Rupert Pupkin

It's impressive that somebody needed to point this out on a Newcastle United forum.

Even if Germany do manage to scrape through this and get second place in the group, imagine that defence against Coutinho, Neymar, Jesus, Firmino and Willian. I kind of want Germany to get through just to see a reversal of the 7-1!

Martin Keown was driving me mental in the commentary tonight like, with his "this isn't the time for patience" nonsense, even worse than listening to Lawro during the Belgium match. The worst was listening to Jenas at half time though: talking about how we need to be more direct, and then compete for second balls! And he has the gall to suggest that his career wasn't what it could have been because of the time he spent at Newcastle! Thought we played well overall, created a ton of chances in the first half, total control without quite so much of a cutting edge after Tunisia went ultra defensive in the second, but clearly deserved the win. That referee shouldn't be allowed near another match anywhere on this planet never mind at this world cup; we should clearly have had a VAR penalty, at some point, more than one probably. On performance alone, we looked better than Belgium, by a distance. Belgium grew in confidence in the latter stages of their match, but they were very poor for large periods. Hopefully we could see a really good match up, with less nervousness from both sides in the final group game. I'm looking forward to it. I think the only change I would make would be Loftus-Cheek for Lingard against Panama. Lingard was poor today with his finishing, and went missing at times in the second half. Having the extra power of Loftus-Cheek in midfield could really help us against some of the bigger teams, but I wouldn't want to wait and throw him in cold, he showed enough tonight when he came on to be given an opportunity against Panama, imo. I wouldn't change Sterling for Rashford, though it is tempting, if we can get Sterling going for England against Panama, he could be a huge weapon for us further down the line. He just needs some confidence in an England shirt.

Has everyone already seen the Guillem Balague Podcast? I did a quick search and can't see it posted anywhere so I'll stick it here for anyone who missed it:

Typically the kit manufacturer takes about 90% of the revenue from shirt sales. When you think about it, it's surprising we haven't got a Lonsdale or Donnay kit! Be thankful for small mercies, I guess.

Anyone else pleasantly surprised by the way VAR seems to be functioning in this tournament so far? I thought that Costa goal would be overturned.

I have to admit, I usually just scroll straight past your posts, because I'm too lazy to read for more than an hour at a time. But when I do actually read them, they are almost always good, like this one. I don't really see why investing in the academy doesn't make sense for fat Mike. Investing in an academy setup overseen by Rafa is a relatively low cost, low risk approach to improving the long term financial health of the club. My probably forlorn hope is that his reluctance to invest in this area is a sign that he does actually plan to fuck off at some point in the relatively near future.

And then fucked off as soon as he could. He was good here, but he's been and gone, why should he get another chance to play for us? I have no problem with the way Townsend left the club. At that point he was in the England picture and wanted to keep himself there, and I think he handled the situation well in general, the way he spoke about the club and Rafa etc. While we have players like Colback still sat on the books drawing a wage for absolutely fuck all, I would find it difficult to criticise someone like Townsend for wanting to keep himself in international contention. He ran his balls off trying to keep us up, and if we had a few more like him we would have achieved it.

When did Robbie Williams start to look like Morrissey?

see, this is the thing. he didnt need to come out and say he wanted rafa to stay or "hoped" he would stay. he should have simply said there is no way rafa is going to leave and that he is personally going to ensure it. thats why i'm convinced ashley's not really that bothered. he gets £6m for rafa then swiftly moves on and shifts lascelles out too. still be loads of managers interested in coming to the toon especially with this new £36m kitty. crowds may drop but we'll still get over 40k turning up. not a great drop in income in the grand scheme of things. Imagine what would happen if he came out and said he was personally going to ensure that Rafa stays and then Rafa turns down the contract though. I think Ashley just wants to keep himself at arms length from the whole thing to cover his arse. Even Ashley surely realises that keeping Rafa is the best way to ensure we don't drop down a division again, and end up costing him more money. What's the other option, letting Rafa go and then appointing a less successful coach, who he still has to back in the market to some degree, and potentially ending up with another McClaren scenario? Mike is a moron, but even he must understand how lucky we are to have Rafa here. not if his target is just to stay in the premier league at minimal spend. rafa is gonna be after him asking him for money every transfer window and then trying to expand the squad to deal with trying to win domestic cups or compete in the europa league. ashley doesnt need the earache. I would hope that he is starting to realise that the stay in the Premier League with minimal spending plan doesn't work out too well. It is Ashley though so who knows what he is thinking? I could see him deciding to let Rafa go at the end of next season instead of trying to push on again, but it would be a massive gamble to do so now.

