Tiresias

Next year feels different

Fair enough. I live in hope of Schar outlasting bruce and becoming important for us again

people have short memories, he was absolutely mint for a while but under bruce he is never going to be any good and he probably cant work in a back 4, however considering our improvement in a back 4 can understand not being used. People love to assume a technically accompliched cb can suddenly become a midfielder but it's mostly bollocks.

He's not a midfielder is the thing. Schar clearly benefited from Rafas defensive coaching and long runs int eh side. Throwing schar on against man city was always going to be a hiding to nothing, knocked his confidence and now thrown out of position. Now I actually do understand the dilemma, he is a difficult fit in a back four for us, but it's not much surprise he looks a shadow of the player he was second half last season.

Terrible corner defending from there from watford

Yeah it's like couldn't score in first 10 minutes so now just let them attack us. Gone proper rubbish game now

Watford are always like this though, look a good unit for a few games a season and are totally anonymous for a lot of it

Dubs has low key some of the worst facial hair in the league

Manquillo ffs that was awful adn they nearly score

Watford are rubbish

rip

Its gone quiet clearly because the Saudis have stopped feeding how confident they are that it will be done soon to various media people resulting in that constant stream of NEXT WEEK THIS WEEK NEXT HOUR This can and will be interpreted one of many ways by everyone, all we can do is wait.

england midfielder starts scoring a few free kicks instantly media think he's a god. He's passable defensive mid for a bottom half premier league team

I do share feeling that some are somehow making Saudi Arabia to be run by lovely guys by any means necessary up to and including chopping someone (spy or not) in an embassy are being a bit funny, but thing is to me the morality of saudi arabia is almost by the by. I ultimately think that any nation state buying a club and getting football clubs involved in geopolitical crap even by just being an advert is a bad thing. I will, as I have said before, be tremendously excited by ambition at the club, we do not live in an ideal world where this kinda shit is allowed, but even if it was some lovely country noone has anything against like New Zealand or something it's wrong and not in the long term interest of football. Football clubs should be about the fans and the region, not hey look how friendly a country on the other side of the planet are

We started badly, but pundits have wiped our second half of the season last year from the memory banks completely. And of course without Rondon we are rubbish. Bruce just sucked up to Ashley and took it because that's why he's signed, not due to any abilities, because he provided a nice narrative of a geordie managing us and because he wouldn't kick up a fuss about being shafted by Ashley.

Of course fans would let them in, and while I was envisoning saying I would block them as a league because potential long term damage to a club becoming the mouth piece of a regime, however actually that may be uneccessary if fans had genuine power at a club, the fans could welcome them and enjoy the money etc and then have a genuine say on getting rid of them if damaging to the club. Again I just think it shouldn't be forgotten, that while it will be brilliant if we can bring proper top quality football to newcastle at last and if there's investment in the area, that at the end of the day football clubs are too important to be subject to the whims of fickle owners and used as poltical footballs by owners, and by international governments linked to owners etc etc.

So basically to me this is the narrative of Steve Bruce's tactics and how we've played this season Start of the season he wanted us to play expansive attacking football, which turned out to mean throwing on random teams out of position and them milling around doing nowt. He then complains a lot blaming Rafa for his own failings as a coach and reverts to three at the back and copy Rafa's defensive work. This works in shoring things up but because Bruce hasn't paid attention to premier league football for the past decade (why would you bother?) he does not understand the importance of possession, not even that if you're playing not for possession you have to account for the fact a lot of teams are and will press high. This means he drastically undervalues the technical defenders on the books, Schar and Lejeune and instead persists with the less error prone ones but ones who can't reliably get the ball out the back and past the high press. This continues until lockdown Post lockdown we are safe and finally Steve Bruce's just have fun lads has actually had some benefit, some of out players are freer and don't quite have weight of the world on their shoulders, resulting in an improved performance. I am happier with how we are playing now and Bruce does deserve some credit for that. But continually idiotic pundits have been hammering that Bruce overachieved before the lockdown. He did because we flucked an absurd number of points, and sorry my eyes aren't lying here, we were absolutely turgid for large part of the season. Some of it is down to not having a proper centre forward sure, however Bruce also tied himself to the Joelinton deal and said he was happy. The crowd demanding he stay post takeover (not that the takeover will ever happen :/) really think he can attract a higher caliber of talent to sign for us? Can he really compete further up the table with such a lack of interest in posession football? You can only go so far with wacking it up and hoping for some magic.

Honestly though I would be doing the exact same in her situation, Qatar backing or not. I have every sympathy for her and this is what happens when you open the door to so much money pouring into the league from anywhere. We haven't opened that door, it's been open a while. Man City's owners and Chelsea's are both pretty dubious. Other people are just as bad is hardly a good argument, but equally fit and proper is about if they credibly able to own the club and not stiff everyone. Quite frankly if I were in charge of the league I would be demanding fans have meaningful stakes in club and be blocking the likes of Sheikh Mansour, Saudi Arabia, those dodgy asset strippers at Man U. The league would be poorer and be unable to bring in I guess the Paul Pogba's of the world but also clubs would be safeguarded long term from mad spending and owners loading clubs with endless debt. But I'm not in charge of the league, and it is all built to get money money money in at expense of all else, which is why i thought this would go through. But if it doesnt go through this will be on the piracy (I maintain that of course Bein would object, and Staverley and co should have come in better prepared, Saudi Arabia could have cut the piracy before starting the takeover and wonder if we'd be there by now, however they basically only did it when they had to which doesnt look much better) or on some other factor not known to us. No matter how much international diplomacy is involved at the end of the day a big broadcasting partner has a lot of sway not unreasonably. If it gets blocked the league will then take a big victory lap pretending they did it cos they have morals after all. I am not 'against' the takeover I really hope it happens cos this is the real world and clubs are owned by crap like this and it will bring hope and investment to the area, I will never be against that. But it kinda is preposterous.

Qatar will be feeding in their stuff through paid journos, sock puppet twitter etc etc, saudi arabia will be doing the same about Qatar from the other side. Qatar may be unscrupolous a-holes but tbh so are Saudi Arabia. There is some willful blindness among some that seem to think that the premier league and our prospective owners are a) naive waifs who are falling prey to the pure malevolent Qataris and b) that maybe regardless of the tactics involved by Qatar that Saudi Arabia pirating the league a lot is whatever else involved, a strike against our owners. I really hope it goes through, the league have long invited money over ethics into the game and hope it can all do some good, but lets not pretend we're being bought by some lovely old grandma who is being bullied by the mean qatar

To be fair Wigan win that competition atm

Reckon well hear something within the next 48888888888888888888 hours feel it in my gut

See him lashing out about disrespectful treatment most the season. You got stick cos the football was absolute garbage for the majority of the season. Absolute shit. I watched it, it was fucking awful. We've had a few good performances this included and hope it's like this as long as he's around from now on with some freedom to play on the pitch, but generally it's very rare a manager gets serious stick from fans and doesn't deserve it.

Just keep the academy get rid of the club it's the only good thing they have Also i would feel for HTT's kid

Geeeetin miggy

doesnt look like a particularly bad injury