ilikenewcastle

Spurs were pretty awful against us in our 2-1 win, but we seem to have lost our ability to fluke wins under Carver. I'd expect a draw or 1 goal defeat.

There are too many people making weak excuses for not boycotting. The fact is there are load of dull people who have nowt better to do than go to the game and enjoy the 'drinks' and the 'banter'. You can do that in a pub but hey.... If it's under 45k it will surprise me!

He was a handy player to have around in reserve, don't recall anybody wanting him to p off to the Championship in 11/12.

I don't want to insult him, it's ridiculous how many times he's had to play this season after a string of severe injuries. If we were a proper club, he'd be limited to a few sub/cup appearances.

It don't matter that we've got no ambition, any player (especially a captain!) who don't give 100% deserves nowt but contempt.

We won't get more than 40 points imo, but we'll be pretty comfortable.

He was definitely trying tonight like Trying to get sent off more like

Last season's Liverpool would be at least 4 up by now against our mob.

I'm hoping for a good thrashing ahead of the Spurs boycott. Ashley hatred always peaks after a good hiding.

Then why did he pay ~£8m for Cisse in January 2012, when we were perfectly safe, full in the knowledge that it would potentially put us in mortal danger of relegation (i.e. qualify for Europe)? My theory is he felt that this was the first time Champions League football (well money) was within reach. We missed out and had to settle for the Europa League. After the disastrous 12/13 season he felt that going for the top 4 wasn't worth the risk of ending up the Europa League which is why we haven't bothered in subsequent transfer windows (apart from when we were in danger of going down). Or maybe Pardew persuaded Ashley to be ambitious?

Have to agree with TCD, Ashley has been 1000x more damaging for the club than Pardew. As much I disliked the bloke, I don't think it's fair to blame him for all the ills at the club and give him no credit for 11/12. It's as bad as the people who praise him for finishing 5th and blame Ashley for all the poor runs of form. I think Pardew has broken 99% of fans. There are a lot of intelligent people who can't seem to analyse his reign rationally. Also, I'm not sure how Ashley seems to escape blame for giving a manager an 8 year contract, and then giving him totally unsuitable players to work with. In my opinion, Ashley had no intention of achieving anything other than survival after the Keegan fiasco. Pardew is scum for accepting that, but I do not believe it was his idea.

Sarahs is pretty well informed, but he just sounds like he'd be unbearable in real life. And he tries to pronounce foreign players names 'properly' Dotun's a lot better these days, doesn't witter on as much as he used to.

Aye. I think some superfans actually enjoy us being terrible so they look even more loyal.

Liverpool have mostly been underwhelming against us recently (apart from the obvious exception) so I'll go for a 2-0 defeat.

Good post. A lot people who say "Good idea, but/however/unfortunately.." might as well say "yeah I think Ashley's bad, but I've got nowt better to do than go to the football on a Saturday so meh, cba to do anything".

There's a 0.000001% chance of us going down. We're going to finish unacceptably close to 18th place though. I don't expect us to get much more than 40 points.

There are no quarter finals 乁( •_• )ㄏ

Qualified with ease, and I think he's only lost 1 game (a friendly) in his 2 years in charge. This summer is the big test, but he's definitely better than Pearce...

Could very easily win the Euros if Southgate is able to pick the best players.

I always thought their keeper Vitor Baia looked cool as f***

England might make me mad sometimes, but it's nice to support at least one time that actually tries to do things. As disappointing as last summer was, I enjoyed the pre match buzz and excitement of being involved in genuinely huge games. Nowt like that with Newcastle for ages.

We need to accept it's gonna be Carver or someone else who's grossly unqualified. Or do we genuinely think he'll give up on the Champions League to come and manage us?

Hodgson will probably retire once he leaves England. I would certainly have had him here though.

Bilic did a good job overall at Croatia (despite failing to even make the 2010 WC play offs) but was the worst Lokomotiv Moscow manager since the USSR collapsed. He's doing OK at Besiktas but I don't why you seem to consider him to be unquestionably better than McClaren.

I'm surprised at how much enthusiasm there's been for Garde from people who are desperate to avoid an unambitious choice for the manager's job. He is one the most underwhelming candidates that's been mentioned.