Stottie

It looks like they are going to have to dislike and wish ill fortune on one of the most geniunely likeable managers in football. The difference between "likeable" and "genuinely likeable" is that genuinely likeable ones would never suggest reporters deserve a slap for doing their jobs. For a transfer "failure", it looks like Solanke has been banging them in, which leaves only Jordan Ibe.

Howe has a great record of overachieving with lesser players, which is exactly what we need right now from whoever we appointed. Ashley and Cabbageheed left the club staring at relegation. Howe will also know other Premier teams, and have ideas on any weaknesses that can be exploited. Howe will not have experience juggling big name players with big egos, but we won't need that for some time to come. Bournemouth had a dreadful run before relegation, but it still took a goaline technology failure in Villa's favour to send them down. VAR wasn't even allowed to review it. As bad luck goes, that's as extreme as it gets. Swap their keeper that season with Dubravka on 19/20 fitness and form and they would have stayed up easily. He saved us 10 points on his own. It's almost a tongue twister, but Howay Howe!

Just saying to anyone hitting on Howe's numbers with Bournemouth, but in 2018/19, Unai Emery's Arsenal conceded more goals than newly promoted Rafa's shoestring NUFC with Joselu up front. From this episode, it looks like Emery is high needs, and he may not be suited to the pressure cooker we have now become. We as fans will be much more patient than the media are going to be, who will be sniping at every chance they get. We're going to need a manager with thick skin. However, even if missing out on Emery proves to be a blessing, doing it in this way is amateurish and should be a wakeup call to the consortium. They need to find out who is responsible both for the leaks and for failing to nail someone down already, and shut them up/bomb them out pronto.

Just saying, but whoever we get is going to need thick skin. This leak was unprofessional, but we may have much bigger issues down the line for our next manager to deal with.

I doubt it'll be Howe but if it is, its all the all the fault of the Cabbageheed for putting us in this any-port-in-a-storm situation. We cannot allow Jones to remain in charge for any remotely winnable game because we have already pissed away lots of chances for points. We need to make changes pronto to ensure we stay in the league. If they get any flak, the new owners just have to blame Bruce for being 19th after spending 100M plus.

Rafa must have done a rough blueprint for club development with the consortium, a five year plan or whatever. With Rafa being Rafa, I bet it goes way beyond back of an envelope level. Since we are in a relegation battle thanks to a very porous defence. that has to take precedence now. The only silver lining is that the reserves, academy, training facilities, etc., mostly stuff that is investment in returns that will always come later, can all start now.

Then you have to wonder why Emery joined Arsenal with their owners and the tasteless way Wenger was pushed out. I wonder if Conte knows how much debt Spurs have on the stadium or what "vision" thought Poch wasn't good enough.

We may screw this up, it's nufc after all, but Balague is wrong if he is suggesting Citeh were completely professional behind the scenes from the get go. The best DOF at that time would never have paid that much for Roque Santa Cruz, or bought him in the first place with options their money gave them. That was all on Hughes, who they kept too long anyway.

Anyone who signs David Luiz will have Schar straight back in the team. No more Cabbageball!

Chuffed to bits about this. Huge upgrade on Bruce and Jones. The Europa League is no pushover and is simply undervalued by the English media. 10 wins and a few draws and we'll stay up. Appointing Emery is a big step toward it happening.

A quite good park-the-megabus for 65 minutes against a weakened Chelsea with no Lukaku, who'd also gone to penalties on Tuesday. Completely hopeless once it was 0-1. No energy, application, or change in tactics. It still looked 5-3-2 after the subs. A waste, because had it finished say 0-2 with a bit of resistance and a decent chance or two, you could have said we'd put up a fight and come out with positives. As it was, all we achieved was "bend don't break", followed by collapse. The system doesn't work and needs a complete overhaul. I don't get the "what did you expect?" type derision, because Graeme Jones arrived at the club with universal hype as a brilliant coach and was involved in the England setup. Whatever his real ability, that was very poor yesterday and last week, and he needs replacing pronto. As a personal gripe, I cannot remember Fraser doing anything especially positive in these two games, and that means we are effectively playing only two attacking players.

That flag is quality. I don't like the drummy Blaydon Races, but you can't have everything.

On the deflected shot that hit the post at 0-0, you can see him watch the ball and then rush to get up after its rebounded out. In a scramble about a twenty minutes later, he gets up in a panic, slips, and their second goes in with him squirming on the ground. The third was on him and he was lucky to not get a second yellow. The game was already gone, but that would have finished it had it not been.

With a step up in opponents, we're looking at 15% possession.

Wat?!

Signing from potential relegation rivals is two birds with one stone, but risks the deals being protracted, and we'll need to get people in quickly. First of all, we need a new manager in quickly to start deBrucing the players we have. Many of them are underperforming.

Ward Prowse ticks a lot of boxes, one of which is set pieces, a relatively easy way to score when you have a whole team to rebuild. I suspect dead balls are a factor in Ritchie getting picked in spite of many defensive mistakes. Get him in on day one!

I didn't watch the game or even the highlights yet, but a Rafa team conceding 4 goals in 12 minutes plus stoppage time is very uncharacteristic for him. Rondon sounds like he's getting stick, but he didn't score in his first six appearances for us. It's still early days there.

Decent and arguably good point, which stops the rot, and it was rot, after last week. We battled to the end and could've sneaked it. We didn't give up any massive chances to suggest Palace deserved the game on anything more than simple possession. Our goal came from the individual brilliance of Callum Wilson, but let's not kid ourselves. That's how the best teams win a lot of their games. We made sensible substitutions at a sensible time, for the first time in two seasons. A winnable fixture has gone to waste I suppose, but we need genuine positives at a moment and there were some of them there. Not the false positives Bruce would talk about to take the heat off himself after yet another defeat. Jones has inherited a dispirited and unfit squad, so it will take time to turn things around.

Blatant foul, so well done VAR. As we were.

Double positive change at 66 minutes. Bruce might have done it, but I can't ever remember recently.

Weak as piss. Easily outmuscled on the edge by someone falling over, no pressure to stop an average cross, and Darlow just ball watches it.

Shit game. We look more organized but Palace have only scored one first half goal at home this season and there's been no Zaha today. They've scored five in four in the second half. Regardless of possession, so long as it's tied, we've got the striker most likely to score off one chance.

Some terrible passes to nobody, but the lads seem to be in roughly the right place when they have the ball. That alone is a big improvement.

18 gone and looking more organized. No easy ball for them so far.