Wandy

You are gonna have to give more detail here mind. What are people on your train saying like?

Fair play to you mate, and I don’t think any kind of criticism should be directed to someone like yourself who makes such effort from such a distance. Out of interest, how did you rate today’s backing for the team? And how would rate it generally this season? With regards to the fans complaining on cup final ticket allocations, I would have to disagree with you on that as I think the majority have agreed with the club’s policy on ticket distribution. You are always going to get a few who whinge about it when they miss out.

it’s because the stadium is heavy on spectators and light on actual supporters. The backing for the team was atrocious right from the kick off and after the sending off the team needed the crowd to raise their game. What they got instead was a wall of silence.

Our crowd arent helping here mind. Silent as fuck as usual.

Great news. It really needs to be the current Gallowgate and definitely NOT in Level 7.

Which goal are we behind, when watching it on the TV?

I'd say that most people of a certain age will naturally be feeling pessimistic about this game. The two finals of 98 & 99, in addition to the title collapse of 96, have left most of us who were around in that era with strong PTSD when it comes to the big crunch games. You can also add in the semi-final of 2000 to that mix too. For 50 years the club has been one that continuously falls at the final hurdle. 1974, 1976, 1996, 1998 & 1999 have left us with something of a persecution/inferiority complex as a fanbase. If the new owners can get that gigantic monkey off our back we will quickly soar, but right now it still feels like one hell of a task to do it. This is my 39th season of following NUFC and it feels like the biggest game of my lifetime. Almost too big. If we lose I will try hard to stay rational and reassure myself that we are only at the beginning of a great journey with people who are finally running the club properly. But yet another defeat would be gutting and there's no point in pretending otherwise.

Good stuff, cos that's what you are about to get. To clarify, I don't want Man U to get an oil takeover at all, but if they do then I don't want it to have any Saudi involvement as that *might* compromise us at some point in the future.

We need a strong performance on Saturday to get us in the right frame of mind for the final. We really don't want to be going into it on the back of a poor display against the Dippers.

Yeah but my point was that if those private investors make a big success of Man Utd, might PIF think that there is no need for SA to own two PL clubs. I hope that the Qataris get MUFC as it would just intensify the rivalry between the two nations and therefore the two clubs.

Looking extremely likely that Man Utd will be the next oil takeover as the Qataris have apparently put their bid in, and a Saudi consortium also about to hoy a bid in. Must admit that them also having Saudi owners makes me a bit nervous for our own future. Would it be compromised? If Man Utd do better than us under a Saudi consortium then would PIF lose interest in us?

I want them back in League One, never mind the PL, and would happily never play them again. As shit as they usually are when in the top league, it's killing their frail little egos not even being able to play in it, and its also hurting them that they don't even have the opportunity to take us on. The longer they stay out of the PL, the smaller they get as a club. And they know it.

Both years it was a case of hoping for an upset, but knowing that this was unlikely. We were unfortunate in that we played the PL Champions in both games. We didn't lay a glove on either of them and they never got out of second gear to beat us. This game should, in theory, be a lot closer. They are currently better than us in midfield and attack but the margins are a lot closer than they were back then. So while in those days a win was pretty much a fantasy scenario, this time we have a fighting chance.

A member of my family just got the same call and now has a ticket. I tried to get it off him but he's not having any of it.

Completely agree with every point. 60,000 isn’t enough, 70,000 is the sweet spot but we could also fill 75k+ if we established ourselves as a club that wins trophies in every decade.

West Ham fans are only unhappy about the move because the design of the London Stadium is horrendous for watching football. A properly designed football stadium with a 70K+ capacity could still be a brilliant venue to experience a game.

You can say that for any club though, including Man Utd.

Watch these shithouses be the ones to end the unbeaten run and do the double over us. Would gladly take a draw to go into the final not on a total downer. I'd also really love to beat them as, after the Mackems, these lot have taken our takeover the worst.

It's definitely the case that in the coming years we are going to have an element in our fanbase that is one of the worst in the country. Let's just hope that they are a very small minority and the majority can keep these tools firmly in their box. However I do think that most fans now have their eyes and hearts on the final, so a performance like that tonight has got people panicking. Today was absolutely turgid but the nature of the performance was unlike any other we have seen under Eddie Howe. We were genuinely dreadful in almost every outfield position. Let's just hope it's largely down to some subconscious nervous energy leading up to the final because we couldn't string two passes together out there tonight, and if we do that again in the next two matches we will get mullered. I'm not that bothered about a top 6 finish compared to winning the cup so I'd gladly take one last heroic performance of the season to win the cup, and therefore sacrifice any kind of Europe-qualifying league position.

He is finished here, and is fast turning into one of the most overrated players to wear the shirt. His runs contribute nothing because the final ball or shot are absolutely shit and he regularly loses the ball or misplaces a pass. Will be playing for someone like Palace next season if he is lucky.

That was absolutely atrocious.

What a shambles that was, easily our worst 45 under Eddie. They all look absolutely gassed.

Interesting thoughts, and yeah I agree about the accoustics problem of taking the current Gallowgate roof off and replacing it with Level 7 one, which is why I've stressed how important it is to make the Gallowgate a safe standing Kop end if they do simply extend the current design. I would be amazed if they did completely build a new stadium more or less on the current footprint but I'd certainly welcome it if it gets rid of the East Stand problem. The real issue here is that they could spend £500m on extending the Gallowgate and coming up with a compromised solution for the East Stand, taking capacity to the low/mid 60K capacity...only for the club to even outgrow that within 5 or 6 years and they need to go back to thinking of building a new stadium again. A new build would probably cost £1.5b+ so maybe they are thinking long term?

They have, but its been left rotting for so long that its going to take much more time, effort and money to fix it.

Again, not disagreeing with that. But if something isnt done soon it wont be long before some of the buildings are looking like they did in the 70s. The city has a variety of nice archirecture but it needs some serious maintenance right now. The Tyne Bridge has been allowed to rot though so I'm not holding out much of hope of anything happening any time soon. Its not just the buildings though. The streets are covered in bedded-in white stains which I can only assume is bird shite or flattened chewing gum. Whatever it is though, its just minging and its something that I havent really noticed when visiting other city centres.