SteV

I tend not to buy into all of this a particular ref is good or bad for us in advance of any game. Having said that, I’m glad we’ve got a fairly established PL ref, as opposed to some random from the Championship who’s never had a game of this magnitude.

Craig Pawson

There’s also the issue (that everyone seems to totally ignore) of why would a Saudi team just ‘let’ us have one of their star players? If the theory is that they do what they’re told by PIF, then why are they spending this obscene amount of money to try and make their league up there with the major European leagues, if they’re just prepared to make it play second fiddle to us?

Presumably that’s the ‘Black Cat Bar’ hospitality area that we’ve been given as part of the away end (at £500+VAT) Assume it’s similar to Wings or whatever at SJP, so it seems they are covering the Sunderland decor with Newcastle decor for the day. In fairness, if the roles were reversed I’m sure we’d be up in arms too, but as it’s them and not us, funny innit.

Fewmin marra

You allow people to transfer an away like they do with a home ticket. But limit it to a handful of times per season with no loyalty point awarded. Would stop people buying to sell just for the point, but at the same time would (hopefully) allow those that have gone away consistently on other people’s tickets to go, as they will have most likely built up a network of contacts and should be able to find someone to get them a ticket most games.

https://x.com/dmac102/status/1742310204593897791?s=46&t=OQLMckSuatbpqWF13Al4mQ

10/11 that was. Fwiw this is from the .com match report that day: I’ve had a quick check of the reports from previous seasons and I can’t see any reference to the buses.

Was barely any folk of that age around me. Although I was in the standing section so perhaps wouldn’t have expected it.

When they were winning… For all the talk of different contributing factors affecting the atmosphere, the overriding factor is always what happens on the pitch. And I say that with the caveat of in relation to what’s expected to happen on the pitch. People will (justifiably) say ‘I’ve been in great away ends when we were shit’. Yes, but those away ends weren’t at places like Wigan, where, even though we weren’t great ourselves, we went thinking we shouldn’t be getting dicked off the likes of these, but then we’d be terrible, get dicked and the atmosphere would be shite. Expectations have, rightfully, gone up after last season, and us being nowhere near meeting them is also having a big effect on atmospheres.

Tbh, ask fans of other clubs, and they generally have very similar experiences of Wembley, especially if you get beat. Mackems had a literally identical game experience to us, until they finally won the pizza cup, then that one altered their view slightly. Some (not that many obviously) haven’t bothered going recently given how many times they’ve been there, and knowing what it’s like. That’s just how it is at Wembley. Obviously the vast majority of us would go again, but don’t expect it to be any different unless we win.

It would be mental if you were. Suspect Barca must still be covering some of it. Just another example of the financial mess they’ve got themselves in.

Are Barca still paying some of Lenglet’s wages as it seems he’s on somewhere approaching £150k p/w, which seems mental for a loan player that doesn’t play the time?

Another bit of 100% profit from the Villa academy

There’s also a misconception that we were terrible in that game and got battered. But truth be told we should have been comfortably ahead at half-time had Isak taken his chances. When you’re playing lower league teams, that’s inevitably what it comes down to, can you take the chances that you’ll almost certainly create?

Hopefully an FA Cup 4th round game before Villa, but still plenty of time for them to get away somewhere.

I very much doubt the mackems will be having 34 shots with us barely being able to get out of our half.

Mag on the jury

@Shadow Puppets posted that he’d heard from a reliable source Anderson’s injury is healing slowly so likely to be mid-Feb. Given what Howe said about the other two at his last presser, you’d hope maybe after the winter break they’d be about ready.

Jamal Lewis is probably the only one you’d get much more than a pittance for, and even then he’s only got 18 months left on his contract. Probably the main benefit to shifting him, Fraser or Hayden would be getting rid of their wages.

And Loic Remy v Norwich.

And Bournemouth. And Chelsea. And twice in the Europa League. But apart from that…

But if we were playing that level of opposition, we wouldn’t have lost 6 of the last 7 games. We’re moving in different circles now. Having said that, there’s obviously a psychological aspect that regardless the discrepancy in standard of opponents, it’s not ideal to be losing. If we put in a 7 or 8 out of 10 performance we’ll win. Just have to make sure we do that.

It’s levels though. We might have lost to Luton and Forest, which is hardly great, but in the last two weeks they’ve lost to Bristol City and Coventry and drew with Rotherham.