timeEd32

Their ownership group came together over time. They weren’t all there before these rules started to get voted in.

It will all come down to the details, but this seems potentially encouraging.

This is a great quote: “I’ve got to somehow find a way to put Crystal Palace against Erling Haaland, and if you have an injury at Palace, you don’t get to pull a £15 million player off the bench, you’ve got to take someone from your academy, because you can’t afford to have that (£15 million) player on your bench. That is not sport. Is anyone really having fun with this? It’s broken.” Also helps dispute the quite frankly odd narrative that American owners are only interested in financial restrictions.

I agree with the part that we are now able to compete for 90 minutes. We aren't dead on our feet anymore though I still think there are lingering effects. I'm actually surprised where you made the split for comparison. Overall I think we had a much better January than February. Sunderland - Not spectacular, but given our form and the occasion we did well City - Competed well for 60-70 minutes. We had no fresh legs or answers for De Bruyne and other changes. Fair enough Fulham - Not the greatest, but decent enough away from home. Villa - The best we've looked by far since November. ---------- Luton - Crazy game; got a pass from me because I still think three games in a week, especially then, is a problem for us Forest - Pretty fortunate to get 3 points. This is one that highlights our ability to compete better now, but it wasn't good. And a lot of midfield/defensive problems on full display. Bournemouth - Also competing, but not good. Draw maybe fair, but if anything lucky to get a point. Arsenal - Overrun from the first minute. Blackburn - I think we got better after the first half and in December I don't think we could have pushed in the first part of extra time like we did the other night. Competing, but not good. The more time passes the more confused I am by the Villa game. I don't think I'm smart enough to understand why at least parts of that performance haven't reappeared in the subsequent month, although I'm sure the fact that the same midfield three had to play seven games in a row is not helping.

You can debate moment, but at least in recent history I think it has to be in the 1996-98 timeframe. Whether that's a better GK, simply scoring in the first half against Man United, Cantona not existing, whatever. Does Keegan leave if Newcastle had been champions? Or maybe no matter what Keegan would have been a star that burned bright and fast in which case it's appointing the right person to follow him or may not losing Ginola, Les, and Shearer (to injury) that one summer. Pick the moment(s), but that was an opportunity for Newcastle to become established as one of the elite, battling with Man United and Arsenal largely unopposed for years, at the same time the Premier League was beginning to gain serious momentum. NUFC would be one of the gatekeepers had some things gone differently then.

UEFA’s punishments start with a series of escalating fines, so it’s somewhat lenient if you’re willing to pay. It’d be good if the PL’s threshold is a little higher as has been speculated. We’d be in a decent spot on that metric.

If we get Pope back for the final 8 or so games and the squad we have today is still intact then I’d be concerned if there wasn’t a noticeable improvement in the run-in. Generally I think some are expecting too much, too soon in terms of some returning players providing a quick fix.

But no one offered more. And I’m quite certain no one will pay Saudi more to bring him back to Europe. I love Maxi, but it’s pretty obvious that football clubs don’t value him the way some on here do.

Has this been posted? It’s from a Ryder article after Arsenal: “The criteria to make Hall's move a permanent deal is believed to be based around appearances in a match day squad and United's final league position, to finish in or around the top 10.”

I'm going to avoid quoting myself, but to add some numbers to the above post about what we've lost without the Pope + Joelinton: Pope had 2.01 defensive actions outside of the penalty area per 90 min. Only three GK are higher this season - Steele, Martinez, and Vicario. Dubravka has 0.90 per 90. Only Flekken, Sa, Johnston, and Areola have less. Pope's average distance from goal for all defensive actions is 19.8. Only Steele is higher. Dubravka's is 11.5, only Johnston and Areola are lower. That's a lot of space that is no longer being covered by our GK, especially with a slow back line. As for Joelinton, there are fancier stats but: In 2022/23 he was 1st on the team and 13th in the league in tackles + interceptions. Interestingly his ratio of def / mid / att third tackles is basically identical to Trippier This season he's tied for first in the same stat per 90 (with Burn). Miley actually fares well here too, but it stands out that the tackles are occurring in different places. 53% of Joelinton's tackles were in the defensive third, an almost identical ratio to last season. 40% are in the middle third. Contrast that with Miley where only 18% of his tackles have happened in the defensive third. 60% are in the middle third and 22% in the attacking third. Gordon has a higher ratio of defensive third tackles. Joelinton also has only one less interception this season than Miley and Longstaff combined despite playing over 1500 less minutes. We don't have anyone doing what Joelinton does. Willock may be the only hope in that regard. Maybe Anderson.

