oddballs.

Nah, they're clinging to weird shit like us not being able to afford Ekitike and signing Burnley rejects and "Villa's third choice LB" meaning our owners are just grifters and we're going to get relegated. This will see them through for a good while yet. They'll then invent something else to fixate on to deflect from reality.

How can they work knowing that if they fail to meet expectations, they won't get millions of pounds as a reward for failing? I dunno, same as the rest of us manage?

I don't think only desperate managers would accept that. I think confident managers would accept, if the targets were realistic and you genuinely believed in yourself, and young hungry ones. Don't forget, "we can sack you for nothing (or a smaller fee than your full contract) if you fail to hit X" doesn't mean "we WILL sack you if you fail to hit X" - Extenuating circumstances like injuries etc can always be factored in and the board must still have a genuine desire to change manager in order to get rid of you. I do agree that it would be a difficult sell for many though and we're a long way short of it becoming a thing, but I find it genuinely disgusting and offensive watching people like Bruce, Pardew etc lurch from failure to failure with £Xm payouts all the time. The managerial recruitment scene needs an overhaul, where such failure is not rewarded. They need either short contracts so that payouts are minimised, or payouts are linked to achievements.

Honestly I reckon by constantly being sacked a short while into long contracts, he must have made more money as a manager than some seriously successful managers who do well enough to stay to the end of their contracts before moving on. This "rewarding people for failure" mechanism surely needs to end? If I were a chairman I'd have some clause in there that "If we provide you with X transfer funds and you're not in Y position by Z date, you're gone with nothing".

There's a lot of obvious answers, but a less obvious one for me is "controversial refereeing decisions". Always seems to get the crowd worked up when it seems like a ref is going to give us nothing and turns a blind eye to (what the crowd consider) a few blatant fouls by the opposition.