pinkeye

But, once you've been a lad, you are always a lad... Right?

Three Newcastle players in the squad. Holy shit! ???

I have a possibility of a spare in East Stand for you. It is a junior ticket as my son looks like he cannot make it (playing away at Everton in the day and unlikely to get back in time). I will know for sure by Wednesday morning and if you don't mind risking it on a junior ticket - although I don't think they check anything other than the light going on at the turnstyle. Let me know if you would be interested, I do not need anything for the ticket, would just prefer to see it being used.

What a fantastic dilemma for a mackem... what do they hate more? Their recently acquired hatred of the Saudi regime or their more deeply rooted hatred for all things Newcastle United

Second comment tells you all you need to know. "Sounded great on the tele"

That rebound looks like he used his fist to score.

Because he played own the left when he came on and because of the position I sit in I saw a lot of him when he came on last night. Looks pretty assured with the ball and strong in the tackle, with and without the ball. He is desperate for his first senior goal, that is clear so I hope that doesn't overshadow him being a good team player. At least once, maybe twice, he screamed his name for the Newcastle player in front of him to allow the long passed ball go through to him and he completely missed it when it arrived at him. There is one occasion of that which I was really disappointed with, had he taken the ball he would have been one good touch away from creating a lot of space for him to allow a drive into the box.

The first response started well enough but, then he reverted to us being implicit in "been funded by money made literally exploiting people to death" I had no idea you could make money doing that... requires some deeper investigation!

Some poor soul has died today from falling (reported) from the Multi Story on Percy Street, close to the ground. I don't know if this will have any impact tonight for people heading to the match but, please be aware.

I have had it thrown at me, more than once, that we give away 10k free season tickets a year! Of course Ashley did give away 10k free half season tickets when he was desperate and that was a couple of years ago, if the people who benefitted from that offer wanted to keep the ticket for the next year then they had to pay the standard value..... Seems to be lost with them that was the case. In their small minds it is 10k free tickets for every home match every week. The current volume of people who want to pay for a season ticket but, cannot get one due to there being none to buy seems to be completely lost on them!

I went to see Red Hot Chili Peppers at SOL, it was not great... plus getting home was just a huge joke. Nexus are so bad at dealing with any kind of surge even ones that can be anticipated easily. Also it rained, than can only be blamed on the MLF's

I find it really hard to get excited by England football but, I do try to watch the games when I can. More so when I knew that we should have some Newcastle interest with both Pope and Trippier in the squad. I think what Southgate did very well when he was first appointed was to bring in a lot of younger talented players and allow them to play in a slightly more open and relaxed way. With this fresh new team we had some glimmers of possible success culminating in a Euro Final but, he is reverting to the same way that all England managers do and that is to play the same team and tactics regardless. It seems more important not to lose than it is to try to win. Shoehorning players into unfamiliar positions (Walker for example on Saturday) just so they are part of the team. Probably also done to death on here but, Harry Maguire was never an England standard player, he is barely a Man Utd player but, he is straight into the team.... Sadly it is the English media to blame for all of this, Southgate knew from day one that if the smallest thing goes wrong that he would be lambasted by the press and destroyed. He took a couple of mild risks early days and they kind of payed off but, here we are again... he is terrified of doing the wrong thing now and simply reverts to England manager standard by picking the same players regardless

They will find a way to make it seem that SA are sympathisers to the Russian State and this Peace Washing does not fool them!

We are going to need a bigger scoreboard!

Funny, I said they should have Pards or Brucey as well, the media loved those when they were with us. We were supposed to be grateful..... They must be kicking themselves for missing out on Mowbs though!

There are certain teams in the UK that I absolutely cannot stand, I have no logical reasoning for this but, I simply cannot stand them and I always wish bad luck upon them. (There are others where I hate them for very obvious reasons, mackems, Villa etc). You cannot tell me that I am the only one, therefore it follows that referees (inc VAR) have the same albeit for different teams and that "list" may change over time.... Some referees may even hate NUFC and without realising be prone to making - I won't say biased but, decisions that are less favourable....

