Wallsendmag

Remember many years ago having a bit crack with our old captian Kevin Scott. He said he'd prefer 2 draws rather than a win and a loss because the loss would generally harm the squad morale more whereas with a draw they felt they were walking away with something. 1 point less but the 2 draws gave more to build on. That was his view anyway.

You're making the mistake of confusing social media with the real world. A dozen people on here saying it may be time for a change and True Geordie and Scotty T on X calling for his head isn't going to lead to his resignation. The reaction of those in the ground is always the true gauge of the mood of the supporters and whilst I'm led to believe a few people were questioning him as they were walking out (in conversation with each other) and the team were (rightly) booed off after yet another meek surrender to them there was no anti Howe sentiment at all, and there never has been. He's got 7 games till the seasons end. If we pick up and win 5+ I think the noise from the most recent derby day surrender subsides a bit. If we continue to play poorly, ship ridiculous amounts of goals and end up about where we are now then that is a massive drop off from last season despite a £250m investment in the squad in the summer and he'll be scrutinised for that, quite rightly in my view.

It's been like that for years. As much NUFC craic as there is SAFC.

They are above us as you typed that though and the majority of fans wouldn't take your view. You just had to witness the scenes in the city at 9am a week past Sunday to see that. There's not another opponent in the world that gets that sort of reaction. Keegan knew exactly what this match meant to the fans as well as how to approach it which is why he had such a good record against them as he always had us so fired up.

As I've said I think he needs to win 5. Any less and I think he'd be on thin ice. If he lost all 7 (can't see it like) that would mean ending the season with 9 defeats on the spin and he could have no complaints if he lost his job.

Tbf if you live/work/go to school in the NE then a defeat to Sunderland is far different to a defeat to Everton or Brentford. To downplay it as being exactly the same as a game against them is probably why we tend to get our arses handed to us when we play them. Yes revenue wise it amounts to the same but for the supporters it's anything but, and that should apply to Howe and the players as well.

It always was tbf. In a week where we shipped 7 goals in 1 match and didn't turn up yet again in the Derby the remaining games were always going to take on much greater significance. I think he needs to win at least 5 of them and then hope that's enough for some form of European football next season.

Whilst I have no problem with what he's said, as Howe should definitely be under scrutiny after what he's spent, the performances he's delivered this season and the 2 farcical derby displays (I'll gloss over the 7-2 defeat for now) I find the timing a bit strange and wonder if he would have been better waiting until the end of May when the dust has settled on the season and we can see exactly how we've done. The cynic in me thinks he's done this to try to somehow appease a discontented fanbase after what happened a week past Sunday.

Some good news for members anyway. If the sample size of members I've spoken to is representative of the wider fanbase, anyone wanting Brighton tickets should find them pretty easy to come by

Just as well we brought Wissa in then isn't it.

There's clearly loads of factors at play as to why a team may or may be performing to a certain standard but the perfomance of the team is ultimately down to the manager and he is the single most important figure in regards to how the team play, whether that's his chosen formation, team selection, tactics, squad management, style of play, shape/organisation or whatever. Anyone in any doubt about this go and speak to a Gateshead fan and ask them to talk you through their season pre and post Rob Elliot.

They had eleven 1-0 wins that season.

Ok then Chelsea 04/05.

I dare say we'd have a few more points with Isak. We'd also have a few more points with the 2023 version of Nick Pope and we'd also have more points if we'd kept as many clean sheets and defended like we did in 22/23. There's a lot of things at play here.

Remembering the old "1-0 to the Arsenal" chants. It is possible to win games by not being great offensively as long as you are defensively sound and are organised. George Graham was the master of that. Unfortunately, despite spending £130m on centre forwards we are having to play a winger as CF, and we play in an unorganised, somewhat chaotic shape at times, defensively we're all over the place, the keepers are a shambles and we have a weak mentality. When you add it all up you can see why we've been a hard watch this season. Bringing in a centre forward worthy of the name will solve a small part of those problems but won't fix the other issues. Same goes for bringing in a new GK.

