Interpolic

I wonder why Mike Ashley wastes money himself on TV advertising, etc. The free stuff's doing him no good though.

He'll get his £200m back man FFS. If he was willing to give much of that money up he'd be far, far away by now.

On the more general subject, it's easy to see why it is in Ashleys interests to keep NUFC revenues as low as possible whilst maximising SD revenues by whatever dirty tricks he can manage. That way he can keep us owing him a hundred million whilst boosting the profits and share price of SD. Also, it justifies nil expenditure at NUFC. Man's an utter shitcunt, and anyone who willingly gives him another single penny needs their head looked at. The less we make in profit and the more he can use us to make money for Sports Direct, the less money he has to justify "trousering" to service the debt that saved us. It's starting to come together now. That's exactly it. I know I keep banging this drum but Sports Direct share price rose to an all time high today of over £7 a pop, 20 times more valuable than the day he bought NUFC. I'm with you on that to a degree, but also must point out that NUFC alone hasn't seen the share price multiply by 20 and this is why you keep seeing people like Ian jumping on your point and trivialising it. There are other factors in it of course, and I don't have loads of knowledge on this, but you'd guess the fact SD has gradually killed off many of its rivals to the extent they're not trading anymore, the economic climate driving people to cheaper goods above all else, SD stepping up other marketing/PR efforts, Ashley buying up more sportswear companies to increase profit margins, etc - it all plays a part in making SD more attractive on the stock market. I'm sure the Newcastle connection has served them well and deserves its place as one of those factors though, especially with the global reach of the Premier League. That was my view on it a few months back and it's still my view now. To argue that Ashley's other company has garnered no benefit from his connection with us is pretty crazy and the only way it's not being completely laughed out is that it's sort of intangible and we'll never know how SD would have fared otherwise. I like the idea that only new products and highly targeted campaigns can really thrive from advertising/PR like, that's a good one - somebody get on the phone to Coca-Cola, Red Bull, Pepsi, M&S, etc because you'll make a fucking fortune on consulting fees when you tell them you can cut their costs to a fraction of what they are at present without any discernable effect on their revenue/profit.

It's a wonder companies pay millions of pounds for advertising and PR then, somebody should tell them.

Well that's not tangible is it, so your guess is as good as anyone else's. Known facts are that Sports Direct have gone from strength to strength and the exposure of the Premier League knows almost no bounds. The amount of publicity SD has had since Ashley bought NUFC, well there's no comparison versus what was the case before that. If you don't believe that all publicity is good publicity (especially at the extraordinary levels we're talking, where Ashley is now a household name and Sports Direct often features heavily on the Sports/News pages as well as the Business pages) then that's your prerogative, but you'll find plenty of people down the years who disagree, such as that chap from RyanAir who is in the papers every few months bragging about how he'll rip his customers off next.

Why do you want us to give money to Mike Ashley that we could be spending on players?

Took £11m out last year.

That's probably the best I've ever seen Krul play. If he was on standard form I think Spurs would have scored 3 or 4. Forget about clear-cut chances, there were numerous occasions where the ball would have gone in the net if Krul wasn't having such a stormer.

I definitely think they deserved to win by 2 or 3 goals, so I must be a pessimist then. I remember watching a game where we lost 4-1 to Fulham. We deserved to win that game at a canter, yet lost by 3 goals. I'm going on the balance of play, chances created, attacking intent. Spurs missed chance after chance second half. I don't agree with your last sentence either. Yes, good teams grind out results on occasion in the sense that they'll ride out a rough spell, but the vast majority of their wins don't consist of hanging on for dear life without any intention of building a meaningful attack or retaining possession. So I don't see how what you say is relevant.