The VAR was set up to fix any obvious errors I think, or seem to remember being said. They are now basically re-refereeing games from a TV monitor. It was great to see Michael Oliver stick to his decision to award a penalty to Brentford, even though it was probably a wrong decision in my opinion, and I hope that starts to set a new standard that ref's do not have to bow down to the superiority of Lee Mason or whoever is doing VAR. Last week was probably the darkest of times for incorrect decisions, no coincidence that both of ours were at the hands of Mason, he was an awful referee and is continuing that as a terrible VAR. Off side has changed over the years, I can remember a time that to be off side there had to be clear daylight between the attacker and the defender, that was very clear. No trigonometry or sun dial to judge the shadows required for that, just eye sight. Why can it not just be that simple again?

As you all know my lad finished his Grassroots journey at U16 at the end of last season, he has a place at Park View School in Chester Le Street where he will study A Levels and play for their Men's Football Academy. They started pre-season about a month ago and it seems to have gone very well. He has got himself into the first team, it looks like it any way.... he wanted to play as a box to box full back on the left (even though he is right footed) but, the coaches had other ideas, he is 6'2" and very muscular / athletic due to his gym addiction and they liked him as a centre back. They like how he is very calm on the ball and rarely loses it when confronted by attackers as well as his height in defensive heading. The first team will be fluid and change a bit over the coming weeks, probably until Xmas before they decide on their strongest team so he has to keep working hard. It will be tough for him to balance the academic stuff with the training but, he is smart and I know he will do well. First day at the new school is tomorrow so a few nerves are expected, I know he is going to smash it.

I would be very surprised if we sign anyone today, on loan or otherwise. I would love to be proved wrong but, all the deals we have done so far seem to have taken at least a couple of weeks to secure so in reality unless we have someone well advanced then I would doubt we would see anyone coming in today. Probably see a couple leave though, Matty, Fernandez maybe.... possibly even Richie.... Just my opinion, I would love to be proved wrong, our squad depth is horrible... having to bring on gutless players like Murphy as subs and having Longstaff as a starter when Bruno is injured is painful..

Alexander O'Neal was a wonderful 80's singing superstar.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gK5iPbd7Hg

Decent appointment for them, he is a steady manager and although his style is outdated it will be suitable for the Champo. Given the extraordinarily high expectations that Sun'lun fans seem to have and their bizarre opinion of the place Sunderland hold in the football hierarchy I would recon they are all feeling quite deflated about it but, give it a day or two and it will be the best thing that could have happened to them, better than Eddie Howe and the man to inspire them to their rightful place at the pinnacle of English, no, World football.

Injuries can be expected throughout any season and it does hurt when it is a player like Bruno, what makes it worse for us is that the depth of our squad currently is poor and the squad replacement for Bruno seems to be Longstaff and he is really not good enough. Sadly we will need to be an established top 6 team before we can attract good players who would be prepared to sit on the bench or fight for a place in the starting 11. As we sit currently the squad is about as good as we can expect. It is actually a shame about Shelvey, I would have been slightly more comfortable going into the Liverpool game with him deputising for Bruno. Hopefully this week we will see some loan incomings, especially in the midfield positions.

But, surely Wembo.... if no Wembo then they cant have another pat themselves on the back collection for a set of bewildered staff at a London Pub who wondered what the hell happened and what those strange people in red and white costumes were doing there.

Agree, this is the sort of game we would lose comfortably a year ago. We can go into it now with a sense of optimism that we are a much better side and have hope to get something out of it. Brighton also looked great yesterday against a poor Man Utd, we will put up more of a fight and as said above it will be close with a draw most likely but, a narrow win either way also a possibility.

I honestly think he is worth the 60Mil. One hell of a player and just what we need. If we got him and Cornet along with the players we already signed this window we should be looking like a tasty team. Frankly signing players and being linked to good players still feels quite surreal.