I think it's Joelinton + Pope. The back four has lost its protection both in front of it and behind. Add the swirling concoction of injuries/fatigue/confidence and I think you have most of the mix of our current problem.

Liverpool away would have been worse IMO. Haven't won there in like three decades, don't play well against them, and have to deal with the Klopp retirement quadruple nonsense.

https://www.90min.com/posts/ineos-surprised-man-utd-didnt-consider-signing-tino-livramento Feels like Ratcliffe and INEOS are going to go a long way to making me remember why I used to hate Man United more than Liverpool.

If she loses it seems plausible that she'd need to sell her shares, presumably to the Reubens or PIF, to help fund it. In theory she'd get fair value minus the outstanding loans, but who knows. I just don't get why, if the Reubens and/or PIF wanted to help her out, it had to be funneled through the club.

In 2000 we were gifted Tranmere in the QF. We've paid for it ever since... The last time we got to the QF we drew City also. Time before that was Chelsea away, en route to their second straight PL title. Time before that was Spurs. Time before that was Arsenal en route to a double. And yes, when you get to the last 8 your odds of facing a good team obviously increase. But other than Spurs, who were kind of middling then, we've gotten just about the worst draw imaginable in four of the last five.

Here's me trying to be optimistic. Their fixtures for the next month: Man Utd (h) CL - Copenhagen (h) Liverpool (a) (CL quarterfinal draw on Mar. 15) NUFC (h) (Internationals) Arsenal (h) Villa (h) Maybe their attention will be elsewhere? It may not even matter if it is. Really wish this was at home. Also wish they weren't comfortably camped out at home for a month.

I'm quite sure I'm going to take great joy in revisiting the last 250+ pages sometime in 2024. For future reference, the Everton game is on page 1074.

Definitely has some Sounds of Silence vibes to it.

I'm 100% with you on this. It will get branded as an excuse, which I guess it kind of is. But my new least favorite genre of posts are the ones that act like a magic switch has been flipped along with those that seem to imply fatigue issues were invented as a means to give Eddie a pass. "We were told fatigue was the reason for December..." <--- You shouldn't need to be told anything. Open your eyes "We have players back, what's the excuse now?" <--- Umm, we're still missing critical ones and the impact of the last few months doesn't just disappear overnight. "I guess 30 minutes of extra time will be the excuse for the next month." <---

Honestly there's so many unknowns here I'm reserving judgment until we see what happens after the season. If we pay the £30m then I will agree there were definitely times in Nov/Dec where we could and should have used him even if he's not fully up to expectations.

Brighton at home please. They have injuries and they play Roma at home on the Thursday before. I assume we'd play Sunday if that happens.

It's ultimately a small amount and I assume there's some plan to pay it back, but I don't love that the club was used to provide a loan to an owner for an issue that has absolutely nothing to do with NUFC. Ashley would have been slaughtered for this.

All fair. I think really the only place you and I differ greatly is on how much latitude to give for the injuries.

Kieran is great, but there's a couple problems in this comparison. Caveat that no source is perfect and I trust Kieran more than anyone, but I think even he'd agree with the following: Only 6 of the 20 clubs include 2022/23 numbers in what you linked so it's not yet a perfect comparison. Villa's wages from 21/22 to now will have increased considerably as one example. Player contracts are heavily incentivized with various bonuses and our 2022/23 accounts include Champions League bonuses, so those numbers are inflated from our 'base' wages. This is called out in our accounts: "Staff costs increased £16.5m ... the main factors being higher merit-based bonuses for the playing squad, team management, and club staff as a result of the club's 4th placed finish..." Most clubs don't separate out players from other staff in their accounts so you're getting full club wages. Since this is generally apples to apples it's fine, except the next part of that line from our accounts is "...along with the increase of c100 employees across the club as the build out continues across football operations, commercial teams, executive and central support functions." Obviously players wages are the main driving force, but we have been adding a lot of staff that are mostly not helping us today. We've added around £2.5m in executive team pay since the Charnley days, which is basically a squad player. That said, we're probably 7th or 8th. I'd put us in a trio with Villa and West Ham, who aren't miles behind and also added to their wage bill this year. Four points currently separate 7th-11th and I'd guess that group stays pretty tight. I'd love for us to qualify for Europe, but given what we've dealt with I'm not going to freak out if we finish a handful of points shy.