see, this is the thing. he didnt need to come out and say he wanted rafa to stay or "hoped" he would stay. he should have simply said there is no way rafa is going to leave and that he is personally going to ensure it. thats why i'm convinced ashley's not really that bothered. he gets £6m for rafa then swiftly moves on and shifts lascelles out too. still be loads of managers interested in coming to the toon especially with this new £36m kitty. crowds may drop but we'll still get over 40k turning up. not a great drop in income in the grand scheme of things. Imagine what would happen if he came out and said he was personally going to ensure that Rafa stays and then Rafa turns down the contract though. I think Ashley just wants to keep himself at arms length from the whole thing to cover his arse. Even Ashley surely realises that keeping Rafa is the best way to ensure we don't drop down a division again, and end up costing him more money. What's the other option, letting Rafa go and then appointing a less successful coach, who he still has to back in the market to some degree, and potentially ending up with another McClaren scenario? Mike is a moron, but even he must understand how lucky we are to have Rafa here.

Like I said I don't think 400 million is an outrageous price. Sports clubs over here in North America change hands for considerably more money than that and their worldwide exposure is nowhere near that of the PL. It's not a bad price when you rake in a guaranteed 100 million just by surviving in the division, that's a 1/4 of your initial investment in one year, that's not profit of course but few owners are in it for that, even if Ashley had taken the 300 million, he would have recouped all his investment in the club and had a decade of priceless free band exposure. The way American sports operate are so different though, I wonder whether it is a fair comparison. There is no threat of relegation for a start. And the way the draft system works it means that every team has a chance of making real progress and becoming a dominant force if run well... I hope there are no Bengals or Browns fans on here.

Tbf it's been ours for 2 decades. ... :'(

Surely this was entirely predictable. Watford need one final win to make sure of safety, we don't. I doubt it's a deliberate lack of effort, but when you have been battling for months to drag yourself to safety, then you get there, there will be a natural relaxation of effort that you aren't really consciously in control of. I decided not to watch this one, it was obvious we would be shit.

I don't really feel qualified to be able to accurately estimate the financial value of Newcastle United.

Is Southgate there tonight? He was supposed to be.. that’s why I thought Shelvey has been poor, trying to hard to impress! He has been decent defensively though, which is probably where he needs to impress to get back in the England squad.

Is Southgate there tonight?

Read that as "my cat that's valued at around £2,500" and thought fuck, that's an expensive cat. Then I thought, hang on, why would a cat need an MOT, and went back and reread it.

Christ First comment on the Chronicle article:

Slimani makes such a huge difference to our attacking play. Also, as pessimistic as I am seeing Joselu coming on when we need a goal, I love seeing him come on when we are defending a lead. I guess that's not really much of a compliment for a striker, but he's tidy, works really hard, and always wins at least one free kick that allows us to relieve the pressure and get up the pitch.

The funniest thing is the rhyming of "dole" and "goals." He must have originally had a line that ended in the singular "goal" surely, then changed it to "loads of goals" without realising that "dole" no longer rhymes.

Shouting like his mam is the next room and afraid to wake her up This guy is the reason I ended up picking this name for the forum. I saw one of his previous offerings, and ended up watching this clip before I registered:

I'm sticking a tenner on us to score ten against a ten man Arsenal.