Emotic

"Sporting integrity" They aren't sporting and they have no integrity.

When was the last time we had a good, old-fashioned "body language watch"? I remember Luque back on the old forum.

We're gegenpressing like frickin monsters, man. Hopefully we can sustain it over 90 minutes. It's insane the pace of the league.

An important feature in Howe's remarkable management ethos is that we now play a very disciplined system and we are getting wins without the "star players". Last night's victory came without our "best" five players. That's solid for a number of reasons: 1) No "star player" gets around to thinking that he is indispensable. Either give your all and graft for the team, else someone else will; 2) Peripheral players also have a role in the system, and if you stick to instructions, you will do well, even if you are Emil Krafth; 3) Players who need to rest, get rested. I can imagine Bruce just throwing in Joelinton and ASM yesterday, with mild niggles. Which worsens the injuries and make the players under-perform down the road. A modern-day manager, who thinks about the details. Imagine that!

If he had a hand in the selection of the January recruitment, he's played a blinder there too, to be fair. Went for character over star names and my word has it paid dividends. I wasn't overjoyed with Targett, Burn and Wood, but they've been transformational. Even the flair Brazilian we've got seems like a down-to-earth chap happy to be playing here and loving the atmosphere. It's brilliant.

Have to say, both our Brazilians are such sweet, humble characters. Really love them.

He's really really likeable that guy. Amazing that he didn't give up the years before when the going got tough. Must make his resurrection under Howe so much sweeter for him. Can't help but wish him every success.

I’d reckon the summer buys will be “names with potential” that won’t be household names - not many of us would’ve heard of Guimaraes, Botman and Diego Carlos prior to our interest in them. So our summer shortlist will be more of that ilk. Dan Ashworth supposedly joining us points to that too. Expect “moneyball, but with a higher budget ceiling” kind of signings. Lesser-known, younger, hungrier, less ego and more willing to prove themselves, good characters. Basically the opposite of Eden Hazard.

What a super set of fans, man. Love the nice little touches of sportsmanship too, Fraser low-fiving Eriksen as he came on, and the handshakes all around at the end there.

Could do without the Manager of the Month curse, tbf.

Superb post, and it makes me all the more bemused and excited that we had transitioned from an 80s PFM dinosaur to a modern, progressive coach practically overnight and are reaping the dividends.

All the sad cunts in the replies with the "but...but...Howe was given ONE HUNDRED MILLION to spend in January.". I can bet not one of them has watched a single Newcastle match this season to see the (major) improvements in individual players who were stagnating under Bruce.

The fucking cheek of it, man.

This must've appeared somewhere in this thread before, but worth resurfacing if so. A 2018 Tifo video on him, and it's surprisingly prescient. Including the sort of players he looks for when buying, his coaching and match preparation philosophy, as well as the ominous proposition that he could be England manager one day. His preference for looking at as-yet-unheralded youngsters was a bit hit-and-miss at Bournemouth, but is much more likely to reap dividends with more money and a much more professional scouting network. I dream of the day we become the Dortmund of the Premier League.

The most pathetic excuse, deployed primarily by people who know they haven't got any reasonable excuses left - "If we had won the match, or drawn it, we wouldn't have lost it.", in essence. Lazy management, lazy excuses, failing his way to the top and getting termination bonuses left, right and centre. It's a scam, is what it is.

Good player and very much in the mould of what we'd be looking for - very quick, comfortable with the ball, presses aggressively, sticks to his man like a leech, good passer. He'd be decent cover for Big Dan Burn.

Looks like we will be aiming to “make” the big names, more than buying the big names, which should be fun to watch. Get highly-rated, high-energy young players and turn them into mature worldies under a good coach, supported by world-class backroom and training facilities. Build organically, ensure energetic, possession-based football, stay within FFP.

There was that Chronicle article about him back in November, which reported that he’d engaged his own personal fitness coach as well as a analytics specialist- all on top of the coaching that the club provides. Testament to how invested he was in sorting things out for himself and his hunger to get things right. That led to that story about how his analytics guy was stumped as to how to get Big Joe to play optimally in Bruce’s system, because he could never figure out what Bruce’s system was!

A beast of a player, and a sweet fella from the looks of it. So, so happy for him, he looks so chuffed.

If it was Dasilva trying to shield the ball, then he must be a shit footballer, to be honest. The ball was nowhere near, and the slow motion replay looked damning as anything. Made me think of De Jong on Ben Arfa...the way that Targett just bandaged his leg up and then later helped set up the goal endeared him so much more to me. A proper soldier.

And the players who are real lost causes are quietly eased out. Was just watching a "Raphinha - Crazy Goals and Skills" video, and seeing Matt Ritchie hook him round the neck whilst playing at left-back made my fucking eyes bleed.

Funniest thing for me today were those co-commentators taking turns to go on long soliloquys about how amazing a footballer Eriksen was, all the while we were comfortably passing the ball around and Brentford wasn't seeing any of the ball at all.

Bruce would've had us playing for a 0-0 draw if the circumstances had been the same. Nailed on. And we all know it.

MOTM for me, personally. Soldiered on after what looked to be a really really awful stamp on his ankle by Desilva, and then just kept the left flank totally watertight. Had a hand in the first goal too. Whoever said he wasn't all that going forward is going to have to eat his hat - he does what he needs to do and he is very disciplined.

The forwards haven't caught up with his game-reading brilliance so far, seemingly. Twice today our players were caught short when he played his defence-splitters. Remember one of them being Joelinton, who still did well to claw back possession.