Tiresias

Pretty much agree with everyone above, am skeptical of influence the other way to Saudi Arabia but I could be wrong. There are two very intertwined, but also sometimes confused issues here. Money and Geopolitical involvement in sport. Just to illustrate distinction, if Saudi Arabia bought us for sportswashing but made no investment whatsoever it still would be wrong. I would also argue, that any nation state no matter their benevolence on the global scale should not buy football clubs to advertise themselves, even if everyone agrees how wonderful they are. To illustrate I think it's handy to think through what a football club is and ought to be, because it's not an advertising board for regimes, but also they aren't truly businesses either. They are too embedded and important to communities. To illustrate this immagine the sentimental community side of football was all bollocks, that it is just a paid piece of entertainment like Game of Thrones, then NUFC would have been cancelled 5 years into the Ashley regime, noone would go. Football clubs should be run and regulated with that in mind, but they are instead run to maximise profits or to be propaganda outlets. It's obscene. And then we get on the is it wrong for one club to be much richer than the others. Yes of course it is, a competitive league is absolutely integral to the quality of the league. It is slightly more complicated in that I do understand, the league wants the best players in it, and to get them you need to have more money in the league than other leagues, and we can't run it like a closed shop unless all the leagues accross europe all agreed to the same rules, but the super league idea which would have cemented the same 6 clubs into their position at the top would have killed the league. Clubs that are run really well like Brighton absolutely should have a chance of transfering that competence into challenging for the league and yet there is very very little chance of doing so, or even of getting top 4. Clubs run like Man U or Chelsea that make continuing mistakes or changes of direction but just spend their out of it should be punished. This is slightly why I am a bit less critical of the current Financial Fair Play rules, which are awful and seem geared to preventing clubs like us competing, they should do a lot more to limit some nonsense elsewhere, but, even if we would have done it this way anyway, I am happy to see us succeed by spending sensibly, buying players with sell on, looking to build academy, all stuff that is what should be done. Unfortunately noone, not the league, not uefa, not the government, not the fa are interested in tackling these issues, because as discussed above, football is not a random tv show that will be cancelled if it is bad, everyone is too invested to take serious action so instead it is ruthlessly exploited to suck money out of it and to make Saudi Arabia look good. I sympathise a lot with a lot of football pundits who are appalled that football allowed us to be bought by saudi arabia, but they sometimes direct their ire at us as if we are the only ones who 'should' be boycotting football, as if that is a reasonable ask.

They get to look like normal benevolent sports investors so people look at them more favourably, it makes it more difficult for a UK government to decide to take action such as sanctions against saudi government if they are intertwined with uk economy and cultural life, it's soft power, it doesn't have to work either, they may have improved their standing with a lot of newcastle fans not sure nation wide it has a good event but they are taking long view and assume it will normalize over time. There is plenty to feel queasy about and as much as people are trying to read benevolent reasons onto it, take some comfort that they are wasting a lot of money on making us successfull and it does not have to work in terms of improving their reputation.

Sterling's been absolutely excellent for England and has been far from dogshit for club (albeit out of position currently with Potter). Absolute nonsense to suggest he shouldn't be near the squad. Toney is a much better forward now than you suggest too. Rashford has been poor, but also Man U are a clownshow. I remember when we were linked and reckon Howe could very well get him back to being the 20 goal a season player he has been before. I would however criticise say Wilson losing out on a place to him on current form. If Grealish was still at Aston Villa and the team built around him I am sure he would be legitimately be pushing the squad but he's peripheral at the moment, and it's not just cos he's at Man City, Foden is absolutely clearly lightyears ahead.

All this talk of Wilson or Toney, surely you take both? Wouldn't Kane, Toney, Wilson be the 3 most in form strikers? I question why Rashfords space doesn't seem under threat from media despite his lack of form for a long time now. with Sterling, Foden, Maddison, Mount, Saka (if latter fit I guess), surely Grealish and Sancho should be out the question and yet they seem auto picks from some of the media speculation

Catts for me like

Crystal Palace fans were chucking coins at us a few seasons ago when I was sat below them, and Man U fans I think.

