Heron

In the PL he dominated some games for us, especially when he first joined. He has the potential to be a lynchpin for almost any team imho, tactics permitting. Aye, he has the potential to. Like you say tactics permitting. As HTT (I think) said though you'd need a box to box midfielder (or two) in alongside him in the top flight though for me.

TBH like it does my tits in that people whinge about others actively trying to improve the atmosphere when they probably just sit in silence all game doing fuck all but complaining or happy clapping.

FWIW I think HTT raises valid points. Just everyone is wanking Shelvey off relentlessly at the moment because he is noticeably on of the best players in this particular division. Understandable I guess. HTT is just looking further ahead.

The lights thing actually generated an atmosphere. It's more than most people do in the ground to create one.

TBF it shows how bad this league is from a managerial point of view the amount of time and space Shelvey gets almost every game. If you had someone man marking him and pressing him all game our team would be half as effective.

We've lost twice to them since he was with us. Shut up. :-)

I thought it was just sporadic like (the lights)

They don't have Ryan Taylor. We will win.

I don't mind when it's constructive and actually has substance. The amount of people I've heard at games who have had absolutely no clue and a desperate level of desire to abuse him has been ridiculous though.

Aye. I mean it's realistic to say we won't win it but for me why be involved in competitions or sport at all if it's not to win / be the best.

Hopefully yesterday will get people off his case. Bored of the boo boys griefing him

Agreed. Hate people rubbishing the cups me.

This thread man...

Mourinho couldn't do what Rafa has / is

Hopefully our fans sense some frustration and injustice from last week

It is utterly tragic but all this clapping during minutes at matches is getting absolutely ridiculous! It's been picked up by the media now; http://www.itv.com/news/tyne-tees/update/2016-12-08/nufc-fans-unite-for-terminally-ill-bradley-lowery/ Sunderland clap on the 17th minute too don't they? #Sarcasm

Boring draw. 4 Premiership teams going out at least. Just hope we can edge through. If we can string together another winning streak up until then there's no reason to not push on in the cup as well as the league.

Change channel?

All the youngsters in Italy seem to focus on Ultra mentality and whether or not you're an Ultra. It's all I was getting asked when we went last year to Calabria. Simply because I had NUFC tattoos

It's almost boxing day. That's when the cycle starts. "We lost the game today cause we was thinking about whether or not cranberry should go in our turkey staffing sandwiches from the clab Christmas party. I blame Waitrose"

It's been said that he has been staying back in training and doing additional work and generally I think he is channelling his aggression a lot better now than he was previously. Against Blackburn where he had an alright first half he made one or two mistakes and left the pitch at half time noticeably downbeat. He cares and maybe that's to his detriment sometimes as he sulks. Hence the poor second half. In that game though Shelvey played CB half the game and we continuously humped it long to Mitro' despite the fact he was having no joy and actually no one was feeding off the poor lad. As has been mentioned we're desperate for a better quality number 10 or at least Perez or Diame need to up their games. I don't think Mitro is the finished article but I also don't think it is fair to right him off. Gayle is our best striker undoubtedly but Mitro can and will do a job for us in this division. We need a CB, CM and ST should we get promoted and actually as someone stated for Mitro it might be better that he moves at that point. I suspect that he won't receive better coaching than under Rafa here though.

There's always room to improve. Even for the world's best players like Karl Darlow

He's obviously very like marmite but for me the lad needs time. He got loads of stick after the Blackburn game to the point that he was being singled out and actually it wasn't all his fault. He wasn't present vs Hull which I'm not sure was right and actually we seemed to miss him a bit. Constant high balls in the box and no one there to win them... He's still young and he has the right attitude generally speaking. It's that same right attitude that for a lot of us that's all we wanted to see from everyone involved at the club and we're finally getting it. Cut the lad some slack.

Whoever does the half time whistle needs reeling in like. It's totally pointless and idiotic.