Wallsendmag

And instead of having 8,000 empty seats at home games we'd have 16,000 spare seats and what little atmosphere there is left at SJP would be sucked out completely.

Your son is smarter than you.

Saying? http://img.pandawhale.com/post-33707-nothing-to-see-here-gif-please-BeZM.gif :lol:

Very sad news. RIP

With Kinnear before them.

He's absolutely hopeless mind. The game just passes him by and he's too small and lightweight to play in his position in this league. We'll always be overrun in midfield as long as he's in the team.

Aye, but there is no evidence right now to suggest we're turning a corner any time soon. Well, I think we're performing better and we seem to be developing an understanding. We had about 5 chances to win the game today and dominated it almost throughout. Obviously it's concerning that we didn't manage it. We played far better on the opening day of the season (against a far better team) than we did today mind.

It's the results that'll decide whether or not we stay up. Based on what we've done so far and our ridiculous record of not scoring in 6 of our 11 league games whilst conceding an average of 2 goals a game suggests we're going to struggle regardless of anything else.

Don't think so. A team that manages 1 point from 2 home games against Watford and Stoke and loses to sunderland, supposedly the worst team in the league probably isn't going to be fine. Bournemouth next week is massive.

We've failed to score in 6 out of our 11 league games - more than half. We can't keep saying the opposition goalkeeper is too good. Proper finishers give the goalkeeper no chance.

Some bullshit comment about how season tickets continue to sell in high volume and SJP is full to capacity at home games so no need to worry, nothing needs to change. Chatting to Marshall earlier he mentioned "50,000 every game" and caught my reaction so corrected himself to say "well not last week" then realised and said "or the game before" Apparently I'll be talking to Steve Tickle next They messed up with their season ticket pricing. A standard 1 year season ticket in the Gallowgate is £600. To put that into perspective an equivalent seat at Sunderland (our nearest PL club) is £390. You're talking £710 if you want to sit in the East Stand. Put simply it's too much to pay for most people in this part of the country and the football and general match day experience doesn't warrant that sort of outlay anyway. The thing is I believe the club realise they have priced their season tickets far too high which is why we're probably the only club in the country where it's cheaper to pay match by match rather than buy a season ticket (usually I'd say buying a season ticket would equate to 3/4 games a season worth of savings as a rule). They've tried to justify this by increasing match day prices slightly but this, coupled with a big drop in season ticket sales (regardless of them trying to tell us otherwise) is the main reason crowds are down and will continue to fall further. Not sure how they can reverse this downward spiral. An obvious way would be to slash season ticket prices across the board which, if we stayed up, wouldn't be an issue with the huge increase in TV revenue but with people on all sorts of different fixed deals it may not be possible to do it. Either way they've created this mess so it's down to them to sort out the problem of ever increasing empty seats at home games. Nah sorry the main reason sales are down is the standard of the team over a number of years - if we had a team consistently in the top half and an owner/board showing signs of ambition and without the total crass mismanagement we would have no problem with season ticket sales. I can afford season ticket and have for 40 year but I refuse to go to watch substandard football and a board openly and constantly taking the p*ss out of its supporters. Ticket prices are a huge factor and is the reason we couldn't even get 50,000 against Man Utd last season but had 52,000 against the likes of Leicester, QPR and Burnley because tickets are 15 or 20 quid cheaper. I had a season ticket for 24 years up until this season. I got an email off NUFC saying tickets were available for today priced from £30. Would I pay £30 to watch that team play? Well the fact I'm sitting in the house typing this gives you the answer. Would I have paid £15-£20? Aye I probably would because I think that represents reasonable value for money given the standard of our team and the league we play in. I agree with a lot of what you say and it isn't solely the ticket prices keeping me away, the way the club has been run for the best part is the main reason, other reasons include the fact I find the football, atmosphere and the PL in general boring as well. Another big reason is the amount of games that are totally ruined by the referee these days, not what you want when tickets are so expensive but cheaper tickets would certainly help sway people who are in 2 minds about whether to go along or not.

Some bullshit comment about how season tickets continue to sell in high volume and SJP is full to capacity at home games so no need to worry, nothing needs to change. Chatting to Marshall earlier he mentioned "50,000 every game" and caught my reaction so corrected himself to say "well not last week" then realised and said "or the game before" Apparently I'll be talking to Steve Tickle next They messed up with their season ticket pricing. A standard 1 year season ticket in the Gallowgate is £600. To put that into perspective an equivalent seat at Sunderland (our nearest PL club) is £390. You're talking £710 if you want to sit in the East Stand. Put simply it's too much to pay for most people in this part of the country and the football and general match day experience doesn't warrant that sort of outlay anyway. The thing is I believe the club realise they have priced their season tickets far too high which is why we're probably the only club in the country where it's cheaper to pay match by match rather than buy a season ticket (usually I'd say buying a season ticket would equate to 3/4 games a season worth of savings as a rule). They've tried to justify this by increasing match day prices slightly but this, coupled with a big drop in season ticket sales (regardless of them trying to tell us otherwise) is the main reason crowds are down and will continue to fall further. Not sure how they can reverse this downward spiral. An obvious way would be to slash season ticket prices across the board which, if we stayed up, wouldn't be an issue with the huge increase in TV revenue but with people on all sorts of different fixed deals it may not be possible to do it. Either way they've created this mess so it's down to them to sort out the problem of ever increasing empty seats at home games.

