Interpolic

Flavour of the month is right. Funny how the Areola patter has died down.

Happy Christmas, all

Was responding to someone else, as I've said if I had to predict right now I'd say we won't qualify for CL and I am OK with that. I've obviously no issue with people making predictions, but every season we see daft comments like "don't win at Man Utd and the season is over" despite it being proven wrong over and over again.

This is just overly negative. You're looking at our away form so far, which has been awful, and extrapolating it over the full season. What's to say we won't turn that around? We've won 1 away game out of 8 (drawing 3) and we have 11 left. 4 of those we're unlikely to get much but we don't know that, and of the other 7 I'd be very surprised if we don't rack up a good few wins. It's far too early to say how high we'll finish, which is why people are saying how close we are to 5th with over half of the season left. Because that's actually the only thing that matters. Time and time again people on here make predictions about various things far too early and end up being utterly wrong. That all said gun to my head I don't think we'll qualify for the CL this season, too much change and adversity. But we 100% still could if enough things were to click into place for us.

Do you keep a tally chart somewhere, otherwise I can't understand your confidence that the decisions even out exactly for every side in world football?

often the focus is naturally on the big decisions but when the ref starts giving all of the marginal decisions one way then that is a major disadvantage for the other side. Can completely change the flow of the game. These "small" marginal decisions being repeatedly given one way are an even worse example of bias imo as the ref can do that in the knowledge he will likely face zero scrutiny for it. That's what the ref was doing yesterday, judging the decisions with my own eyes so I can only put that down to some bias at play or otherwise a total lack of competence, or a bit of both.

To think refs aren't affected by the pressure exerted on them is beyond naive as well. Make an awful call against Wolves and nobody gives a fuck, do the same against Liverpool and you're at the centre of a national inquest for many weeks. That's without the natural human biases that are undoubtedly there too.

I hate this phrase re refereeing. It clearly doesn't. It would be the world's biggest coincidence if it did. Wolves got about 10 outrageous decisions against them a couple of seasons back, did they then get 10 such decisions in their favour? No, because these things don't magically even themselves out. It's a cop-out that excuses bad decisions to say that they do.

I've not wished owt on him, cos wishing doesn't do owt. Pretty funny though.

is it a counting issue? Chronic memory loss? Do some people expect us to have the league sewn up by Christmas? It's fucking nuts

We're 4 points off 5th with TWENTY ONE GAMES left in the season.

They sort of went back to the old Local Hero routine last night, except the song was started about halfway through. But ended just before KO like it used to. Unsure if due to it being League Cup, a U-turn, or them still experimenting.

Yep that's the issue, if they're only interested in maximising revenue then none of this is going to improve.

Rearranging the gammon on the platter, mind.

wtf is wrong with these people, man? I thought the atmosphere was OK but I am going in with seriously low expectations each game now. For a cup quarter final it wasn't the best. Was in the East Stand with my wife and the shouting and balling from some owld pink gadgies at Murphy second half, and then Elanga, was out of hand. Murphy was getting shouted at for trying stuff then Elanga was getting shouted at for not trying stuff. As others have said shouting at players is so counter-productive it's unreal. Elanga in particular must be thinking "I heard these fans were great, so I must be really shite". Embarrassing from our point of view. We were knocking on the door the whole game, don't throw your toys out when we don't slice through them at will ffs.

I'm pretty sure you're in a very small minority on that.

We also saw mediocre periods under Hall/Shepherd, when the club was seemingly trying their best. And we've seen 'big six' clubs in recent years being seriously mismanaged when seemingly trying their best. It's not a given that success will follow. There's an argument that Howe has held it all together for us. The best season in the club's recent history came off the back of no major squad additions for 2 years. This is all nuance that everyone's aware of, yet he often doesn't seem to be given the benefit of the doubt.

It comes back to credit in the bank for me, and Howe has mountains of it. He has overcome every challenge and then some so far, and he represents the club magnificently. We are top-8 revenue and started from an awful foundation. The amount of adversity he had to battle through last summer meant we were always likely to experience growing pains this season. One season falling short of that top-8 par would not say to me we need to make a change. The amount of utter shite we've seen at NUFC over many years, I'd be furious if we dropped him when we're clearly on to a good thing. Not least cos I am almost certain we'd go downhill and he'd do brilliantly elsewhere.

Er yes? And the high finishes. We have literally never had it this good.

Just because people could group Elanga and Ramsey together doesn't mean they should?

Cos I didn't @ you, ah righteo meathead I'll do it next time.

Funny how it's the posters pissing their beds every 5 minutes that call others "cowards", "wet wipes" and "melts".

Think Ed's been on here and misinterpreted the proper hard man requirements of the occasion.

Has a knock, cos of course he has.