My suspicion is he will rotate Wilson and Isak until one is performing better. We have seen with Target on the bench Howe can be quite brutal. The alternative is Almiron but only if his form drops significantly. I would like to see if Howe can play both at same time but I'm also not sure the setup will change while it's working.

Never get a read on Hasenhuttle's southampton, one game they look great om motd next they're awful like they decide how much effort to put in by lottery

Watching motd how on earth did they let Martinez continue with concussion, absolute joke put lots in place to take it seriously then ignore it for the same old reasons of rather put a player in danger than look after them properly.

Look at the mess Gerrard made at Villa with the captaincy, pissing everyone off stripping mings of captaincy for weird reasons, and look at us and how Howe has respected Lascelles for his off the pitch leadership and balanced that with clear leaders coming in. No sign of any jealously, internal competitiveness, everyone respects everyone and pulling in same direction

He's doing brilliantly and i hope we all club and fans have patience if he goes into a tough patch, seems to be much more tactically sophisticated than i thought he was, has motivated players brilliantly etc etc. He hasn't been tested with super expensive diva players like mbappe so lets not sign them and keep with the no dickheads policy How brilliant Howe's story is, from player manager threatening to drop out of the footy league to threatening to guide newcastle to champions league way way ahead of schedule. For the record if we finish 6th I would be delighted. Our squad is thin of top 4 quality. All this talk of finishing top four feels a bit of a trap for some criticism when there is some drop off. We are ahead of schedule as is.

Fantastic, albeit suspect that's normal service everywhere else just here Ashley's not giving a shit left us behind. Correct me if I'm wrong and good on the club

He just fancied more of a challenge is all

Might be tiredness catching up with him with the kid, not going to whinge when we win 4-0 lol

Man had to search for this topic lol and posted initially in wrong one lol been so long since any of us have had any 'hates' lol Our social media shouldn't have publicity shots of Bruno or our most joyful players in this silly super serious 'i've come to audit your taxes' sort of look, we play best with grins on our faces and Bruno's all joy and Brazilian flair

It's he's not some high quality possession recycling midfielder, and that is one position we are lacking in. Bruno has the technical ability to do it but (rightly) wants to be creative and attacking. Part of me thinks the perfect midfield for us would be a really cultured passer who keeps the ball, so we have a destroyer in Joelinton, a creative player in Bruno and a metronome a la the classic Pep Barca midfield of Busquets (Joelinton), Iniesta (Bruno) and Xavi (to be found) mould. Because we don't quite keep the ball to that level Bruno becomes more defensive and plays deeper which feels a bit of a waste, but in actual fact what we have now is working brilliantly (for the record, yes i do think that barca midfield is the best there has ever been(

Ba was mint like, but he is excellent

Oh sorry yeah Bellingham seems sound, wasnt criticial of him just a lot of the super expensive players seem more concerned with their brand over all else

I continue to hope the player price bubble will burst (and i hope in a manner that really punishes twatish clubs like Barcalona who have staked so much on ludicrous spending) but it feels unlikely still. I know now we are super rich it ultimately will play into our hands lol but the league will be better for players not being ludicrously overpriced. Still, football will probably totally implode before it does anything sensible and that will be bad

in 3 or 4 years time if we have sorted our comercial incomings we will be, truth be told I am dreading it a little, getting players more interested in followers on the gram than on working hard on the pitch to prove themselves. But yes that is what I was saying we're not signing bellingham lol

He's too loose with possession to be honest, a brilliant option from the bench in future I suspect and he's unfortunate not to have some goals. It's almost like we're playing too well and too dominant for him, he's best on counter attack which is difficult when we are dominating (not trying to be overly critical, really happy with his improvement in form and happy for him)

I have faith in our recruitment team to find those players like Bruno that aren't yet seen as finished article so get at a decent price. It's going to be brutal when we sell off some pieces of this team to fund it though, absolutely fucking love the lot of them

When we win i will watch and read anything football related lol an obsess, we lose i will pretend sport doesnt exist, but could probably stand a loss now everything so positive

Bellingham will be likely over £100m if he goes this summer, I suspect he's out of our current price range ffp and all

Still feel for him losing 2 of the best years of his career to the whims of cabbage head. Pays off now for him but still