Papavasiliou

Emery's time at PSG reminds me of Pardew here. It just seemed like football happened to him and not because of him. He'd get chucked a load of players by the board without much say in the matter. The team practically picked it's self. The tactics didn't really matter because the players would just do what they fancied anyway. When the players got in a huff there was bugger all he could do about it. And neither of them could handle Ben Arfa.

Buffon is miles ahead of any of the others for me. I fucking love it when he makes a save and his imediate reaction is to spring to his feet and berate the fuck out of his deffence. If he's saved it it means someone else has made a mistake and he will abvsolutely make sure they know never to do that again. I think that's the key to Juve's tight defensive reccord to be honest. I'd probably play as well as Barzagli or Cheilini if I knew there was a giant Italian bastard behind me ready to rip my head off if I didn't clear every ball that came my way. Also, Buffon never let Albert chip him from 30 odd yards out

I thought he was ok in the back 3 we played too. Worked about as well as you could expect for a defence lacking Lascelles.

Why do so many people get Henderson so wrong? That's simply not true, like. At least for Liverpool anyway. He passes forward all the time, nigh on always first time as well. He was pinging them all over the shop against us.

Disagree with this bit strongly mind. His ability to carry the ball forward at speed on the counter is one of his strongest attributes IMO. It’s often in space though or with time, watch him try and beat a man or whenever someone comes towards him to cover, to challenge or to jockey him. He overdoes it, is easily pushed off the ball or often loses his footing. But that’s not his game, I think he’s often forced to do that because of how the game is played out due to how we are set up. To surrender possession, manage sections of the game, use the counter, press etc. By the way, his pressing is immense as is the whole team’s which is something that our team can now be identified by. I love hearing a commentator say you know what to expect with Newcastle, organisation, work-rate, defensive solidity and pressing. It’s not quite tiki take or whatever it’s called, but it’s us and I love it. It’s the first time since Sir Bobby since we can be identified by our style of play or rather our qualities. I’d rather we were known for attacking football and dominating etc. but baby steps. Always runs like he's slowly falling over when he has the ball. Like he's 120mins into a game and he's just not got the energy left in him to beat a man. Then he'll get up and hound the fuck out of teams like he can run all day.

Similarly, take off the brown tinted glasses and you'll see he was one of the only players that was actually trying the games before his injury (proven by the fact he'd been called up and was playing for the national team) and that people correctly predicted that was our season over and we were down the second Krul hit the floor.

I like how the question was asked about comercial revenue. Basically saying "Don't you think we'd make more money if SOMEBODY would pay for the massive amounts of ad space they're taking up for nowt?" And the club's only response is "....Ed Sheeran ...Rugby!"

Agreed, it's odd because when he first came his ball retention was very good from what I recall, he would always get out of tight spaces and rarely lost it. Nah, he always lost it eventually but it took about 10mins of them hacking away at him as he span round in circles. His retention was brilliant but he never got his head up to get rid.

Only 2 more friendlies left before the start of the World Cup though. Not exactly an optimal amount of time to get him in. If he does go it'll be through injuries to other players.

It’s probably not wise for her to start calling random nutters off the internet who’ve tracked down her private address and discuss details of a 300m takeover of a football club. I'd imagine random nutters are canny far down on her list of "people I need to call when bidding hundreds of millions on something as public as a football team"

Got an inkling that's from his first spell. I can picture the goal you mean perfectly but have absolutely no idea who it was against or when. Aye that's it. I can only ever find it in grainy, pixelated videos with daft music over the top so all I can ever make out is that it's against a team in blue.

I have no idea who it was against or anything but there's a beautiful Beardsley one where he dives into a tackle on the edge of the box and drags the ball round as he's getting up then casually dinks it over the keeper. No fancy footwork, no dropping the shoulder, putting half the defence on their arse or rounding the keeper. Just the determination to be hounding the defence right back into their own area, the presence of mind to know how to get back to his feet while protecting the ball and then the perfectly weighted chip. Something about that goal always makes me go back and watch it every now and again.

