oldtype

Started watching this with my wife as a way to maybe get her into NUFC since she likes sports documentaries. We've only got through the first episode but she remarked that it was hard to feel any emotion about the club because the doc made it look like we'd just lucked into mega-rich owners and our only worry in life now was to figure out where to spend our tens of millions of dollars on while getting around whatever technicality that "financial fair play" is. I think that's a fair comment. It really does hurt the product that the first episode is centered around the ownership group and posh boardroom meetings in freaking castles rather than starting with the city, the fanbase, the pain we all went through, and then moving into the new era. A layperson could turn on episode one and watch the whole thing without realizing pretty important basic facts like... Where in England Newcastle is, where in the city the stadium is located and why that is special, and why fans were so happy that the previous owner left, or who Alan Shearer is and why he's narrating the documentary etc. etc. You could get all of this out of the way by putting in the typical "five-minute montage of unending pain" at the very beginning, just to establish a baseline emotional connection. It's puzzling to me that they didn't do that. Maybe this changes in later episodes, but just seems like poorly constructed narrative. Almost made me wonder if there was some kind of non-disparagement clause in the sale contract with Ashley and they were advised to not mention anything pre-takeover in the documentary to avoid potential liability.

It seems like standard operating procedure for the new regime to have players visit the stadium and take their photoshoots in full kit before the formal announcement is made. That always seems to result in a delay of a few days and a tiny bit of panicking on here.

It's weird when you think about it. Since childhood, I've always enjoyed both Mens' and Womens' events at the Olympics, more or less equally. The fact that the Women's 100m is always going to be run a few seconds slower than the Men's didn't make it seem any less interesting. But for the longest time, I wasn't applying that same standard in any context other than the Olympics. Womens' events always seemed trivial relative to the Mens'. In retrospect, perhaps it was because I had just been conditioned to feel that way because of how our society treats Womens' sport in general (with the Olympics being the one exception.) Obviously the pinnacle of football is always going to be the mens' Premier League and the mens' World Cup. But that doesn't mean that the womens' counterparts can't be enjoyable and a good product in their own right, especially now that more money is starting to flow into those events. The fact that they maybe kick the ball a bit less well than the men doesn't matter at the end of the day. They still kick it plenty well enough for the matches to be entertaining for a lot of people.

Uncharacteristically amateurish of them to let that make it to air, mind.

Can’t believe Rolando Aarons turned out shite. Was unreasonably excited about him after that game.

This club employed Celestine Babayaro

Oh great, jammy 1-0 home loss to Luton nailed on now

Wouldn’t be surprised if Howe’s been on him about how you have to keep the ball moving in Newcastle’s system and it’s been messing with his head

“We just got another corner. Pardew is making funky hand motions in the technical area. Ryan Taylor kicks and…” ”Shut up I already know that it got cleared by the first man.”

Yeah he’s not going to be obviously the best player every week anymore, and he doesn’t really need to be.

Who the heck are the 9% of our fans that are pessimistic

The fact that we were willing to take a chance on Howe rather than some has-been who happens to have a head coaching job at a bigger club on his resume was the first sign that the people running the club are smart. (Although to be fair, Howe wasn’t the first choice.)

We’re going to lose a great player to a bigger club eventually imo. Obviously this is a great situation and we can match wages, but we can’t realistically offer a league or CL win, and perhaps more importantly, we’re not a club like Real Madrid which a lot of these players will have grown up dreaming of playing for. The upside to that is if it does happen, it will be for silly money, and I trust those in charge to reinvest the funds wisely.

I should caveat that as “any club in a major, globally-televised league.” I’m sure it’s never going to be as good as that Mexican second division team I visited once where it was just five hundred insane people drinking and screaming.

The “atmosphere” is just going to get worse as the club gets better imo. The normies who only have a casual interest in the club will start pushing out some of the serial masochists who were filling the ground throughout the Ashley years. It will still be a better atmosphere than basically any other club on any other sport in the world. That’s what makes Newcastle special.

Managers really should be using in-game subs more aggressively now and we have the depth in attack to do it. Isak doesn’t have to conserve energy knowing that we have Wilson to come on for 30 min+ of elite striker play if necessary, same goes for Gordon, Barnes, Joelinton etc. We’ll have a lot of rotation between games with the CL and all, but tactical rotation mid-game could be just as beneficial.

He’s just good at everything. Fast, strong, smart, clinical finisher, good technique. The Swedish Haaland. I’m only half joking.

Best player in the first half for us. This is how he should be used going forward I think. Start on the left and track back aggressively, give it everything you can for as long as you can. Once you’re knackered, we have players to bring on.

So much elite finishing in the team now after what feels like a decade of complaining about no end product.

Let’s try to temper expectations folks. We’re only going to win the league, not the treble.

Isak’s going to score a trillion goals this season. Look out Haaland.

Would like to see Almiron and Tonalli replaced relatively early in the second for Barnes and Anderson.

Players like Gordon never draw as many fouls as they deserve because refs just don’t understand how it’s humanly possible to get the shit kicked out of you that many times within a ninety minute span.

Not quite SJP but decent viewing location

Central midfield as a whole has been pretty quiet today (except for Tonalli popping up for that goal). Villa doing a good job in that part of the pitch.