Stottie

Quite up for this but mainly because I've got into the habit of supporting anyone playing Man Utd. I can't drum up much enthusiasm for us, so I've turned to more perverted forms of football-based hope and enjoyment. DdG aside, Man Utd have been really unconvincing this year and I hope Liverpool go on a run and finish above them. Preferably it would be Southampton, or even Spurs, but Liverpool will do. Behind all the arrogance, LvG has blown a shitload of money and made players of the quality of Rooney and di Maria pretty much ineffective. The most expensive squad in league history shouldn't be scraping wins or hoofing it to a big man.

In this age where some people seem to think footballers have to be role models, our club appoints a staff member who personally called paying fans "f**king c*nts" in front of children to the manager's job, the most PR exposed job at the club. Dear oh dear oh dear.

Classic Pardew for him to extend his run against the Mackems with a goal from one of our set penises.

Only their third win of the season ffs.

ferk

Rob Eliot's no great shakes but he doesn't dive the wrong way or fall over when someone knocks it square instead of shooting. Brad Jones looks a complete liability. I saw a blog that pointed out in mid November that Lovren and Skrtl (sp?) were both top 7 in the league for clearances, which means that they'd been busy, not that they'd been particularly good. After Liverpool lost the title due to goals conceded last year, you'd think he'd set his team up to give the defence more cover.

I've not seen any of Liverpool's recent games but Mignolet must be uber gash for that to be better. Nice one Brendan.

Lolren!

They have far too many fans worldwide to do a Leeds unfortunately. Leeds also bought a lot of their players on some weird hire-purchase scheme that really fecked them up. Apparently Liverpool outbid Arsenal for Alexis Sanchez by 3 million but he chose to go to London. With him in the team, they'd be doing much better. While it's funny that he'll have got the spiel about winning it five times and YNWA etc. etc. and still not been impressed enough to sign for more money, it's a bit depressing if it means you can finish above a London club who haven't won anything in years and have consistently sold all their best players, but still lose out to them on transfers. While there is little chance of us improving to that level as things stand, I guess we'd be in the same situation trying to attract players. "Closer to London than Middlesborough" won't work the next time.

Annualized that's a 40M pound drop in income, largely attributed to the lack of CL and not as bad as it could have been thanks to new sponsors' money, but Woodward says they won't buy players in January. Don't they want to get back into the top four?

For the money that Man Utd are willing to pay, basically every player is available. I'm sure Hummels would be available for the money paid for Shaw, for example. Vermaelen and Di Vrij were mentioned heavily in the summer and both moved, but not to Man Utd. There may be some method behind Man Utds transfers of late but they seem a bit scattergun to me. Like Citeh a few seasons ago.

With the media bandwagon around the case, some of which is understandable given his profession, I can't see him winning any appeal. Him going from "Ched Evans the rapist" to "the wrongly imprisoned (and defamed) Ched Evans" would embarrass too many people and go against the message they are trying to send about date rape. [Probably giggs] The charges where dropped against Loic Remy when he was here but I wonder how far off the same kind of trial he was. We were obviously happy to employ him with gang rape charges hanging over him [/giggs]

Presumably she admitted having sex with the other bloke? The other bloke was acquitted of rape, i.e., a charge of rape was brought against him too. For him to be acquitted, the court must have been satisfied that the sex between him and the woman was consensual, i.e., she must have been capable of giving consent and did so. The "it was rape because she was too drunk to give consent" reasoning did not apply against him.

If, like me, all you've heard is "Ched Evans-rapist", its worth reading the writeups other posters have linked because it is a very complicated case with some degree of doubt. He may be guilty or he may be innocent, but as sex offenders go, Ched Evans will be getting far more attention and flak than he deserves. It would be better directed toward those who enabled Savile, the MP peado ring or those twats at Meadomsley.

I think they managed two attempts in the box against us, and it was a deflected shot from distance that got them their goal against Chelsea. Against us, they must have had getting on for 150 passes between members of their back four. That's great when you're two goals up, but they never led in the game and were behind for about a quarter of it. I suspect it might have been last minute wage demands that turned them off Remy, but he would have been a much better buy than Balotelli.

Van Gaal now level on points with Pardew, and four points behind Moyes who went P10 W5 D2 L3 F17 A13 17pts. Everton got 72pts and only got fifth last year, but that's looking like it might get you third this year.

About effing time!

Probably a straight red there for goalscoring opportunity.

Spurs are terrible, but still, great result. Pardew, what a jammy bastard.

We won the second ball, fifteen yards inside our own half.

Shite!

Wasted set piece.

He does n'all. I thought the same.

Dem subs. It's Luis van Pardew! Red card and Pen!

When we finished fifth, our goal difference was a statistical outlier for a team finishing that high. According to the stats people, a 99% unlikely result. Anomalies do happen, but they are very difficult to replicate. In ordinary language, it was a fluke. Google "Newcastle United Regression Factor" to see the stats analysis, but only if you like numbers which lots of people don't. Possibly the best proof is the youtube vid of Papiss's goals from the second half of the season. It was like RVP on steroids. The flicked volley one is my personal favourite. Fwiw, I don't think that Swansea game itself was a fluke. They had meaningless possession and we let them knock it about miles from our goal. It was almost textbook and a classic example of why the tikitaka and Barcelona comparisons were inappropriate for Rogers' Swansea, because Guardiola's Barcelona would work into scoring positions and score. In that game, all Swansea managed were shots from distance from Sigurdsson.