Chicken Dancer

What an angry bloke. I walked out, he booed. Some people clapped. Some people did nowt. None of them are wankers. Get yourself out for a walk.

Eh he’s a wanker for doing what millions of others do in when they’re not happy in sport? It happens at football, boxing, NFL - you name it. He’d just watched us get embarrassed by our rivals, who in their first season back in the top flight for NINE years beat us for the second time in 3 months to go above us. Us being a team that’s spent the best part of a billion ££ in their absence. He’s every right to do as he pleases.

Most disgusted I’ve been at a performance in some time and the reason I’ve flipped on my Howe stance. Worse than the 0-3 against this lot for me. Knowing how poor they’ve been away from home all season and watching what we served up second half had me seething. Probably take a long time for me to get over it but eternally grateful we don’t play for fucking ages.

Maybe it is. But it’s always been the way people show displeasure at football grounds up and down the country, it’s not going to change anytime soon.

That’s football in this country. It may be pantomime and as I say, I can’t remember if I’ve ever booed at the football, but it’s the way fans show displeasure in this country and always will be. I’ve no problem in people letting the team/staff they’re pissed off and if that’s via booing then fair play. I left as soon as the second hit the back of the net so didn’t have a chance to tell them to fuck off.

Personally not one to boo but if there’s ever a time to, it’s when your local rivals - newly promoted ones at that - have just came and deservedly beat you on your own patch. As for Howe, he’s had more support than any NUFC manager that I can remember from the stands. We’re constantly singing his name. It was only a few games ago a huge banner of him was draped over the Leazes end. He rightly gets praised when we’re good and now is rightly taking shit when we’re crap. That’s football and isn’t exclusive to us.

Correct. We’ve known for a while beyond the first choice 11 the squad is relatively poor, which is why we probably should have spread the expenditure out last summer over more players to fill out the squad and provide some decent depth. That being said there’s been times this season when I’ve looked at the bench and thought that’s more than decent. So fuck knows, but less time on the training pitch is a consequence of being good and you have to adapt.

But if you’ve got European fixtures and want deep cup runs then you’re going to have less time on the training pitch. It’s up to the coaching staff to adapt surely? Else what’s the point in qualifying for European football ever again if it’s going to have such a detrimental impact on our league form.

They had 51pts after 31 games last season which is 9 more than we do now. Surely that’s managing/juggling/coping better? 9 more points now would have us 5th and everything feels a lot different.

Clearly not. If we finish on 66 pts I’ll come back, hold my hands up and say we can cope as well as Villa did. Oh wait, we can’t.

Was it correct? Thought it was pretty universally accepted that it wasn’t correct. Either way, they finished level on points with us and played a hell of a lot more games. They utilised the loan market effectively is also correct and there was nowt stopping us doing the same. Who knows if we tried or not. They’ve proven they’re able to manage European football and do well in the league far better than us - I don’t think that’s in question. I also take into account the Europa and conference are a lot less taxing on the players. Yes, let’s see how they do in 26/27, it would be atrocious if they finished ahead of us when we will likely have free weeks throughout and they’ll be playing CL football.

Villa also got to the R16 in the CL last season , the FA Cup semi finals and missed out on qualifying for the CL again due to a dodgy refereeing decision. They’ve shown competing on numerous fronts and having a successful league campaign can be done. I think with the benefit of hindsight Howe would have rested a couple more in the home leg vs Qarabag.

Yeah we’ve not got it in us based on this season thus far, though we have not had the benefit of a game a week yet. After Villa and Liverpool way back in August, we’ve been pretty crap since. A few decent performances along the way but in plenty of our wins we’ve been lucky to get 3 points. I really don’t want it to get nasty for him, he definitely doesn’t deserve that, but if the remaining 3 home games don’t go well I fear it might. I said pre-match that there’s been more than murmurs in recent games and yesterday was the worst reaction a Newcastle team have had post match for a long time.

