timeEd32

We beat Liverpool at home.

PL - 38 games that all matter NBA - 82 regular season games and 2 months of playoffs NHL - 82 regular season games and 2 months of playoffs MLB - 162 games plus playoffs So is the NFL the only league you like?

Why don't you think the next 15 matches in the PL won't be intense? Leicester basically has 15 straight playoff games with a chance to do the unthinkable.

I just don't understand what you mean when you say random champions in a derisive way. I mean....the team that wins is the best team. This is where we'll never see eye to eye, I figure. It's widely accepted based on fairly simple math that playoffs produce random winners. Here's one article: http://freakonomics.com/2012/11/09/does-the-%E2%80%9Cbest%E2%80%9D-team-win-the-world-series/ Do you agree that when the Giants beat the Patriots in the SB in 2007 it was an upset? If so (and surely you must), you agree that the Patriots were the better team heading into that game. And if you believe that then a single result should not change anything, particularly when it was an ideal matchup for the underdog and it took one of the luckiest plays you'll ever see to win a close game. The Giants were the champions that season, no one disputes that, but they were not the best team. No, playoffs exist in America for one reason - money. They keep expanding for the same reason. The unbalanced schedules exist because of the league structure and the importance given to division winners. Creating parity (via randomness) is a by product and yes, it can make things more interesting but it doesn't make it more fair. Have you been watching the Premier League this season? Every team is vulnerable every single week. Financial heavyweights Leicester City - LEICESTER - are three points clear at the top at the end of January. Let's pretend for a moment there was a playoff in the format you suggested (top 8). We would already know 5 of the 8 teams. The only drama between now and May would be who got the three lowest seeds and if Leicester would get home-field advantage throughout (although if this ever happened the final would surely be at Wembley because money). People would be wondering if Chelsea could sneak in and if they did, could they win it all? Does Chelsea really deserve to win anything this season? They quit on their manager and were abysmal for four months. Instead, every single week between now and May will have must-watch games with Leicester, Arsenal, and Man City, not to mention everything else teams are playing for. Would it produce some really exciting moments? Of course it would, but do you know how dull a #4 Spurs vs. #5 Man Utd. match would be? LVG would be playing for 1-0 or penalties. Here are the 8 teams in your playoff for the last 5 seasons: Would it really be worth 38 weeks of games to basically watch the same teams compete for a championship in an even less fair way?

If we had our shit together we could finish above them. Now that would be glorious.

Small donation made. Thanks for everything - this place is the best thing about being a Newcastle supporter at the moment.

Hopefully this is true and it's because we've realized we need that extra money to get a proper striker in.