Yeah, it wasn't like last week where we got a great 90 mins, but we'll take a win every time Eh, we weren't great for 90 minutes last week. We approached it similar to today but the other way around. Not really, we limited Chelsea to just a few chances, we didn't limit Spurs at all, the most saves in a Premier League game this season today. We invited pressure first half last week, same as we did second half this week. If you don't realise that we got away with it because Chelsea weren't on their game then I'm not sure what to tell you. I'm glad it's worked 2 weeks running but there's more than one way to skin a cat and ours always involves having a prolonged, deliberate spell where we're no threat whatsoever. If we'd attacked Chelsea from the start last week we'd have got ripped to shreds on the counter. I don't really care if Chelsea weren't on their game, I'm glad we played it the way we did. Today we were lucky not to get beat though, if you don't see a difference between the two performances we'll just have to agree to disagree. It's not black and white, or at least it doesn't need to be. We either go gung-ho or we have no attacking threat whatsoever. That's why you think we'd have got hammered if we tried to attack Chelsea over 90 minutes, it's been that long since you've seen an NUFC side that plays sensible, attacking football over the course of the game. It really needn't be one or the other.

You actually have the same outlook on football as Pardew, no wonder he gives you such a hard-on.

Yeah, it wasn't like last week where we got a great 90 mins, but we'll take a win every time Eh, we weren't great for 90 minutes last week. We approached it similar to today but the other way around. I thought Chelsea had a lot of players who could hurt us but we restricted them to just a few efforts. Considering I thought they'd win comfortably it was a great 90 mins for me. First 15 mins was all Chelsea, we hardly had a touch for the 1st 10. Ended up with one chance from that spell. From a corner. Daft to go through this again, but Chelsea was a very, very good team performance. Today wasn't close to that, but we absolutely did enough to win the game. Really? I'm not sure how much more of a nothing performance attacking-wise you'd have needed to have seen second half to reverse your opinion. Today we won against the run of play when you look at the 90 minutes. The second half doesn't change a first half in which we had the better of the chances. So, I thought, from the level of commitment and resilience we showed in the second half, we'd done enough to win. We didn't fall apart, and still retained some threat on the break. I think it was about 60/40 in our favour first half and about 90/10 them second. If that'd happened the other way around in one of our other games we'd have been feeling more than aggrieved, and I doubt we'd have thought the other side "absolutely did enough to win the game". We survived an onslaught second half, which could be character-building in itself and is certainly a positive now we've came through it, but let's not carry on like Spurs didn't deserve to win the game at a canter. I don't agree with that, at all. We were never ragged, or hanging on, in that second half. Spurs couldn't cut us apart at will, or find a good enough finish to score from the chances they did create. Anyway, not a result after which I fancy having an argument. I think your opinion is a little overly negative, and dismissive of the level of physical performance that result took. I'm just going to enjoy it. Wow. Dunno what to say then. They were absolutely all over us second half and should have had 3 or 4 goals. There's not really much need for what you say afterwards, I'm talking about what I thought of the game. Don't see how it's particularly negative. You just get laughed at by idiots on here saying "LOL he's not even happy when we beat Chelsea and Spurs". I am happy. I'd like to see us build something sustainable though, the persistent hanging on in games is completely unnecessary. It comes across a bit smug and annoying when you suggest that fellow Newcastle fans don't enjoy good results as much as you, but you know that.

I actually think it's the most risky way to approach periods of games, as we saw last year numerous times when it didn't work.

3 or 4 of Spurs' efforts would have been in the back of the net against a keeper that didn't appear to be on some fucking pure mad ninja drug. So aye, they were unlucky. Running out of ways to rephrase.

No point watching the games. Let's just skip them and look at the result afterwards. Can't discuss performances. I honestly couldn't fault them. They've done us proud. Hardly a poor individual performance in both games. What's your assessment of the 2nd half today? Similar to Cardiff second half. Home side pushed on for an equaliser as you'd expect, we handled everything they threw at us until you just knew we had dealt with everything they had to offer and we would be taking 3 points back home. Obviously Spurs carved out a couple more chances than Cardiff due their quality but we were resilient and showed we were willing to fight them all the way and won't fold. Superb attitude and spirit to refuse to be beaten. It's funny how we always pose no attacking threat second half when we're leading at half time, you reckon? Or are you really not joining the dots?