He’s incredible. He speaks well, he totally gets it and he represents everything I’d want in a Newcastle manager. He’s fully bought into the community and given me my best days following Newcastle, both here and overseas. I feel dirty demanding change, often questioning my own thinking on the matter. I think ultimately if we were playing really well and on the wrong end of bad luck (see Liverpool game in August) I could live with it because you would think the performances are there so the results will come. It’s almost the opposite now - we play shit and get shit results. Going ahead and then losing was a problem in autumn, yet here we are with 7 games left and it’s still happening. It’s poor coaching, no doubt about it. Maybe I have been a tad emotional on the back of yesterday, but putting in two absolutely tepid displays against that lot is unacceptable for me. Yes I’m a local fan but the players just weren’t as up for it as theirs both times, and surely that has on the manager? Totally understand we had two big CL games in the midweek prior to both games, but watching them just dominate the second half yesterday was very damning indeed. This is a team that had scored 8 away from home all season, and 1 goal in their last 8 games. Deserved winners and probably the worst feeling I’ve had leaving the ground in some time.

See the above posts from @bobbydazzla which pretty much summarise my thoughts. Different managers thrive in different environments, and I’d be interested to see some fresh ideas put into the squad. I’m not saying we need a manager who’s achieved what Howe has here, I’d like some fresh ideas and a tactical overhaul because it’s went very, very stale. When we went from Emery to Howe, like many others I was a tad underwhelmed but he’s proven me wrong and then some. It’s been an amazing 4 years and we will always be grateful - bloke deserves a statue and is held amongst Keegan, Harvey et al as the absolute greatest manager we have ever had. For me he’s #1. It doesn’t mean the performances and results this season have been anything short of completely unacceptable. The problems we had in September are still happening now - that’s bad coaching. I get it - we used to be shit, but that doesn’t mean we should accept being shit now.

Aren’t you just goading him into an answer so you can scoff at whatever he suggests?

Is it not true like? I consider conceding 8 and 7 over 2 legs to be getting dumped out, regardless of opponent. Yes two of the best teams in the world. Both things are true.

Love the optimism but Christ We aren’t winning all 7 games, I can guarantee that.

He won’t and shouldn’t be sacked before the end of the season, but I don’t think he could complain if he was peddled today no. If it was my club, I’d be asking why we keep conceding late winners, can’t hold on to a lead which ultimately is costing us league position and income. It’s been happening all season long and it hasn’t stopped, so something has to change. Change your system - literally try anything because what’s happening isn’t working.

How to completely twist it? What he done at Bournemouth was lovely stuff and a lovely reminder at how special the football pyramid is. The question I asked was what top level stuff had he achieved before he came to Newcastle? Champions League qualification, cup finals, trophy wins etc?

Sorry but what exactly had Howe done before he came here? The Bournemouth story was nice aye but in terms of the top level stuff he’s achieved here? The answer is nowt because he didn’t have £750m to spend at Bournemouth.

He won’t get sacked and he probably doesn’t deserve to be sacked if we are going to give him grace based on past results and achievements. However there’s 7 games left and anybody that wants a change is well within their rights to want one tbh. It’s been fucking dire all season. Not going to list the reasons why again but there’s quite a few why he couldn’t complain if he was peddled this morning.

Yeah Villa are good, I’ll give you that one. Though would the outcome have been different 11 v 11? Who knows. We were playing well up until the red card regardless to be fair.

I think we’re at the point where people are allowed to want a change if they please, surely? Earlier in the season people - including me - probably prematurely jumped the gun at times. But now with 7 games left I reckon it’s more than fair game. We’ve been shite all season in the league save for a few decent performances, spent a fortune on shit, can’t hold on to a lead, can’t keep clean sheets and concede goals for fun. Questions are being quite rightfully asked and thus far there’s been no solutions shown as we keep making the same mistakes over and over again. I’m not fooled by one off performances against ‘big’ teams at home. The majority of your points should come against the rest and we just ain’t getting them anymore. We’ll finish about 13th and people will just accept it because we done areet in the cups (we were dumped out of all competitions as soon as we played a good team btw).

I never quite understand this. People do it about players we signed in the summer too; ‘who would you have signed instead?’. I’d not heard of a few managers in the Premier League before they came over here, same way I’d not heard of half of the signings Sunderland made in the summer. Yet they’ve just taken the piss out of us in our own backyard and every single one of them would have done a job for us this season. There’s people at the club paid hundreds of thousands of ££ to scout players and have an eye on coaches. Whether you trust them or not is a different thing altogether but the average football fan doesn’t have an in depth knowledge of players/coaches on the continent and beyond.