ponsaelius

One thing I'll say is I find it slightly worrying how little trust Howe has of Hall to come into a game. He's a kid but he's been signed as a versatile first team player and yet he can't get on the pitch despite us being decimated. I got it away to PSG where you're playing out a bunker defence and players are zoned in 100% to concentrate on defending, but not in other games.

If Trippier doesn't make that first fuck up we probably make it to 0-0. If Gordon takes one of those chances we probably win the game. It shows how tight games can hinge completely on one moment. I was shitting it all game because you knew one mistake would basically be game over. That being said you also can't really argue with a comfortable defeat on the balance of play throughout 90 mins and the chances they missed. I'm trying not to get angry because there are clear mitigating circumstances. As much as I was fuming when Trippier made those errors. The squad is absolutely decimated, the players out there are knackered and now we've thrown an aging keeper with no match practice into the mix. We need 3-4 lads back ASAP and we need reinforcements in January. Until then we're going to keep having these ropey away results.

Yup. He's played right into the way Everton play as well. Don't think he's come out and claimed a single thing and looked shaky saving basic shots first time. He's better with the ball at his feet that Pope but in every other way he invites pressure and nervousness unfortunately.

Dubravka has looked ropey as fuck unfortunately. He's a aging, injury prone keeper who has barely played last couple of years.

Not sure I can be arsed with these away games while we have no fucking players like.

Every time the camera cuts to Dyche aggressively clapping it sends me west, like.

Wasn't too different to last season's fixture, we just knicked that first goal. Find it particularly nerve wracking to watch us at the moment knowing we have nothing on the bench. Feels like if we concede first it's basically over.

Lets be serious, he's far less of a 'hider' than Nolan was. Don't even know why I'm arguing this because I'm not Mcsauce's biggest fan but he's played lots of games for a team competing at CL level. Nolan wasn't even much of a central midfielder in the Championship, but it was worth carrying him because he scored like a striker down there.

Nolan scored most of them playing as a second striker. He was basically a shite midfielder, though.

It's disrespectful to McTominay to compare the two, tbh. Nolan was a bottom half PL player and athlete. McTominay has performed at CL and international level.

Duran has looked decent when he's played. Diaby is a striker in their system.

The whole area is allocated for mixed redevelopment. The problem is it's difficult to deliver a masterplanned scheme because remediation costs are huge in areas, and the land ownership is a patchwork quilt (see within that document). So each landowner likely wants to maximise their own bit of the site. It's why there has been so limited progress to deliver it so far. The fact it's on a slope barely matters, re-contouring it to deliver a stadium is perfectly feasible considering the level of remediation and groundwork that would be required anyway. I don't want a modern stadium over there personally, but if PIF wanted to I don't think they'd have much issue convincing land owners to sell up all and consolidating the site - they certainly wouldn't have any resistance developing it from the authorities.

The Arena is going when the new Sage is complete. The whole area is allocated for redevelopment, not just where the Arena is.

It's almost like teams at the top usually win more often than not

I wouldn't want their stadium but some of the landscaping and public realm around the Olympic Park is absolutely fantastic, particularly now it's all maturing. Whether you go more contemporary or whether you tie directly into the existing Victorian park aesthetic, it could become a fantastic thoroughfare up from SJP Metro to a new stadium.

There's so many advantages to building on Castle Leazes. The council can leverage the application to get obligated improvements in terms of landscaping and public realm on the existing site of SJP and Strawberry Place. You could secure additional tree planting to offset those that would be lost. And you could get improvements to a lot of the existing Leazes Park which could actually do with some TLC and security over long term maintenance. The green argument just doesn't stack up for me - the right scheme can easily be a net benefit in nearly every way.

I still think it would need to go further north primarily onto Castle Leazes, as per the original 90s plan, with as little encroachment onto the Leazes Park footprint as possible. But I'm still convinced it could be a great solution, particularly bringing Leazes Park more closely into the city and improving the setting of the listed buildings. I'm still surprised it ended up with such resistance in the 90s - but the plan was slightly less convincing because they wanted to retain a smaller SJP in situ. The current site is just so constrained in terms of delivering on the existing footprint.

Gets more roadman by the day

In terms of Wirtz would he not play out wide predominantly?

We always did have Miley in our thoughts for midfield though - and we are down a man with Tonali being out. Not usually for a temporary signing but I think Phillips makes sense. All the rumours were that Eddie wanted him before he went to City.

Dunno how anybody pays for all these subscriptions, like. Get a fire stick or go to the boozer if you want to watch the match surely.

The straw man of moving to somewhere like Benton is not even worth mentioning imo. Neither the owners nor fans would ever want it. Any move would be within the vicinity of the city centre.

Land swap with Castle Leazes could genuinely be great. I do love the idea of expanded green space closer to the city and as a thoroughfare to the ground. As long as any new stadium looked like a football stadium and not that airport terminal posted a few pages back.

Would be interested to see how big you could get Gateshead Stadium with temporary stands behind either goal (plus you could get some to the front of the east stand). Those two at Yektarinburg added about 12k to that stadium. It's probably not going to add a huge amount tbh - to the point that you might as well just build a whole new one where you can at least do four full stands. Plus it would be a bit of a nightmare in terms of transport. Chester-le-Street ala the MCG? Would be weird as fuck and is far away enough where you probably might as well just use Darlo instead.

Building Stadium 974 was expensive. It was basically a normal stadium with shipping containers used as a style aesthetic. A gimmick. Building temporary stands to expand existing stadia is nowhere near as expensive and very common. Chester-le-Street do it for internationals, Russia World Cup had stadiums with temporary stands. And like I say Cagliari built a whole 16k seater for about 8 million euros and threw it up in a year. Not saying it's necessarily the answer but it's probably not that outlandish. If rotating the pitch and altering the footprint slightly could deliver a new stadium on the existing site the cost of building a temporary stadium + build a new one altogether would likely be more cost effective than expanding the existing stadium over the metro etc. You'd obviously have to significantly limit capacity (25k max maybe) but it'd be better than playing in Edinburgh or Darlington imo.