Berwick Rangers 2-2 Bonnyrigg Rovers. Crowd 538. Brilliant game. Berwick sitting in 10th with nowt to play for, Bonnyrigg top, 3 points ahead of Clydebank with everything to play for. Bonnyrigg went 1-0 up, Berwick equalised. Bonnyrigg went 2-1 up just after HT, Berwick equalised. Berwick had to play the last 20 mins with 10 men but gave a great backs to the wall performance to get a deserved point. Special mention to the fans. Absolutely brilliant support for Berwick which did on occasion boil over at times including a skirmish at the end involving fans from both teams and the clubhouse was jumping afterwards. Really good day. £15 admission which also included a Scotch pie and a pint of Estrella incredible value. Just pay a tenner to get in if you aren't bothered about the pie and beer.

Club feels in need of a reset. Seems a bit rudderless since Amanda and her hubby left. Didn't notice it at the time but apparently mackems were well represented in the board room on Sunday whereas very little from our side (don't know if this is true just what I'm told). I live in Wallsend and I work in Killingworth. Pretty much everyone I come into contact with is of an NUFC persuasion. The last time people were this negative about the club was when Ashley appointed Bruce. Atmosphere will be dreadful for the remaining home matches even by recent standards. It's an absolutely massive summer ahead. Make or break. The club need to show ambition. The higher echelons there need to speak up and not hide away. More correct decisions and fewer wrong ones need to be made to arrest this slide quickly and bring some sort of feeli good factor back. If you're going to keep hitting fans hard in the pocket you need to be giving something back in return.

For many. Atmosphere for the remaining home game may well be a bit tetchy I feel. Pretty much everyone I've spoken to since Sunday, many of them match goers, are thoroughly pissed off with things as they are. Another derby capitulation a couple of weeks after yet more huge ST prices hike a lot to swallow for people.

I'm not saying he wasn't quality for us but was he really that important that the loss of one player can turn us from a CL team to a bottom half one, especially when he did miss a fair few games through injury? If he was then that is akin to the model being built on sand tbh. Clubs trade players all the time. The loss of one shouldn't have had such an unstabalising effect and my opinion is that, whilst it certainly didn't help, there's many more other issues at play here. Brentford lost Wissa, Mbuemo, Norgaard and Flekken last summer and have found a way to evolve, and in fact improve. Bournemouth lost Kerkez, Zabarnyi, Huijsen and Ouattara last summer, and Semenyo in January (also Solanke the season before) and have managed to remain stable. Losing Isak was a body blow. In reality we lost him more or less after the cup final as he downed tools, but the loss of 1 player can't be attributed to what we've seen this season. He missed 37 games through injury whilst here which pretty much amounts to a full season so it's hardly as if we weren't used to being without him.

Burn will definitely play. Trippier will probably play.

Apart from shipping 7 in the game before Sunderland of course.

Thought Sunderland looked like rabbits caught in the headlights for the 1st 20 minutes or so. Then the game settled down (for them) and for the next 10 minutes or so you could visibly see them grow in confidence as they realised that we were actually there for the taking if they applied some pressure. Last 5 minutes of so of the 1st half were uncomfortable viewing, and as I said on the Howe thread I was desperate for the HT whistle for us to get in and regroup although given our recent record of 2nd half capitulations I did fear the worst. We all seen what happened after HT so no need to go over that again.

We huffed and puffed mate. We were the better team for the first half hour but despite them playing a division 3 standard lad at centre half and a goalkeeper who looked like he'd never played before it took a gift from them for us to score. They knew that if they could stay in the game up till HT they had a great chance of winning it which is how it turned out. I said at HT I wasn't confident at all about the 2nd half. Had a look at the odds for them to win the game. Could see it coming a mile off. They wouldn't play like that again in the 2nd half. They were 11/1 to win the game. Absolutely daft odds. I always bet with my head not my heart so I went with what I expected to happen and stuck a tenner on them. Whilst the £120 was of scant consolation, you don't get that sort of interest for leaving your money in the bank for an hour.

Last season I remember serious struggles at home to the likes of West Ham, Brighton, Everton, Fulham and Bournemouth. Think we might well have lost against them all.