This is the biggest cultural divide I've ever encountered on here. This mindset is more difficult to understand than your accents. The best team is the team left standing at the end. The season exists as preparation for the playoffs. That's all it's for, that's all it should ever be for. You don't make the playoffs, you learn from it and try to make them next year. That doesn't mean regular season games aren't incredibly important. They are; but not more than the playoffs. I'm American and I think this is the most ridiculous opinion ever. Actually, the part in bold isn't an opinion - it's just an incorrect statement. And to say regular season games in US sports are "incredibly important" is a gross exaggeration. The only sport where this is true is college football, which still has its own issues. The NFL it's true for half the season and then there are an increasing number of pointless games. Don't get me started on the NHL and NBA regular seasons. It's a great idea but it doesn't break up the hold the mega rich teams have over the league itself. They'll just spend even more and hoard even more players to avoid 4th. I'm not worried about the CL, parity in England will sort the CL out in time. Parity in your league will make it easily the strongest league. Massive do or die fixtures beyond what most of the other teams in Europe could ever dream of participating in makes the EPL stronger. Hell, it might even improve your national team, ffs. Hardened English players knowing what it means to perform when it's all on the line year after year instead of on those infrequent occasions when they land a cup final. Each team plays each other home and away. Absolutely no need for playoffs. The issue of mega rich teams won't be solved by giving them an extra half a dozen or so games which would no doubt add to their already bursting coffers. But it solved it here. With 162 games, you could argue there's even less need for playoffs in baseball, but we've got them and it's possible for a (comparatively) poor team to topple the teams spending hundreds of millions of dollars. This is due to teams taking an active role in improving themselves year after year (which imo does not happen in the EPL. Most teams work to maintain the status quo) which spreads the top talent around, and affords more opportunities for talent to develop. There isn't a need for playoffs in baseball (if they switched to a balanced schedule), but it's all about $$$. The baseball playoffs deliver the most random champion of any sport, even more so now with the WC games. It's a great idea but it doesn't break up the hold the mega rich teams have over the league itself. They'll just spend even more and hoard even more players to avoid 4th. I'm not worried about the CL, parity in England will sort the CL out in time. Parity in your league will make it easily the strongest league. Massive do or die fixtures beyond what most of the other teams in Europe could ever dream of participating in makes the EPL stronger. Hell, it might even improve your national team, ffs. Hardened English players knowing what it means to perform when it's all on the line year after year instead of on those infrequent occasions when they land a cup final. Each team plays each other home and away. Absolutely no need for playoffs. The issue of mega rich teams won't be solved by giving them an extra half a dozen or so games which would no doubt add to their already bursting coffers. But it solved it here. With 162 games, you could argue there's even less need for playoffs in baseball, but we've got them and it's possible for a (comparatively) poor team to topple the teams spending hundreds of millions of dollars. This is due to teams taking an active role in improving themselves year after year (which imo does not happen in the EPL. Most teams work to maintain the status quo) which spreads the top talent around, and affords more opportunities for talent to develop. They don't play each other the same amount of times, do they? Do each team play all of the others at all? There are two leagues. AL and NL. Every AL team plays each other an absolutely ungodly amount of times, and (I think) each division in the AL plays of the teams in a single division from the other league plus any local rival. This is relatively recent. Teams from the AL and NL never used to play at all unless they met in the World Series. So you've got all the AL teams going head to head over and over again, but we've still got playoffs and no one is upset. The schedule isn't balanced within the league let alone out of the league. This is true for all four major sports because of divisions and conferences. It's fine because there are playoffs, but for the millionth time - there is nothing more fair for declaring a champion than the format of the Premier League. Financial imbalance is a completely different topic.

If there was ever a good time to lose while fighting relegation it was today. We have a little over a week to bring in players that could help guarantee our safety.

That's harsh on Mitrovic, but he's quite clearly sending a message to Ashley and Charnley.

Still pretty confident we'll stay up.

It's all very tight now though. I think every team from Palace down (bar Everton) could potentially get dragged into this. We're quite obviously going to have to get our points at home. I like Mitrovic and think some of the stick is an overreaction, but we quite obviously need a proven striker. Need to stop fucking around and get Berahino or Remy.

Not great, not terrible. Mitrovic should have scored but so should Deeney. Aarons off the pace, which is not that surprising. Thought Lascelles was decent aside from the giveaway that should have led to a goal. Saivet grew into it as the half went on. Wijnaldum and Mitrovic too isolated. Should go to our usual formation with Perez on and Mbemba at LB.

Ridiculous game and terrible for Norwich. Couldn't have gone better.

Really interesting team. Perez needs a break. Hope we stuff them.

Norwich 1 v 0 Liverpool Crystal Palace 0 v 2 Spurs Leicester 1 v 1 Stoke Man Utd 1 v 1 Southampton Sunderland 0 v 1 Bournemouth Watford 0 v 2 Newcastle West Brom 0 v 1 Aston Villa West Ham 1 v 2 Man City Everton 3 v 1 Swansea Arsenal 2 v 0 Chelsea

That would be terrible.

This stadium will very likely hold a World Cup Final so it's pretty significant.

McClaren has ruled this out - said we don't have four fit defenders let alone five. I'd be shocked if it's not the same formation with Saivet and Shelvey in the middle and hoping for the best with someone barely qualified forced into LB.

Yeah, not actually happy he's injured right now. He clearly would have been the LB this weekend.

Sometimes you're ok.

Agreed a weak middle was part of our issues, the weak middle also contributed to the additional pressure the back four have been under this season, the middle has also reduced the number of goals a possible striker could score through lack of forward play and movement to free up areas of space. For that I think Shelvey is a great signing just what the middle needed and will help us improve however I wont be jumping up and down saying its been a great transfer window as we bought two midfielders which was my entire point as I still see us weak at centre half and left back and I dont see having our current strikers being enough to get us the goals we need. If we were signing 4 players this window and shelvey was amongst them then great if he is the only quality edition I still dont know if thats enough to see us through. That's quite a bit different from what you first said, which made it sound like we got midfielders we don't need. I don't think anyone would say our business should be done, but when the window opened CM was our greatest need and we've taken care of that (hopefully).

You don't think we needed central midfielders?