ben-nufc

Same night as the mackems are at home too. That can't have happened too often surely?

Carroll's loopy header v Stoke in the relegation season. Absolutely crazy scenes, ended up with battered shins and about 3 rows away from my seat.

Aston Villa 1-3 Man Utd Southampton 2-1 Everton Spurs 1-1 Stoke Sunderland 2-1 Norwich Swansea 3-1 Newcastle Watford 1-2 West Brom West Ham 2-0 Leicester Crystal Palace 0-2 Arsenal Man City 1-1 Chelsea Liverpool 2-0 Bournemouth (nominated game)

Man Utd 3 v 1Spurs Bournemouth 2 v 1 Aston Villa Everton 2 v 0 Watford Leicester 0 v 0 Sunderland Norwich 1 v 1 Crystal Palace Chelsea 2 v 0 Swansea (Nominated game) Arsenal 3 v 0 West Ham Newcastle 1 v 2 Southampton Stoke 2 v 2 Liverpool West Brom 1 v 3 Man City

Premiership Winners: Chelsea Runners Up: Arsenal 3rd-6th: Man Utd, Man City, Liverpool, Tottenham Relegation: Mackems, Watford, Leicester Overachievers: Bournemouth Underperformers: Everton Top Goal Scorer: Aguero Break Out Year: Cabella, Origi, mings, Ali, Grimes Season to Forget: Kane, Schweinsteiger, Lallana, yaya, afellay PFA Player of the Year: Hazard PFA Young Player of the Year: Depay Manager of the Year: Howe First manager to quit/be sacked/'mutual consent': Ranieri Newcastle United Where will we finish?: 11th Top Goalscorer: Cisse 13 How will we do in the cup competitions?: quarters of both How will we do in the derby games?: Win at home draw away Domestic Championship Promotion: Hull, Derby, boro Championship Relegation: reading , Rotherham, Cardiff League One Promotion: Sheff U, Wigan, Barnsley. League One Relegation: crewe, Colchester, Southend, Blackpool League Two Promotion: leyton orient, Luton, Portsmouth, Plymouth League Two Relegation: York, Morecambe FA Cup: Man Utd League Cup: Spurs Johnstone's Paint Trophy: Millwall Europe La Liga winner: Barcelona Serie A winner: Juventus Bundesliga winner: Bayern Munich Champions League winner: Barcelona Europa League winner: Southampton World Player of the Year: Messi Other: How will Bournemouth fair in their first outing in the Premier League: Very well, lower mid table When will Crystal Palace fans start to resent Alan Pardew: Late February How many goals will Balotelli score this season: Two How will De Jong get injured this season: Fractured buttocks

Joined port vale on a short deal. God help them. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/33803968

We only have to look back 3/4 months to see how bad it has to get for a decent number of fans to do something in an attempt to combat Ashley. Even then most were happy to remain silent and dismiss any kind of protest as being 'against the team'. The fact that we now have a semi-competent manager and a decent coaching staff will ensure that performance wise things wont be as bad as they were last season and subsequently the likelihood of any kind of meaningful movement against Ashley is likely to fall on deaf ears. The movement against Ashley came on the back of the worst run of results in decades and it's hard to see us being so awful/clueless again. We'll finish somewhere between 10-14th and be told that we should be grateful for the likes of McClaren, Ashley and hard workers like Colback. Rinse and repeat the season after and all subsequent seasons whilst Ashley is still here.

'There was interest from Leeds in Williamson but there have been no offers at the value that Newcastle have for him' Williamson has a valuation? I presume it's not in cash or he'd be gone...

Shame really because he looked like he could be a decent player at one point. Seem to remember him having a really good game against Bordeaux in the EL. He even had a run of games where it looked like he was our best crosser of a ball!

Still think Cabella can develop into a really good player given the right manager and patience.

Will be suicide if we continue to start games with Colo and Williamson at CB...

Has to be Janmaat, only player to show the bottle and talent when it was needed whilst we were in the shit and without any leaders on the pitch or in the dugout. Should be a no brainer.

