Paullow

I don't think anyone, or certainly few, would be happy with 9th or 10th, clearly not at the start of the season, but after months of adversity and general tough times, some would think OK, don't finish any lower than that, regroup in the summer, and hopefully not finish that low for the foreseeable. The Premier League is very competitive now. You have your usual 6, us, Villa, and Brighton who would all hope to finish in and around the top 6, but one of those will finish 9th at absolute best, another will finish 8th at best, positions that would generally be considered mediocre to most of those teams, perhaps with the exception of BHA, but some will have to finish in those positions at best. Chelsea, with all their recent accomplishments and resources finished 12th last season, and probably won't be that much better this season, Spurs were 8th last season, Man Utd currently in 8th with a -5 GD, Arsenal had recent back to back 8th placed finishes - if things don't quite go to plan, and you face some unfortunate and unforeseeable circumstances, then it's very easy to quickly occupy an unwanted league position. We're only 2 years into the takeover, there's still a lot of squad filling dross in the squad that need upgrading, and it's easy for those (not dross) players who have been playing above their usual level to drop back off if the better players are out of form, or are massively fatigued. The likes of Almiron, Longstaff, Lascelles, Burn etc. will have only finished in the top 10 of the PL once in their entire career. Still time to turn this season around and finish in and around 6th, but at the same time, we could easily be in the bottom half come February given our next 3 games, and if so, even the easier looking fixtures after that suddenly look much tougher.

Aye, wasn't a fan of the draw at the time, but it was made on Sunday 3rd December, the day after we had deservedly beaten Manchester United, but since then: Everton 3 Newcastle 0 Spurs 4 Newcastle 1 Newcastle 1 Milan 2 Newcastle 3 Fulham 0 (but not sure we'd have won had Jimenez only been booked) Chelsea 1 Newcastle 1 and out on pens Luton 1 Newcastle 0 Newcastle 1 Forest 3 Pretty much everything that could have gone wrong since the draw was made, has. Disaster of a December.

Regional battles in the NPL Division One East today: Ashington 4 Hebburn 0 (569) Dunston 2 Newton Aycliffe 1 (233) Stockton 3 Consett 2 (993) Current top 4 in that league - Stockton, Hebburn, Consett, Dunston 4,201 at Alex Bruce's Macclesfield in the league above.

Aye, they've had a very miserable 2023. I knew they ended last season badly, but just having a look and they were 3rd on Feb 4th and just a point off top spot, but went on an awful run and ended up missing out on the playoffs. They ended the season with a record of 2W 7D 8L and this year it's 4W 7D 12L, so in their last 40 league games, 6W 14D 20L, 32 points. Must be shit to have hopes of making the National Premier (if they were allowed) to facing a return to the Northern Premier League in 10/11 months.

Great win indeed for Blyth, but it's going to shit a bit for South Shields, who were very near the top not too long ago, but now find themselves in 8th place and outside the extended playoffs. They've lost 4 on the trot, 3 of those at home, and 3 matches to sides who were near the relegation zone. Just 1 win and 4 points from their last 7 games since Nov 11th and out of the FA Trophy as well. I suspect the club being up for sale, and all the uncertainty that goes with it has played a big role there. It's going even worse for Spennymoor in that period, they've also now lost 4 in a row, and only one point from their last 6 and also out of the FA Trophy. They are now nearer the relegation zone than the playoffs. South Shields aforementioned solitary win came against Spennymoor.

Mackems winning and have instantly gone from 10th to 6th in the live table.

I think I'll watch Ipswich-Leicester tonight over Man Utd-Villa. It's got to the stage where a Villa win would probably be best for us, and not sure I can cheer them on to the top of the table . Southampton now within 4 points of Ipswich in the race for automatic promotion.

Bring back the top 6 o meter!

