Tiresias

Yep, think we've been found out a bit now and other teams realise they can defend against us relatively easily. The squad is not good enough.

Was a bit calm about Burnley bit this is shocking. Poor recruitment coming back to haunt us.

This, he is just so visibly frustrating that it's easy to vent at him

Yeah Ritchie isn't a good enough passer for quite that position, but I guess if given license to roam into wide positions he could work well almost more as a second striker, but he's not going to give any midfield support

Was poor game but some over reaction on here

Love a good one sided rivalry

On the thread the new Football Manager has him as chairman of Swindon Town (checked the real chairman is called Lee Power so not a coincidence I feel)

fucking hell

Quite an achievement for the level of litter to stay the same considering noone was in the crowd

Ashley Young still getting games

I second people being mad to be ok with changing name of stadium for a bit of dosh. I think people are getting a tad carried away, nothing has happened yet for certain. I for one would still be delighted if we're bought by a sensible owner who will run us benevolently even if they don't have mroe money than god and there's only a moderate increase in investment (like being able to spend money the club earns even). Of course the owners will want stuff out of the club but change the name of the stadium? I don't want us to become another tacky branded team.

So many british managers obviously learn how to coach a physical bullish defence and then think that they've got keys to the kingdom and no need for much else.

I suspect his agent has been desperately trying to set it up for so long that he's telling journos all the time it's on and there's interest or something. Hope we don't, he's a crock.

What's worse, not many people being at your press conference or the one journo there pulling out his phone and taking a photo of you alone?

Hayden referring to all the players by the first names isn't very helpful "good pass by Dan"

Eh, we're better at defending than most the premier league (prolly in the bottom half for scoring goals though). Still going to be 4 or 5 nil or something but doubt we'll be conceding more than everyone else.

Its been a long, long time since a Newcastle fan said that it's an odd feeling isn't it

He's a good manager who has done a lot with very little, and got the team which is full of fairly workmanlike players to play above themselves, I think it is a clear case of a championship side playing in premier league out of good management. However he is not the best tactician, likes his close knit group of players so when a new player joins often takes a long time to bed in and when his group of players leaves or grows too old there will be questions if he can adequately move on and rebuild. I don't know if he could handle big ego big money players.

He left once and it was a disaster wasn't it?

Good chance of winning it imo, good enough defence, can nick a goal and keep clean sheet, 0-1.

Except Chelsea lost a bunch of games before Conte reverted to 3 at the back

He still makes a big deal of his liverpool links and everton fans hate him for it, don't worry anyone

Nah they will suffer a silly loss somewhere along the line. They'll prolly win the league but dunno if they can avoid the odd ridiculous own goal followed by other teams keeper briefly becoming a god

No chance Rafa would throw away his Anfield goodwill

While Rafa is in charge and barring calamatous sales in the winter window very little chance we go down now. He has us too organised even when playing badly. I do think there's enough quality in crystal palaces team to do much better than they are but it is a very odd mixture of players. Good manager would keep them safe but the problem is when you have such a bad start you have to do better than what you may expect to achieve. Hodgson will prolly get them organised and how he set up against us will do better against a few clubs than us. Doubt they'll escape the gravity well of the relegation zone though. All the other teams in trouble have the same or better potential to improve.