The one question I would like to ask is "Since Mike Ashley took control of the club in 2007 it has lost around 10,000 (or 25%) of it's season ticket holders. Why do you think that is and what can you do to try to attract them back or even bring in new ones?" No doubt they'd refuse to answer it.

You can guarantee they'll have all been patting each other on the back about them at this latest fans forum meeting they've just had.

Exactly. They say one thing and do another. It's all worthless really. Same as this fans forum rubbish. Either the fans selected to go along are scared to ask important questions that could put Charnley, Moncur, Carr etc on the back foot or any remotely interesting question that does get asked the answer always gets skirted over and ends up not becoming relevant to the original question.

Hi *****, Sunday's derby defeat hurt us all and every one of us is sorry that we couldn't deliver you the victory you deserved. I am certain that if it hadn't been for Colo's sending off, we would have delivered you that victory. But with the news of our successful appeal, we draw a line under that match-defining moment and focus on recreating the positives of the minutes that went before. Even if you didn't see the game on Sunday, you'll know that we bossed it in the first half and hardly gave our hosts a kick. With ten men on the pitch we were still the stronger side for large parts of the second half, despite what the score line suggests. We kept attacking the game and that meant gaps opened up that our opponents were able to exploit. In spite of the result, training this week has been nothing but positive and preparation has been first class. There's been no feeling sorry for ourselves. Just a group of players and staff who want to show you how passionately we care about your club. We'll put all of the positives and the passion into delivering you three points on Saturday. Over the season so far I’ve seen real improvement in our game, particularly over the last month. Our bond and blend as a team gets more solid with every game and the mood in the camp is very optimistic, regardless of our current position in the table. I’m confident we can take the best of our performances to date and start turning them into points. Stoke have been on a decent run of late and I certainly didn't see their home defeat to Watford coming. I know Mark Hughes well and he will see that as a huge disappointment. They'll be especially keen to put on a show this weekend and make up for that loss. That makes it even more imperative that we're on our game and able to stand up to anything the likes of Bojan and Shaqiri might throw at us. We're prepared and ready. Sadly we won't have Jack Colback in our line-up this weekend after the results of a further scan on his right knee today. Unfortunately this injury, which was sustained at the Stadium of Light on Sunday, will see him out for up to six weeks and we all wish Jack the very best in his recovery. Be assured that in spite of the events of the past week, we go into this weekend's game with nothing but belief, spirit and total determination to reward your loyalty and support with the three points you deserve. Steve

They emailed me before to tell me "prime seats in the Leazes end" were available for £15. I logged into the site to have a look (no intention of actually buying) and they were actually £30 plus the booking fee. Loads of seats available in every stand.

When we beat Stoke 3-0 towards the end of that season I'd say that was the best team performance we've had since the Sir Bobby days. They literally couldn't get near us and couldn't have complained if it had been 6 or 7 that day.

The FA are a bunch of clueless, spineless b@stards. They caused this by putting in a referee totally out of his depth for a fixture of that size, then admit he had a nightmare and then try to screw NUFC out of some money by fining them for being rightfully aggrieved at the time.

He's refereeing Man City v Norwich on Saturday.

This. We'll need at least 2 goals to win this. Is Darlow not ready to come back yet or failing that just hoy a traffic cone in there instead.

Personally my feeling is that his celebration was meant to mock the MH17 disaster and it may emerge in February that he's also a paedophile but that's up for the British judicial system to decide. He'll have had his family in the stands on Sunday and himself and them would have been subjected to hearing 3,000 people calling him a nonce and I think his frustration and humiliation just boiled over. It wasn't a normal goal and scoring a penalty doesn't lead to a spontaneous celebration as from the kick being awarded to the goal being scored takes a couple of minutes which could suggest it was pre planned. It's not a celebration he's ever done before and he had to run the full length of the pitch to aim it at the fans who were abusing him so it's pretty clear what he was doing. Can't say it particularly bothered me, he's just got one of those faces where you can tell exactly what he is and I'm sure he's got a lot more pressing things on his mind than his goal celebration.

He may not be good enough I agree, but he's certainly not one of the old boys merry go round. He's totally different to the usual suspects. At least he had the bollocks to manage abroad to gain experience and try to better himself. This for me is his one redeeming feature. He wasn't content to sit in a tv studio grovelling for a job the way Allardyce, Pulis, Curbishly etc do. It might never work for him at NUFC, but out of this group of charlatans he was the best choice by some distance (discounting Moyes). We should have taken the plunge with Vieira. It might have failed (it's failing anyway) but it would have freshened things up and showed that the club was prepared to go in a different direction after Pardew and Carver and would have had the fans onside right from the start. Don't know of a single supporter who was excited about McClaren being appointed and I doubt the players were either. Sadly with 2 dinosaurs and penfold making all the executive decisions McClaren is exactly the sort of manager we'll continue to employ.

We've said that for years only for them to put together a freak run in April/May that nets them 15 points or so from their last 6/7 games. They're a terrible side, worse than us, but the luck they get when they really need it is incredible and has kept them up for the past 3 years. If yesterday is anything to go by they're still carrying it all as well. Think them and Villa will get out of it providing Villa appoint a competent manager and it'll be between ourselves, Bournemouth and either Watford for the drop.

We're more than quarter of the way through the season now and we've amassed 6 points. We've looked a decent team at times and a total shambles more often than not. Villa will be hoping for a new manager bounce, mackems carry a lot of luck and none of the 3 promoted teams look like they'll flounder the way QPR and to a lesser extent Burnley did last season. I think we're going down this year.