This. I practically ran home to try and find a replay and work out how the hell he managed that one.

Rafa, the coaches, Joselus teammates and some supporters. If Shelvey see that Mitrovic is being picked ahead of Joselu when Joselu out performs him in training, maybe he too will put in less effort because he knows he will get picked anyway. Lascelles see that Shelvey and Mitro are picked ahead of Joselu and Merino/Hayden and puts in less effort etc etc. Joselu gets angry that he is not picked and stops making any effort because why should he if he isn't getting picked anyway. Poor training results in poor match performances and we go down. One of the few advantages we have this season is fighting attitude and team spirit. I don't see why Rafa would risk spoiling that in order to accommodate one player. I wonder how much it helped team morale to see a striker picked every week that never seemed to trouble a keeper.

It's all irrelevant anyway. The ones who don't like him will still bang the "It's only the championship" drum and the ones that like him will still bang the "better than Joselu" drum and neither camp will ever change their mind.

The hyperbole around Mitro on various social media platforms is getting infuriating on both sides of the argument. You've got half pointing at the elbow at the start of the season and implying he'll literally get sent off every game he plays. The other half pointing out how long since he's had a red and claiming he's reformed. People reading the story about him running less in training than Joselu and Gayle and somehow twisting that to mean he's obviously the laziest cunt ever to put on a toon shirt and that he must be sitting on the floor and refusing to move every session. People seeing his recent form/goal record and chucking out random numbers claiming he'd have scored that many this season if only Rafa gave him a chance. Can there not be any middle ground in discussions any more? Obviously Rafa fancies the other strikers we have more than Mitro but does that have to mean Rafa thinks he's shit, lazy, can't be trusted, ect. Is it not possible for a player to play better or worse in different teams/systems? It's depressing watching all these stupid arguments play out day after day.

Hayden might get another shot if we're playing 3xCBs. He played canny well in that system against City and he gives a bit more flexibility if the system needs changing at any point.

Him and Andy Brassell are class on the Ramble's spinoff show. Love them both casually batting away the daft questions Luke asks.

I seem to remember Simpson getting rinsed on the regular tbf. You can't really accuse Dummett of the same for a good while now. On Simpson being a hoof merchant, you remember the pass he played to Sissoko to set up Cisse's goal away at Benfica? Glorious He didn’t really get rinsed regularly. He would back off a lot but constantly rinsed? Nah. A bit more difficult for players to rinse you when you've backed off from the halfway line, all the way to the byline. He was terrible, an absolute fanny. I'm 90% sure I once saw him back off so far he bumped into the post once.

Rates him higher than Manquilo, Ritchie and Mbemba all out of position. It's not a high bar. I suspect he rates him much higher than that. It's same debate that comes around every now and then. Some don't rate him, some do, it's all about opinions. What I can tell you is that for the last few seasons, we've been much better with him in the side. That's not much of an accomplishment given that he's had nobody even remotely challenging him.

Rates him higher than Manquilo, Ritchie and Mbemba all out of position. It's not a high bar.

Mike Williamson

Our stats are always much better with him in the team - probably wouldn't have gone down last time if he hadn't got injured. Isn't that because we've not had a decent backup for him in years though? Not shitting on his performances or anything but that tweet might as well be pointing out that we score more goals with a striker on the pitch or concede more when we're down to 10 men.

Would take our standard 1-1 right now but after that last game I don't think there's any reason we shouldn't be going for a win.

Don't forget that Pardew took him out of the position he was in that brought him the purple patch. We'll never know whether he'd have been the same player, but we never once played that Ba Cisse HBA formation once after 11/12. Classic Pardew, so egotistical that he thinks his failure is above success. Pards ended up trying to play him as a target man too. People around me at the games back then kept having a pop at him not scoring/shooting any more. Completely ignoring the fact that most of the time he was receiving the ball in the centre circle with his back to goal and nobody making runs.