Doctor Zaius

Honestly, this is one of the worst group of bottom four teams I've ever seen. End of January and Norwich, comfortably one of the shittest PL teams ever for the majority of the season are out of the relegation zone on -32 GD. Beggars belief. We're fucking shit but if one of Watford, Burnley or Norwich stays up ahead of us Howe wants immediately peddled and the owners have had an absolute nightmare.

Win you fucks

Fair play to Ranieri for agreeing to continue. Might well get the sack now like

What podcast was that mate?

Hugely disappointing week like.

Let's not sign injured players eh

More to the point we've got a manager with a track record of wasting money, his assistant, a fella that thought spending 40m on Joelinton was a coup and someone who had no experience within football until October negotiating the most important and difficult transfer window of the club's recent history. This, despite having from October to plan for it. Fuck knows like, maybe my expectations were too high but I'd be surprised if anyone thought this would be the case come mid January, back in October when the takeover went through.

From NUFC.com An interesting update from The Times on Saturday regarding Nicky Hammond, whose temporary arrival at SJP was only revealed on December 17th: It was Christmas Eve and Nicky Hammond’s brief work at Newcastle United was done. Hammond had picked up the reins at the world’s richest football club before the new Saudi owners’ first transfer window. He was expected to be the de facto chief executive, given the licence to launch a worldwide spending spree. Instead, his tenure was cut short. From there, Newcastle’s recruitment team was whittled down to four — Amanda Staveley, who had led a four-year attempt to take over the club; Steve Nickson, the long-standing head of recruitment; Eddie Howe, the new head coach; and his No 2, Jason Tindall. This had not been foreseen when Newcastle were taken over in October by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund. It has meant that Howe has had far greater power over recruitment than had been expected when he was appointed in November Worrying this like. Got to wonder why Hammond was cut short. Howe, Tindall and Nickson in charge of recruitment is not what we expected in October. Assuming Staveley has no part, given that she has 0 experience within football...

Defoe would be an absolutely tremendous signing in L1 mind. Would be very surprised though, surely he'd want bigger wages than they can afford, unless he really is returning for the love of the club.

Yeah, you sit on the bench there Donny. Sure it'll do your career a world of good.

Tim Vickery is a rarely wrong mind. Though I'd trust his judgement more on players actually based in South America.

Yeah you're right. Jonas had a stormer I remember. Always wonder what KK would have made of that team. Wouldn't have been relegated, I know that fine well.

Id hope so. I'd also hope that there was a structure in place around Howe, given his record of big flops at Bournemouth.

I think they're so desperate/clueless/struggling (delete as appropriate) that they might just take a look at it.

Who is there to do the homework? They've not appointed anyone in any roles to do the research and data gathering. Can only assume we're working off the advice of someone in a consultancy role whilst using the skeletal staff Ashley left behind, who certainly weren't looking at players like Diego Carlos. It's very much hit and hope like.

Keegan transformed that team though. By the end of that season we were playing some good stuff. Lost only two of our last 9 games and had a couple of thumping victories. Converted Michael Owen into a kind of deep lying forward and he was excellent. Utilised Viduka well and was even getting the best out of the likes of Butt and Geremi. His second spell here is often painted as a failure, which it absolutely wasnt footballing wise. He kept us up and turned that team around. Won our first game of the next season under him too. Sadly, that 07/08 team had some very good players and Eddie Howe certainly isnt Kevin Keegan. The performances under Howe have picked up, for sure but that hasnt translated into results. 1 win in 10 given the opposition is desperately poor. We really needed a bounce for him and its becoming clear that its going to take time for him to get us playing the way he wants, if at all. Thats time we dont have and its starting to look like a very poor appointment.

Glendinning is a fucking cunt like.

Fair play. Desperate times call for desperate measures I'd say. 20M is a fucking hell of a lot for Chris Wood mind but if he keeps us up, it'll be worth it

To only have one player, a right back, through the door come Watford is desperately disappointing like. Say what you like about the difficulty of the market but questions need answering like.

You'd probably have more leeway if the cost of the house barely dented your finances and you were currently living in a tin shack that was on the verge of collapse... I do see your point though and we can't have clubs completely take the piss like.

Don't fancy Chris Wood like

Titanic survivors rescued by the Hindenburg. Less than 6 months he's been out of the game. Absolute cunt.

Really not arsed about this yellow bellied, bottling cunt like.

Vickery is the supreme word on South American players like. It's just one man's opinion but he absolutely knows his stuff. Really hope we can get Botman in.

Surely Howe won't sign Solanke twice!? He scored 3 in 42 PL games for him and was one of the main reasons they went down. Strikers are a bit of a lottery like. More so than other positions. I'd be confident in most of the names mentioned for midfielders and defenders coming in and having an impact. Fuck knows with a striker. Emmanuel Dennis has scored 8 in the first half of the season. He scored 0 in 18 last season over two spells in Belgium and Germany. Who would have guessed that!? Absolute plethora of strikers who have come in for big money and flopped. Vital we get a centre half and a centre midfielder like as we're going to have to get lucky with a forward.