I'd still back him even if we finished lower midtable, and hope the club sticks with him, but January does feel like a massive month. If we get 0 or 1 point from the next 3 league games (1 point would probably be optimistic), plus a cup defeat then questions will obviously have to be asked with the way football is. Would be a big shame, but not massively unexpected, which would have sounded crazy only 6 or 7 weeks ago.

Absolutely ridiculous.

It's strange because it's obviously not, but the season kind of feels like a write off. We're still in a half respectable league position (although that will get worse in the coming weeks), have only played half the matches, games will now be more spread out, maybe a signing or two next month, and hopefully more players coming back, but it just feels meh and get it over with. I'm not even massively annoyed that we're losing at home to one of the worst away sides in the league, because there's just a bit of an inevitability about all of it. Strange times.

Lucky to be ahead here. They've had some glorious chances.

Looks like my Amazon feed is 23 seconds behind, so will have to be careful regarding posts with those overseas watching fully live.

They are just 3/1 to win at William Hills, and we've lost to far worse teams than them in the past couple of years - Sheff Wed and Cambridge were both 3rd tier, the latter was at home and the strongest team we could put out. A top half Championship team winning at home to a PL team not in great form and a lot of injuries, whilst obviously shit from an emotional POV, it wouldn't even be that much of a shock. Sunderland are shorter odds than what Luton were today.

Eddie has got a washed look. Didn't look himself in the press conference yesterday, nor during that half time break.

Forest down to 10 men, might come in handy for us with the quick turnaround on Tuesday.

Shit. Still time for the winner. Often happens. Spurs vs Sheff U, Man U vs Brentford.

9 mins added. Sheff U were winning 1-0 vs Spurs until like the 98th minute, then lost, so can't take anything for granted, and if Villa do score, they will probably go on to win it.

Can't really be bothered to watch this PL match tonight. Would obviously prefer Villa not to win, but with their form, especially their home record, and the opposition, it does feel like an absolute foregone conclusion. I'll probably watch the darts and keep an eye on the score and if it is 0-0 quite far into it, I'll switch over, although suspect it will be over as a contest quite quickly. I wish this was the 5.30pm game tomorrow and Arsenal-Liverpool was tonight as I'll be going round to my brothers tomorrow to watch the boxing, and with it being PPV, he'll want to watch it from the start, which is like 4pm, so I'll miss that match completely.

He looks unwell does Trips, like gaunt.

Done well just to have 4 mins. But they will feel long.

It's not even negativity, I'm as optimistic about my clubs future as I have been for years, as will be the case for most people on here, but it's OK to disagree about how important you view certain things, and you certainly like making your views clear in your short time on the board .

Tottenham have only won 2 League Cups since the start of the Premier League era, they will have won nothing at all for over 16 years come February, so if you're a bit under 25 and support them you'll not have seen your team win a trophy in your time, or at least remember it, so if I was a 23 year old Spurs fan and had been into football for 14/15 years, I'd much rather my team had their fortunes in that time with world class players, big signings, Champions League finals, European football pretty much every year, winning far more matches than you lose, strong media presence, always on TV, portrayed as a 'big club', than someone like a Swansea or even Wigan with their one FA Cup in amongst season upon season of dross. Of course winning competitions are important, and I'm sure Middlesbrough, Portsmouth, Swansea, Wigan etc. had amazing nights when they had their one big moment, but you know for us it will still be like 'only 1 trophy in 50 odd years' or whatever, and 'Mickey Mouse', so I'd rather get our house in order, and fully establish ourselves as a top 6 club, ensure we have as much finances as possible to really build a platform, get our squad up to scratch, get rid of the deadwood easier, bring in loads of kids you don't need register in your squad etc. so that in a few years we're in a position to be realistically challenging for 4 trophies every season. They're not mutually exclusive of course, but winning the League Cup and finishing something like 9th or 10th wouldn't be a great season for the club, and assuming the top 5 do get CL, the European (competition) reward for even finishing 6th would be greater than the European reward for winning the EFL Cup.

FFS, wrong thread