Stottie

13 league goals for us is one more than Maxi and level with HBA. Not bad for someone it's been argued we shouldn't have signed because it gave us two left wingers. I get the "PSR means you can only have one nice thing, not two nice things" argument, but look at the attacking options Villa have on their bench. The "its only Harvey Barnes" lot are as blind as Townsend saying he lacks goals. Barnes got 13 in the Leicester relegation season, one more than Liam Delap is on now. Young, that many in a season in a struggling team, and available for a relegation price makes it pretty much a no-brainer for whoever can get it over the line. Arsenal should probably sign him, but he mightn't be glamourous enough for them. He'd have to be badly advised and/or barking mad to go to Man U.

Four wins in a row and some helpful other results have things looking very good now. With the game in hand, its 100% in our hands, with no reason to question what the team can do. No Eddie today, but the lads still put the work in and did the business.

Our second top scorer now, 8 in about 12.5 games' of minutes. It was great anticipation for him to follow the first one in, something Isak didn't do, and then great strength and composure for the second.

I like Villa for the squad they've assembled and Emery. I wasn't talking about a Mackem-like subset of their fanbase, who do not deserve our attention. The self-styled bantzmeister behind the original bedsheets got featured in the paper and was basically just a claret and blue Mackem. We have our own arseholes, like Tony Blair, and they will only multiply the more successful we become.

Eight game form table. No real standout teams there. Man City looked like they couldn't be arsed on Sunday. They still have great players but are not playing as the team they were. The "its the KDB farewell tour" news did not motivate them either. 9 goals scored (joint fourth worst) in their last eight does not bode well for Chelsea, who needed Brentford to miss a couple of sitters to get a point. Villa improving, but still not convincing. Like Chelsea, if we avoid defeat to them, it will go a long way toward securing CL. Id actually quite like Villa to win the CL, they're likeable and there would be the bonus of them and Emery upstaging Liverpool.

Missed opportunity by Roblox or Cadbury Freddos.

Geordie boys... take the piss! Indeed!

Buy some players like Forest and they do you for PSR.

My other comment on today's games relates to Brighton giving up a second yellow when facing nine men. Like their game against Forest, they don't do bad and only seem to do atrocious.

Great win for Villa who kind of got away with one. Emery clearly had half a mind on PSG and nearly got punished for it. The rotated lads he played got it over the line, but that was very squeaky bum. Forest unlucky. Created many chances in the second half. Some decent ones for Anderson, but he didn't work the keeper. Its something he needs to work on if he wants to be an elite midfielder.

Nearly a Kompany (or Schar) special there.

MGW total quality.

And again. One way traffic. Villa's midfield completely AWOL.

Don't underestimate Nuno. Good chance for Anderson.

Forest missing a CF here, but I wouldn't be surprised if they get back into this like they did at SJP.

Opta predict City to get 66, us to get 65 and Chelsea sixth on 63. Villa get 60. They have us as over 60% chance of top five. Click on predicted at this link https://theanalyst.com/competition/premier-league/table I agree with them and doubt that sixth will get as many as 65 points. Villa would need 17 points from eight games, which they have only managed in one range of eight games, at the very start of the season. Since we play both Villa and Chelsea, avoiding defeat to them will make it harder for them to reach 65. First off though, fingers crossed for a favour from Spurs later on. I'm assuming here of course that City will do whatever and finish above us.

Ha ha Papiss Cisse goal from Sandro. Any win against a team who've won five straight away is a good win. Rejoice!!

That'll do. Didn't give them a sniff or get bullied like some have done at SJP. Not quite clicking for us up front, but more threatening than them and got a goal that was probably deserved, if not by our shooting beforehand. Howay the lads second half!

Bruno is a bigger cartoon character than anyone in Billy the Fish. I bloody love him!

Salah not going last summer has won them the title this season, but him alone cost them 100M plus (rumoured to be 150M) in potential transfer fees from Saudi. As well driving them to win the league, Salah being around and on such amazing form has helped Slot get settled, so its probably been for the best. However, the counterfactual still exists that 100M plus would have paid for a very strong Salah replacement, such as Olise. Given its been a nightmare season for Man City, you could speculate that Liverpool would still have won the title with Olise and been better placed going into summer 2025. fwiw, I like my football to be played on the pitch, not on spreadsheets showing finances.

"PL title" will be leaving if MS goes along with TAA.

Three season ends under Eddie Howe. 21/22 P10 W6 D0 L4 Pts 18 22/23 P10 W5 D3 L2 Pts 18 Final game was dead rubber draw at Chelsea after sealing CL with nervy draw vs. Leicester 23/24 P10 W6 D2 L2 Pts 20 Massive plaudits to Eddie for working em hard but keeping it going at the business end of the season. The same again, say 18, would do very nicely and get us to 65 points. I reckon that would be enough.

I reckon the council will be too hard up to resist any offers of regeneration funded by the Saudis and the Reubens. They may have knocked back previous projects from the club to use Leazes Park, but that would have been a pre-austerity council with much more money and far less wealthy owners of NUFC with much less to offer as sweeteners. The council now will have barely a pot to piss in, never mind pay for things like park upkeep. Libraries and parks across the North East are now maintained by volunteers not the council.

Yes its grim and likely to get grimmer, thanks to rule changes like PSR and more and more subs letting big clubs face you with 16 stars, not 11. Since Sky etc. won't point it out to you, I'll stick this in capitals in an attempt to grab more eyeballs and make an important point about fairness and competititiveness in English football. WE WON THE FIRST EFL TOURNAMENT TO INCLUDE SEEDING OF TEAMS PLAYING THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE AND EUROPA LEAGUE THOSE SIX TEAMS ALL GOT AUTOMATIC HOME DRAWS IN THE THIRD ROUND (LAST 32) SO THEY WOULDN'T PLAY EACH OTHER The higher ups and their media lapdogs don't want to share trophies round. That's why they talk of "quadruples". Liverpool didn't even reach the last 8 in the Champions League. That's about as close to winning as some long-forgotten England manager, say Capello, came to winning the World Cup.

They should have it in Leazes Park as a bring your own shovel.