Sean

If you accept that football fans are, generally, morons, it becomes much less astonishing. He showed some promise yesterday which has to be a positive. I'm still convinced confidence is the biggest issue with him at the moment. Morons messaging him on twitter with abuse won't help.

Fair play to BT Sport for showing the Spanish banner and then translating it into English there

Sanchez

The Independent are saying that Pogba is going to start. Heres hoping he's rusty and not fully fit.

That's my biggest fear in all of this, although the lad I know who spoke to her was utterly convinced about how genuine they were. That and Ashley's ability to change his mind at the drop of the hat, and general cuntishness. After 40 years of (mainly) being let down by this club, I've geared myself for the inevitable bad news. But you never know! Agree 100%. I'm hoping your man is correct in what he's been told first hand. Just find the best thing to do is expect the worst with this club, although praying for the best obviously!

It'd be the most Newcastle thing ever for this too all go tits up. Also with Ashley it's probably the most likely scenario as past history suggests. Something seems to be going on, but none of the press actually have much of an idea at the minute. Staveley has looked into buying Liverpool previously, it is feasible that we're being used as a pawn in a larger game here. The one thing giving me hope this isn't the case is that surely Rafa wouldn't have been fooled and he seemed pretty happy when the news first came out. Anyway, I've tried to ignore this and not get my hopes up but the silence is killing me now. The next few weeks/months could be the most important in the clubs history, for once we need a positive outcome, if it all comes crashing down the comedown is going to be on a scale not even imagined. Fingers crossed!

What's the situation with Loftus Cheek? He's on a season long loan right? Can these now not be recalled? Or is this possible? I've got no idea tbh.

Bakambu linked in the Chronicle again. Saw him score at the Nou Camp back in May, looked a decent option tbh. 9 goals in 14 games this season too apparently. Guessing this one depends on the takeover

Why does it have to be the Daily Star ffs Having said that I do think if it's going to happen there will be hints before it's fully announced.

Yeap, the main hurdle which will make it completely unfeasible is that cost of it will likely to be £50m+ which for another 8k-9k seats makes no commercial sense unless we jack ticket prices up and demand outstrips supply. The latest Etihad expansion had a cost of about £50m for about 7k new seats, the club mentioned that it would take almost ten years to recover the money but after that it was all profit. It did of course mean that there was extra space for corporate hospitality though.. There's no guarantee we would be able to sell another 8 to 9 thousand extra seats. It's all hypothetical, but I want an owner who wants to keep open the possibility, not kill it dead like Ashley has done.

The electric Sports Direct hoardings were black & white against Bournemouth, had never noticed that before. Even that would have been something if he'd done it from day one. The red & blue just looks tacky as fuck. I noticed that as well and thought it was a bit strange. Can't wait for the day it's all gone, especially the big fucking ones he's got next to the clubs name.

Just noticed this in the latest issue of True Faith: "We already know the lease on the land at Strawberry Place, previously bought with the club by Ashley has now been snaffled by him for his own benefits. If the new owners are what we hope them to be and which they are rumoured then SJP will have to be extended and the Gallowgate is the only option. Tread carefully with this one Amanda. We know the Staveley side has looked deeply into this." Still trying not to get my hopes up about this all, but just imagining an extended St James' without the Sports Direct branding is a nice change from normality.

Thing is with our local press they have admitted on Twitter (well Douglas has) about holding things back because they have been asked too. They are desperate to have a link to the club like they had during the Shepherd and Hall era. They could know and have been asked not to say anything. He has honestly heard this at the training ground. Last thing he told me was that Staveley was at the ground and that was the night before it all came out that she had visited St James park for talks (it was a Tuesday and some London paper ran the Story the next day) so I am holding out hope. If she has been at the ground etc, and it is a big if as it is third hand info, then she has taken more interest in the club the last 3 weeks than Ashley has in 10 years and that can only be a huge positive. Can you post up screenshots of your tweets? Not doubting you but as far as I can remember the first mention of Staveley was on the sunday we played Liverpool? Where has this Tuesday thing come from? Also where has Douglas mentioned holding things back? A t the end of the day I can see them doing so if they've been asked to but haven't seen Douglas mention this anywhere.

Is that really most fans' issue with Mike Ashley? I know it's not mine anyway it's more to do with the fact that he's a cunt towards the club

Seems so, a few people have mentioned this. Made worse by us having a perfectly good goal chalked off.

Been having a running argument with a West Ham fan at work as to who's owner(s) is/are worse out of the 2. I didn't think there could possibly even be a bit of a contest but fuck me they run Ashley close Just seen Everton linked with Allardyce also

Yep, convinced we take the lead in the first half yesterday we go on to win.

Who here thinks they were booing the team? I was sure it was at the goddamn awful officiating. Cook has admitted it was a foul and thought he may have got a red. Was total disbelief around the stadium that the referee and linesmen totally missed such a clear and obvious foul and gave nothing. Add that to the pivotal offside decision and previously mentioned strange imbalances regarding penalties and sending offs and you really do start to wonder when the often assumed "balances itself out" theory will kick in. Think it might have been Carragher yesterday (after the Man City offside goal) made the point that they don't even themselves out over a season. Mind blowing stuff but it really irks me how the cliche is always rolled out. In reality most of the top teams benefit massively from refereeing decisions over the course of a season and teams like us often suffer. Conversely last year in the Championship the officials seemed determined to 'even the playing field' by giving us practically nothing.

He's been very poor so far but you can clearly see his confidence is shot to pieces. Rafa himself has made the point a fair few times that the crowd needs to try to get behind our players and help build their confidence rather than shatter it. That might be a pretty big ask when he's showing precious little to get behind so far though.

If he was biased he would say it was offside? Oh yeah, sorry I'm only half paying attention!! makes even less sense now

Dunno but isn't one of them Alan Smith? Might explain him being biased.

Because it was Man City and not us. Ridiculous that video replays aren't used yet.

This. Just off the top of my head he hit the post today and also put a cross in that Gayle should have scored from. Plus he works his bollocks off. The least of our worries for now.