Yeah, it wasn't like last week where we got a great 90 mins, but we'll take a win every time Eh, we weren't great for 90 minutes last week. We approached it similar to today but the other way around. I thought Chelsea had a lot of players who could hurt us but we restricted them to just a few efforts. Considering I thought they'd win comfortably it was a great 90 mins for me. First 15 mins was all Chelsea, we hardly had a touch for the 1st 10. Ended up with one chance from that spell. From a corner. Daft to go through this again, but Chelsea was a very, very good team performance. Today wasn't close to that, but we absolutely did enough to win the game. Really? I'm not sure how much more of a nothing performance attacking-wise you'd have needed to have seen second half to reverse your opinion. Today we won against the run of play when you look at the 90 minutes. The second half doesn't change a first half in which we had the better of the chances. So, I thought, from the level of commitment and resilience we showed in the second half, we'd done enough to win. We didn't fall apart, and still retained some threat on the break. I think it was about 60/40 in our favour first half and about 90/10 them second. If that'd happened the other way around in one of our other games we'd have been feeling more than aggrieved, and I doubt we'd have thought the other side "absolutely did enough to win the game". We survived an onslaught second half, which could be character-building in itself and is certainly a positive now we've came through it, but let's not carry on like Spurs didn't deserve to win the game at a canter.

No point watching the games. Let's just skip them and look at the result afterwards. Can't discuss performances. I honestly couldn't fault them. They've done us proud. Hardly a poor individual performance in both games. What's your assessment of the 2nd half today?

No point watching the games. Let's just skip them and look at the result afterwards. Can't discuss performances. I'm sure Brett was berating how good our performance was v Sunderland and how we didn't deserve to lose. Aye, we were phenomenal against the mackems according to Brett. Can't account for wonder strikes, the point is that we dominated the game, without having any chances.

True but the one thing different was we didn't hoof it. A small thing but still nice enough to go with the win. There was plenty of pointless punts/lazy passes flying about like. I know but it certainly wasn't hoof and hope, we lost the ball trying to play out. I'd rather see that than hoofs. We couldn't string 2 passes together, I know you're obsessed with this hoofing lark but in reality there's little difference.

I know, I can't believe that that is what is definitely happening. Moaning about first halfs and second halfs because we never really threatened for periods of games against two top sides. People just expect us to control games for 90 minutes agisnt top sides without having any pressure to withstand? We were excellent today and last week, no two ways about it. Oh Brett, you're such a card. Speechless. It really is that simple in his tiny little mind.

No point watching the games. Let's just skip them and look at the result afterwards. Can't discuss performances.

Yeah, it wasn't like last week where we got a great 90 mins, but we'll take a win every time Eh, we weren't great for 90 minutes last week. We approached it similar to today but the other way around. I thought Chelsea had a lot of players who could hurt us but we restricted them to just a few efforts. Considering I thought they'd win comfortably it was a great 90 mins for me. First 15 mins was all Chelsea, we hardly had a touch for the 1st 10. Ended up with one chance from that spell. From a corner. Daft to go through this again, but Chelsea was a very, very good team performance. Today wasn't close to that, but we absolutely did enough to win the game. Really? I'm not sure how much more of a nothing performance attacking-wise you'd have needed to have seen second half to reverse your opinion. Today we won against the run of play when you look at the 90 minutes.

If they weren't up against a world class goalkeeping performance then they'd have won by 3 or 4 goals, the way the game panned out. It's not every day you come up against a world class goalkeeping performance so yeah, they were unfortunate.

Yeah, it wasn't like last week where we got a great 90 mins, but we'll take a win every time Eh, we weren't great for 90 minutes last week. We approached it similar to today but the other way around. Not really, we limited Chelsea to just a few chances, we didn't limit Spurs at all, the most saves in a Premier League game this season today. We invited pressure first half last week, same as we did second half this week. If you don't realise that we got away with it because Chelsea weren't on their game then I'm not sure what to tell you. I'm glad it's worked 2 weeks running but there's more than one way to skin a cat and ours always involves having a prolonged, deliberate spell where we're no threat whatsoever.

Yeah, it wasn't like last week where we got a great 90 mins, but we'll take a win every time Eh, we weren't great for 90 minutes last week. We approached it similar to today but the other way around.