hithere

I didn’t, but it’s pretty irrelevant at this point anyway. After Steele, Ruiter, Camp, McLaughlin doing one, Burge, Remi Matthews ffs, the lad was a breath of fresh air. Just a solid League One and then Championship keeper. Two very big saves in both play off finals. Yeah his kicking lets him down a bit but it’s not as bad as a lot make out. £8m is about right imo. I imagine the second half of that will have a lot of incentive based stuff. I wouldn’t have been averse to him starting games for us last season though. Roefs obviously put paid to that.

We won 1-0 on 4 occasions. We also scored more than 2 in a game on 5 occasions. We came from behind to win a game on 6 occasions. You could argue none of that is sustainable no doubt. But we definitely didn’t just continuously grind out 1-0’s.

The lack of goals is a concern, we did pick up in the last few games, more attacking intent at least and hopefully that can continue into next season. As for taking Xhaka and Roefs out the side, I mean take probably the two most important players out of any side and they’ll likely regress. Without Xhaka this season we won 1 (Burnley at home) and lost the other 3. He’s very important and we’ll need some more experience in there for when he can’t play, that’s probably why the Kondogbia link is there. Without Roefs we won 2 out of 3, Ellborg kept a clean sheet v Leeds, made an error v yourselves but he’s young, never played in England before and was playing in quite a hostile Derby I’m sure you’d agree? He looked pretty competent aside from that

Does the criticism on RTG change the fact that it has been very good? Got us out of L1 with a side including Jack Clarke, Patrick Roberts, Ross Stewart all of whom we sold for profit. Trai Hume also signed in L1 and scored the first on Sunday. Promoted from the Championship in 3 seasons with something like the 14th highest wage bill and one of the youngest teams on record. Then the aforementioned latest summer window. Which has got us into Europe at the first time of asking. People can heavily criticise on RTG all they like. It hasn’t just been one good window though, and I think that can be evidenced.

Since the ownership change our recruitment has been broadly very good. It’s not just the one transfer window.

His best form for us came alongside a genuine sitting midfielder (Evans or when Mowbray made Ekwah do it), so he could progress the ball. When he played as the holding player he did it admirably but sometimes got caught in possession. Given the right circumstances I think he’ll do really well there.

Stones in the hands of the Spurs medical team? His career would be over

You make some fair points bar the Chelsea game. Possession was 44% v 56%, they hardly dominated the ball, in fact a lot of them looked like they didn’t want to be there. We were by far the better side up until the red card as well.

Our entire fanbase didn’t vote Brexit. Funny that you mention RTG, have a look at the Politics forum if you’re interested. The overwhelming majority on there (those engaged with politics anyway) are actually quite left leaning. We all have our whoppers, yeah granted some areas might have more than that. You’re genuinely going to make the claim an entire fanbase is racist you’re going to have to back it up though. Reform has nearly a third of the seats on Newcastle City Council. Can I now make the claim that a third of your fanbase is racist?

Their* And no, we didn’t. I’m married to an EU citizen, and would never vote Reform, I know a lot of Sunderland fans who wouldn’t either. I’d say a lot were indifferent in fact.

They have to be fair. They’ve a big problem up front though in terms of overall cohesion

You can make a case for any of the selections bar one. The omission of Hall is utter stupidity, and I say that as a Mackem. Albeit one who absolutely abhors full backs who play on their wrong side.

I remember the dentist chair, I’ve sat in it whilst scantily clad women poured watered down alcohol into my mouth. Many, many years ago. Anyway, on Sunday I’m just hoping to avoid a beating. We’ve been rather poor recently.

Hadn’t looked into til now, he grew up as a Sunderland fan in South Shields apparently.

Silva has a bit of a reputation now for if not ‘turning around’ players who’ve lost their way a bit at top clubs but eking bits out of them that all count towards their continued mid table position. Iwobi, Smith-Rowe, Perreira, Leno…