Stottie

I think this is bollocks, but the biggest bollocks is people mentioning the 2.25M valuation on transfermarkt. He'll be worth Phil Jones money already, which makes it all the more unlikely to happen.

If that's true, it must be the first thing I have ever learnt from the S*n.

quietly getting them to 3rd in the league with a shot at winning the EL. Very good season. Yes it is. He's transforming the way they play, which is always going to take time. 4 goals and 4 assists for Kante this year, so pushing him further forward might not be as crazy as it initially sounded.

I reckon Pep and Klopp (and their setups) could be blips, i.e., one-offs. The best example is probably Neymar, maybe Man U and Chelsea too, but you can't just buy twenty expensive players and let them get on with it. There are too many egos and agents' voices in ears for that. You have to unite them into staying hungry and playing for the team. Lesser managers would still do well with those squads, probably first and second, but 97+ points for both teams is testament to how well those managers are doing. We have never seen this level of consistency before. Note that none of the teams in third to sixth to could put a run together to seal a CL place at the business end of the season. They all have expensive squads too. Love to Rafa for thwarting Man City twice this year. As for the Daniel Storey stat, Brighton's lineup is 37 million after spending "100m" on players.

So they go from paying 60M for Fred to buying someone after nine Premier League games.

If third, Europa League final, and League Cup final is failing, then yeah, it's going to be hard to succeed. fwiw, past history suggests the top two won't get 97+ points next year. I doubt that will prove to be a new normal. I doubt Liverpool will match 97 points and City could struggle to hit that level too. Replace current-form Aguero (coming up to 31) with current-form Jesus, who's still excellent but isn't the same focal point, and that's down to 90 points. 90 points is still way off for current Chelsea and the others, but is a more realistic goal than record-chasing territory.

I can't see us having any problems getting decent wedge for Gayle now he's done it twice in the Champo. I'm not adverse to keeping him either, though not for the first 11.

I thought Brighton were very poor this term and were lucky to stay up. A low points total despite a large slice of good fortune. Plunging form into the bargain. Cardiff were basically robbed against Chelsea six weeks ago, and had they won that game, I think the extra momentum and extra pressure on Brighton would have taken the relegation battle to the wire.

Quality trolling. I fully approve.

I was thinking myself that we wouldn't be talking about top clubs not being able to defend if Rafa managed one of them. Look at what he has coaxed out of the players here. (Corners this season aside)

Comeback of the week! That Southampton stat, 8 former players and a manager, wow.

Just saying, but Lloris did it in the World Cup final about two months later.

Shouldn't Man U fans dislike Man City more than Liverpool? It's a hard-to-imagine scenario, but there is no way we'd want Sunderland to beat Man Utd or anyone else. Liverpool scored vital goals off dives in both games against us this season. That should be reason enough to dislike this particular version of Liverpool, yes, the ninety-something point Klopp version, as opposed whatever we may think of Liverpool Football Club as a whole.

Personally, I thought their approach in the game against City, a chance to go 10 points ahead and put it to bed, was completely wrong. Their midfield was Gini (away from home version), Milner and Henderson, just about their most negative lineup of the season. City played the two Silvas and Fernandinho. This was a year after Liverpool beat City in the CL by outscoring them. Look at the errors Spurs have since got out of the City defence in that wild game the other week. They are not infallible when faced with attackers good enough to punish them. Metrics like shots, shots in the box, shots on target, shots against, and ahem, expected goals, all favour City, which suggests that if you replayed the season, Man City would finish ahead of Liverpool more times than not. Individual games and incidents all come down to the margin, but with 37 games played, the team that's played the best is on top. In the wages league, Liverpool are fourth, City are second. The big gap is Arsenal fifth to Spurs sixth. We're about fourth bottom. As a bonus for those listening to pundits: fouls committed per game: Liverpool 8.4 (fewest) Man City 8.6 (second fewest). 0.2 times 37 is 7 more fouls.

City playing Hey Jude on a loop at FT.

Ferking hell!

Aye, great shout. What a transfer window that was.

No mention for Cieran Clark, our joint third top goalscorer.

Voted Rondon, ahead of Ayoze because he got going earlier in the season.

Just saying, but we like buying from relegated clubs and Mooy has a year left on his contract, which should drag the price down.

Great post ohmelads. All entirely predictable as well. Ours is the lot of the non-Top 6 fan. The League straight out said a few years back that refs giving red cards to Rooney etc. was "bad for the brand". Liverpoool have scored vital goals off dives against us in both games this season. It barely registers as a talking point. We're only there to make up the numbers. https://www.newcastle-online.org/forum/index.php?topic=102994.msg6978615#msg6978615 In our case, the biggest problem is Ashley running us on a shoestring, but we could have peak-era Ashley Cole at left back and it would still be given as a foul. That's our role in the big scheme of things.

Clear as day. Fucking twats.

Totally undeserved. What cunts. Hope City and Barca finish the job.

More bullshit refereeing