Hughesy

I'd love to be wrong but I can't recall ever seeing a defender as ponderously slow as he looked the first time I saw him. You could well be right - I haven't seen enough of him yet to really judge, but I was expecting something far worse than I saw. Keep hoping that extract in the Michael Calvin book on scouting is correct about Lascelles' potential.

I've been relatively impressed based on his last couple of outings.

For a frame of reference, Defoe scored 18 goals in 29 games for Bournemouth in League 1 at 18.

Isn't that Balanta guy supposed quite highly rated? I am sure I read some articles about him a while ago.

This is another point for me. The last 6 defeats have come against comfortably the worst Sunderland side we've come up against. Arguably the best one that we played against was beaten 5-1. There's absolutely NO excuse like. Course there's not, but there is for this individual game. It's going around in circles like, my two finishing questions are as follows. 1. Can you point to any moment prior to the sending off when we had a clear cut chance at goal? 2. Do you think that pre Ashley/Pardew, a Newcastle team would have conceded a further two goals against that Sunderland team? Or would it have been more likely to fight back for a draw considering the possession we had? 1. I assume this depends on your definition of a clear cut chance, but I would say that Coloccini's 'overhead' kick was a clear cut chance and when the ball was squared back to Perez about 6 yards out but he scuffed it was a clear cut chance. I'd have to rewatch the game to let you if we had any others. I reckon you could throw in Colback's half volley in as well. 2. I am not sure how you answer this question - the teams that Keegan and Robson had were so much better than the one we have now, so there is a much better chance we would have fought back to get a draw, but I am not sure how that is relevant to be honest. I don't mean just Keegan and Robson though, I mean every modern day Newcastle team pre Ashley or even pre Pardew, with the obvious exception of Kinnear. I don't think the team we had under Dalglish (bar the season he finished off), Gullit or Souness would have come back - no. In fact, I am slightly surprised you think they would have done.

This is another point for me. The last 6 defeats have come against comfortably the worst Sunderland side we've come up against. Arguably the best one that we played against was beaten 5-1. There's absolutely NO excuse like. Course there's not, but there is for this individual game. It's going around in circles like, my two finishing questions are as follows. 1. Can you point to any moment prior to the sending off when we had a clear cut chance at goal? 2. Do you think that pre Ashley/Pardew, a Newcastle team would have conceded a further two goals against that Sunderland team? Or would it have been more likely to fight back for a draw considering the possession we had? 1. I assume this depends on your definition of a clear cut chance, but I would say that Coloccini's 'overhead' kick was a clear cut chance and when the ball was squared back to Perez about 6 yards out but he scuffed it was a clear cut chance. I'd have to rewatch the game to let you if we had any others. I reckon you could throw in Colback's half volley in as well. 2. I am not sure how you answer this question - the teams that Keegan and Robson had were so much better than the one we have now, so there is a much better chance we would have fought back to get a draw, but I am not sure how that is relevant to be honest.

We didn't just not come back though, we got f***ing thrashed. Again. I completely fail to understand how you can look at the game and talk about us getting thrashed without looking at the context within which it happened. Would we have been thrashed 3-0 if we had 11 men and they hadn't got a dubious penalty? No. Would we have been thrashed 3-0 if they had got a penalty but we retained 11 men? Highly unlikely. They scored three goals because we unjustly had a man sent off and were trying to chase the game when it was 10 vs 11. It was inevitable that playing with 10 men for 45 mins would lead us conceding more goals.

Don't disagree with quite a lot of what HTT posted, but I'm not entirely certain which players we should actually be targeting if seemingly every player we sign automatically has a bad character.

Personally I think he tried to be too clever and put it in the near post corner rather than the more expected far post.

Incredibly frustrating that he seems to pick up yellows for pretty innocuous challenges. I am sure someone will pick out some examples, but he rarely seems to put in dirty challenges, just niggly ones.

He was given time and space today and still did nothing. They backed off him and he still just played the percentages, passing it sideways and backwards, not really getting involved too much and his touches were in areas where Sunderland knew he couldn't do too much damage. He did get kicked out of the game and that's not his fault. Any injury he's picked up was inflicted by that c*** Cattermole. True - he wasn't great with the ball, but he got himself into the box a few times. I suppose I just didn't find watching him today as painful as I usually do. Still just plain average.

I don't like Colback at all and would really rather he wasn't at the club, but I thought he actually wasn't that bad today.

I am pretty certain we won't go down. Made my mind up on that one in case anyone's interested.

Eh? We completely dominated the game with 11 men and could easily have been 2 or 3 up. But we weren't 2 or 3 up. man. Please stop being a tool. I'll be alright thanks. The day I take instructions from you will be a sad day indeed.

Eh? We completely dominated the game with 11 men and could easily have been 2 or 3 up.

Canny ridiculous to say it denied us a win seeing as we didn't score a goal. One of the 3-0s at home, all the excuses were about Cisse being ruled offside for a goal. Does no other team get a bad decision against sunderland, seeing as it's only us that they absolutely thrash consistently? Sick of hearing the excuses. Not sure how the above is correct - we battered them in the first half and that would have continued in the second half if we had kept 10 men on the pitch. Giving away a penalty and playing for half the game with 10 men changes absolutely everything.

I'm sorry… but how doesn't it? A red card is a game changing decision. Hughesy: Blaming Mike Williamson (and others) for Coloccini being utterly s*** since 2013. You've lost me there to be honest. he's blaming colo he said colo was past it a while back so anything and everything MUST PROVE colo is past it /ron Cheers - never quite sure what he's talking about most of the time.

I'm sorry… but how doesn't it? A red card is a game changing decision. Hughesy: Blaming Mike Williamson (and others) for Coloccini being utterly s*** since 2013. You've lost me there to be honest.

I'm sorry… but how doesn't it? A red card is a game changing decision.

You'd have to be a fucking moron to blame McClaren for this.

Ronaldo and TCD will be talking him up to manage us again if he goes get the bullet He'll be damaged goods apart from in the Savvern press of course. MOTD tonight they'll be telling us he's doing a good job. 8 defeats from 10, no wins since first day of the season, which was our only win, but they'll tell the world he's doing a good job. They'll point out that he lost Delph and Benteke but ignore the fact he got all that money to spend, with the implication being that that's why we are so s*** - which totally ignores Southampton selling a whole team and doing very well. I hate him, and I hate the f***ing British media circus in football that promotes halfwits like him way beyond their station, and then protects its own, in the manner of people who last paid to watch a match when they were about 10 years old. Listening to Soccer Saturday and the simpleton Merson was talking his usual nonsense about him needing more time and that, and I paraphrase, all the best managers 'like Sir Alex' go through bad periods and that is what makes them great.

Quite funny that Swansea are doing so badly now after all the arse licking about Monk.

Warning - this is a hugely long read, but quite a good one - http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2015/oct/22/manchester-united-liverpool-class-of-92-spice-boys-eric-cantona Quite a few interesting points in it, but certainly made me think about the Liverpool team of the mid-90s and, in particular, Robbie Fowler. I always thought he seemed to enjoy a reputation that exceeded his actual ability and achievements, but if you look at his career stats, his career was pretty much on a downward slide after 6 seasons.

Just thought that I could get there in about 10 mins from work. But then I thought... why would I want to see him up close?