Descow pls

He can't keep getting away with it. Media and public are wiser than ever now, he is under scrutiny to live up to his interview. He has time on his side, but if we are still like this in August there will be noise everywhere on it. You can't lie that directly about it. The trouble though is that he can no longer get away with that. Every other team is improving their squad whilst we need to do more than any other team seeing as we were the worst team (along with QPR) by miles last year. Just getting anyone will not improve us - we need to get better than we have if they want to improve especially if the target is top 8-10. It sounds as if they are looking for bargains as usual but that is not buying what we actually need. Far better to get one quality player for £15m than a couple of average ones for £5m each. All that is doing is adding bodies to the squad rather than improving it and we have plenty of average players already. When you look at the players Stoke, Swansea, Southampton and West Ham are going for, how can we be searching the bargain basements of Europe again especially with all the TV cash? They may not get all the players they are trying for but at least they are showing ambition and their bids are being accepted even if the players choose not to make the move (whereas our bids are usually dismissed by the selling clubs as derisory). How many times can they keep admitting to making mistakes and then saying they have learnt their lesson only to do exactly the same thing the next year. We'll probably sign a few no marks and gambles and be told to be grateful and that we were wrong by the #wait brigade. Whether that is good enough (it's not!) is fairly immaterial as it'll be spun and dressed positively as some kind of sound investment when in reality it's more of what's gone before. The real test will arrive when the matches start coming, and we're knocked out of the cup by Wolves or somebody. But again, because we cant perform any worse in the league than we did for the second half of last season a few positive results will be spun as steps in the right direction, despite the lack of forward planning or genuine ambition.

Ashley's played this window brilliantly from his perspective. Every day that goes by without a signing or even a back room staff, expectations are lowered to the point where signing anyone will be seen as a relief and something to be grateful for. Guess who wins again...

He should be our 3-4th choice CB and our backup LB. I quite like him but he's very limited as a LB and fairly solid as a CB.

Glassabian

If it's just nufc then surely it's siouxsie souness and the banshees...

Dyer Straits

Exactly. By a f***ing mile as well. The Townsend that plays for England is about 10 miles better than what we've got! The one that plays for Spurs is toss.

Is Batshuayi a realistic option for us baba? Or is he destined for a bigger move? Been impressed when I've seen him.

This almost entirely depends on what our 'genuine' ambition is for the coming season. If it's to finish somewhere around 11-15th then we only need 2/3 players on a small outlay. The squad we have now with a semi-competent manager should see us achieve that with such additions. If our aim is as Ashley says to have a go at the top 7/8 and the cups then the squad needs gutting and 6/7 players coming in, two centre backs, a creative central midfielder, a winger and a striker as an absolute minimum. Ideally we'd also sign a left back, another winger and another striker but by that point we'd be talking nearly £70/80m in transfer fees alone, and if history is to go by regarding our transfer calculations (i.e. Signing in fees and wages included) then we're talking an astronomical amount of money. This talk of giving up on Cabella seems ludicrous too, the guy's been managed by two tactically fuckwitted dinosaurs who couldn't implement a passing style of play with the Spanish national team! I'm hoping De Jong can have the impact we all hoped he would as he's clearly an intelligent player, we just need to find players to play in and around him which is where I think the likes of Aarons/Cabella/Perez will flourish. With De Jong on the pitch I'd like to see us sign a striker that has good movement and can play off the shoulder, in the ilk of Berahino if not him as I think he's out of our reach.

Was Mourinho not just a translator for Bobby? I think he was during Bobby's time in Portugal but by the time they moved to Barca I think Mourinho started to have more of an influence in coaching and tactics etc. I'm sure VI would be able to confirm this though.

I laughed out loud a couple of times during that clip, great stuff. The way Bobby stutters around and Jose answers the questions for him, they seem like a double act not a manager and his coach.

Went to 15 home games as a ST holder and also 11 aways in 14/15. Saw 7 wins 4 draws and 15 defeats. Not renewing for next season though.