Stal

I reckon we spurge a ton of moolah on about 7 players after agreeing a £60 billion bootlace sponsorship.

Once you get to a certain level of money though, wouldn't you just do what you love? Even if it meant taking a massive paycut? I mean, it obviously depends on the individual but I know if I was a millionaire then I'd happily take a paycut to do stuff I enjoy doing because I had the means to do so. I'd be enjoying myself and easily supporting myself because of the work I'd put in previously.

It's been longer than a decade. We haven't had a decent academy at any point in my lifetime. Whilst other clubs seem to churn out prospect after prospect, who have we produced of any first team value? I mean no disrespect to the individuals but players I can remember coming through who have made any impact after Keegan's first reign are negligible. There we had Howey, Lee Clark, Robbie Elliot (the proper one, not the shit keeper) and Steve Watson. Andy Carroll tops the list but then we have Steven Taylor, Ramage, turncoat shola, Chopra, Huntingdon, Matty Pattison, that midfielder that Gullit loved whose name I've forgotten. And hey, I loved some of these even if they weren't quite good enough. Not shola though, he can just bury himself back in mike ashley's arse. I used to joke that our academy might as well just go to Blyth and Gateshead right now as that's where they all seemed to end up. Do I expect everyone to come out of the academy to be Messi level? Of course not, I don't even expect superstar players but we should have a few competent Premier League level performers regularly being churned out.

I don't want him to go but I accept that's the stupid way of the Premier League atm. I do wish he hadn't been made special blackboard monitor captain (or whatever) though, we just seem to have nosedived a bit since that's happened. It seems the team spirit has dropped off since that time too and I'm not sure if that's coincidence or a factor in our form.

Wasn't religion kind of brought about to make people do sensible things? In this example; lust is bad and you'll go to hell when what they wanted to say and mean is "stop sleeping around to spread STDs". People aren't going to listen though enmasse unless you have some reason for them to. Your soul will be tormented in hell was seen as a pretty hefty deterrent (even if it couldn't be 100% effective). There's a good reason about folks in the middle east not eating pork too and it's entirely based in practicality. Source for this IIRC was a cracked.com article years ago. The problem comes about when someone with selfish and/or misplaced thoughts gets into a spot of religious power who then wants to interpret the teachings in their own way for the benefit of themselves and whatever bigoted belief they wish to make the people live by. The people then trot it out, ahem, religiously.

I was talking to someone on Saturday about this very expression and that he discovered that when someone at his work said a task would be done "manyana" that it it didn't mean "tomorrow", it just meant "not today". Odd coincidence.

Are we allowed to do the shield again or are there rules against it? I loved it. Years are passing far too quickly for my liking though.

It wasn't that long ago, surely?

Which season was the shield on the back with the numbers?

This is very niche but every time I see his name on here I think "Sinister Minister", even though that's James and not Paul.

Why? So he can wait in for an Amazon parcel if everyone else is out?

Went onto their forum and there are some level headed, decent fans there which is lovely. What I did notice though is there were far too many acronyms, which would indicate players with double barreled names. No.

Totally get this, however I do enjoy the prestige of having internationals in the squad and if they are capped whilst playing for us I am even more joyous.

Reckon we should get a remix of those yellow and green away shirts from around 92-ish.

I see both sides of this and there are reasonable points on both sides; He should be able to enjoy a drink out however he is the face of the company when he's out. There should be understanding as he's going through a tough time and he has proved his loyalty to the club 100 times over. Couple of my own additions; as a professional athlete then just don't drink before matchday (which he didn't) and don't drink to excess in public What did we say about that mackem player (I can't remember his name but I think they signed him from Everton) who got absolutely shitfaced and slagged off his team? I know Trippier hasn't done this, the point is more about embarrassing your club in public through drink. I think the world of him for what he's done for us and I'd happily keep him at the club for years to come. That comes with a certain expectation of behavior in public though.