Tiresias

He's so rubbish, seemed a sensible buy, powerful defensive minded midfielder and he's total cack

Gray should have scored there to be fair

another southampton goal, leicester are a shower

I do think they've tried to step up the pitch a bit rather than the organised sit deep defending they did last season too, which seems a huge mistake as it exposes everything wrong with the squad

Yep reversion to the norm to be expected I suppose, statistical outliers happen

Doesn't help either that they started pretty poorly straight away, any aura that would have made teams less confident of having a go was pretty much immediately stripped

Kinda shows how when some bits of a team are playing great it raises the whole team up, players who were playing out of their skins last season now look as shit as everyone thought they were before last season. Kante was so important for making their 4-4-2 work that now they just look underpowered. That Ndidi may work I guess. I thought we'd see them drop off to mid table but they appear to have got worse than that.

lovely goal from ward prowse

Fucking hell that was one of those crap 80s football videos that do the rounds

I seem to live just off a road entirely populated by posh twats driving bmws back from a drinking session at the pub and feel i'll be lucky not to have a crash every time i leave the house, if he killed himself drink driving not much sympathy from me either. Feel sorry for the family and all but wanker putting others in harms way

Yep no need to demoralise players by implying he needs new ones to go up or trigger a public fight with Ashley that would probably achieve nothing.

I hope so but I do think the reports have implied that this was not a mutual decision with Rafa at all sensible as it may be. Anyway no need to doom monger overly, will wait and see. I do think people seem to think that Ashley suddenly can't be an utter cunt again, he can and he will be at some point.

Putting final stamp on promotion and getting players bedded in for first season back up seems a solid investment to me, instead he may chance it that we'll get promoted anyway (which admitably we probably will do, but will leave us in a worse position next season regardless) to save a few buck. Failure to go up will cost more. I don't mind the minimal budget actually per se, January window the value is dreadful and we have no reason to panic. What worries me is telling Rafa he has money to spend and then taking it away. It's a pattern I fear will repeat until Rafa decides he is sick of it.

Except the info that Benitez was expecting funds to be available and they haven't been. Think Ashley's decided we're going to go up so doesn't need to spend any more money and will go back to the buying shit cheap and flogging it. Doubt Benitez will be impressed

Funny how he's stopped backing Benitez when his best pal Pardew is available again

Benitez may not be willing to walk till he's got us up but if we starve him from cash going up he'll surely walk. He's no fool and will have no intention of being in a club that doesn't back him. He's walked for less before.

Fair point, it's more a world of Craig Gardeners

This has been fairly obvious but has this been spelt out clearly before? I know there was the mess over Ashley taking more of an interest but does sound like we've let Benitez down significantly.

I'm even starting to worry about Moyes, just leave, it's not worth it!

As ever though I do worry that in terms of midfielders in the championship in a world of colbacks of course Shelvey looks amazing

Just the sums involved boggled the mind, I love Newcastle but I dunno no matter how rich I will inevitably and rightly get if I will ever want to spend £30000 to watch the players walk onto the pitch and eat some cheese. I suppose one should understand that should this ridiculous scheme take off it helps keep tickets for everyone else down. Still!

Possible I suppose but I kinda don't think anyone will do anything too drastic that may hurt the all powerful premier league

The lower leagues will perhaps struggle to sign european players but championship and above money talks

100-0

Thinking back our common midfield in our first season back up last time was tiote and nolan, he was genuinely a beast