Ketsbaia

A few interesting tweets from Nick Barnes (their BBC Newcastle guy) that suggest the club is in a very bad way. Nick Barnes ‏@Tweed_Barnesy 2h2 hours ago @kevinoneillmitt there is much to digest. I'm sure it will be revealed in time. Nick Barnes ‏@Tweed_Barnesy 1h1 hour ago @kevinoneillmitt It would be a major surprise if he [Allardyce] agreed to return under the financial restrictions he would face. Nick Barnes ‏@Tweed_Barnesy 1h1 hour ago @Potbellypags I can't say a great deal publically but there's an elephant in the room & Moyes is working with both hands & feet tied. Nick Barnes ‏@Tweed_Barnesy 45m45 minutes ago Dunston, England @reverend_taylor the problems are more deep rooted than David Moyes. Whether he's the right man or wrong, the problems remain.

Report in a storm On Skysports.com, Alan McInally has given each Premier League club a rating for this season’s performance. You might think that there is already a table that does that – we call it the league table – but you’re an idiot. It’s half-term, you see. So we need half-term reports: – Liverpool are level on points with top of the league; they get a ‘B’. Arsenal, who are level on points with them and finished considerably higher last season? ‘A-‘. Of course. – Tottenham are one point from the top of the Premier League – they get a ‘C’. They’re level on points with Chelsea, who get a ‘B’. That league table really is misleading. – “I’m going to go as low as ‘C’ for Tottenham because I thought this would be a big season for Spurs and I think they’ve struggled a little,” says McInally about the only unbeaten team in the country. – Tottenham’s grade is the same as Manchester United’s, who they lead by five points. And Leicester, who have gone from top to 12th. That league table really is misleading. – Watford and Bournemouth are both in their second season back. They’re level on points too. The marks? ‘C’ for Watford and ‘A’ for Bournemouth. Sure. – “I want to give them an ‘A’ because of the position they’re in at the moment and the football they’ve played has been excellent,” says McInally on Southampton – they get a ‘B’. Sensational. http://www.football365.com/news/mediawatch-we-never-said-mata-would-leave

Scored 80 - finally! Jumped up 1 million in the rankings even though I chose Sanchez as captain over Aguero.

Sewpa dewpa

Nothing comes below 2010, but 1998 always felt good to me.

Player prices change according to form, so Chadli was dirt cheap a few weeks ago but is now a bit more. I like to do 2 games - a safe 'top half wins' one and a fancier one that could win more money. And, depending on if you play on a day with few fixtures, you can easily fit all the big players into your £100m budget.

They've only been hammered once (Lukaku's 11 minute hat-trick) and had narrow defeats at Man City, Spurs and West Ham. Yet there's nothing about them at all. It kinda does feel different this year but still have to assume they'll find a way out of it like they always do. Bloody Defoe.

Down to 2.4 millionth in the world :lol: My team's good too. Gonna give up and just Fanduel it for the rest of the season.

Don't rock the boat right now, things are going well on the pitch. Besides, maybe Ashley has fallen for Rafa like we have

Just got to hope this takes a while and they're already adrift by then.

I had 12pts from 8 players at 5pm :lol: Luckily Lanzini bagged 11, but it's another shocking new-low week.

They're shite every season but this seems different. Hope so, anyway.

football manager [emoji38] What's wrong with that? It's very accurate when it comes to football organisations rules on players/transfers.

Norman Conquest

Aye, but Rafa seems not to. You're probably right, like. Rafa comes with rotation and 4-2-3-1, we have to accept the whole package really. Just a shame our only #10 options are Diame and Perez.

And even though Gouffran hasn't been as horrific as he was, with results improving, he shouldn't be immune from rotation. At home we should be going Ritchie and Atsu on the wings, with two strikers.

I wasn't really aware of NUFC until the summer of '96, aged 7. It was just a combination of finally discovering football (parents don't really like it), Euro '96 and Shearer coming home - I went from 0 to 100 in months. Never looked back since then and quite vividly remember where I was listening/watching most of our games from the 96/97 season. The 5-0 against Man Utd was sitting on the floor playing with my 10-month old baby brother, 7-1 was sat in the ASDA car park while mam and dad were shopping, 4-3 v Leicester was with my uncle Dusty etc. My first football match was actually at Sunderland v Bury because my school were giving out wads of free tickets (I know we go on about this, but it really is true. Struggled to sell tickets for their new stadium so almost every match was offered to school kids.... and Chester-le-Street isn't exactly nearby either!) First Newcastle match was against CSKA Sofia in late '99, I think. And favourite goal in person was definitely Ben Arfa v Bolton. I was right behind that one, it was amazing.

Villa's response was canny good but Virgin's was painful. We've had more trains arrive on time in the last week than you've had wins in 12 months? Well I imagine it'd be more than every teams by quite a bit. So, erm..... yeah.

Wagner would be foolish to choose Villa. I know there's examples where someone has stepped down to a bigger club, but this one is simple - go to Villa and he definitely won't be in the PL next season, stay at Huddersfield and he might be. And might put money on Swansea to go down now.

Want to bring Costa in for Ibra but he's on 4 yellows.... wish he'd hurry up and get that suspension done.

At least be subtle :lol:

To get one point from such promising home games (Boro, Everton, Palace, West Brom) is embarrassing but, then again, Sunderland don't specialise in easy points or August/September points. Their squad is shocking though, absolutely shocking.

Made Zlatan captain Can't wait to remove him, didn't even want him in the first place. Although I'm tempted to finally delete this team and just concentrate on Fanduel

Getting a good Vibe. Hope their lot aren't Bjellands though.

2 weeks to formulate a plan for this tricky game. Think we'll win 2-0.