number37

I love how our draw is the breaking news on the BBC Sport app

They reckon Saturday at the latest, mentioned it at the start.

The draw for the UEFA Youth League will be the same as the draw for the Champions League so it'll be interesting to see who our under 21s play if that kind of thing interests you too.

Kind of on that theme, I'm not sure how deliberate this is but I thought the choice of related articles on the BBC News app was quite interesting.

Yeah, I suppose a Maccabi Haifa v Al-Ittihad qualifying game would be particularly juicy but I doubt we'd get that.

Arteta and Klopp know that Saudi Arabia is in Asia, don't they? As in, totally outside the jurisdiction of UEFA and are fully within their rights to, how they say in diplomatic circles, tell European clubs to fuck right off if they reckon they have to bend over backwards to accommodate Turkey Teeth and Captain Black. The arrogance of that lot is astounding. How dare a country from a different continent and from a different confederation have a different calendar system that doesn't revolve around UEFA. I hope every club in the AFC fires off a bid to Liverpool on the hour every hour like some denial of service attack on their fax machine or whatever it is they use. Didn't Pep Guardiola say something like you can always just reject their bids like you're not obligated to accept?

I'm one of those people! This is pretty much me whenever someone's talking about what they've had or about to have for their dinner each and every single god damn day... Sandro Tonali though, what a player. It's great to see him out and about in the region.

On my way home from work I've just walked past Fabian Schär and his partner having a coffee outside Gosforth Traders. He was wearing what possibly looked to be a heavy metal themed hoodie (not wanting to stereotype but it was black with a skull and a load of German text) and shorts like a refined version of The Dude. So based only on this, he's now my prime suspect in the case of who sent Tonali to the Job Bullman because the Gosforth Traders isn't really somewhere you'd go to or pass by unless you had some knowledge of the area. His choice of clothes and general dreamy yet assertive demeanor strongly suggests he made the reservation in person simply by strolling in and making it so. We know he's always on the receiving end of some impact injury each game so a slight limp or casual bandage/plaster would have helped him remain incognito. Back at Benton HQ, he'd have calmly and with the straight face of sincerity made the recommendation to an unsuspecting Sandro, letting the usual suspects of Murphy, Ritchie, Longstaff et al take the spotlight. His limp dissipates as he wanders away having played us like a damn fiddle.

It's such an unnecessary use of language and maybe I'm giving NUFC360 too much credit but it's the way in which they say something to not say something but you very much sow the seeds in people's minds. Like "I'm not being racist but...". By questioning whether it's too early to blame, seriously as in blame (), for performances after two games, we all know what happened in those games, then it suggests that blame is deserved and they expect/demand we go down to the Etihad and smash them 5-1 because it's what we've always done to them. Then it's mentioned that blame should be focused on players, not on the team, not on the manager, not on the individual circumstances of the particular match but focused directly and specifically on a certain player as that would be an entirely normal thing to do apparently. Blame, man. Even if someone scored an own goal that denied us Champions League football or knocked us out of a cup then I'm still not blaming anyone, not after everything we've been through, the club still has a lot of credit in the bank with me. THEN, it's that fucking photo as if the words were not enough and, even though it's "too early", how about they just give an example of four randomly selected players for us to direct our blame for not winning the quadruple after two matches. If we're assigning blame then NUFC360's mam and dad would be the place I'd start.

Paqueta probably isn't that bad a person, he's just unlucky that he used the megaphone after Mahoney had it.

When the medals were being handed out, I liked the commentator mentioning how that creep Infantino managed to make his way down to the presentation area through all those open doors. Even by his standards it was still odd how he got himself in with the referees for their photo.

Have a search for a Morecambe and Wise sketch with André Previn. It's mint.

It would never ever happen (because of money) but considering the cost of a football shirt is getting increasingly ridiculous, I think it could actually turn out to be fairly prudent if they released modern versions (but not too modern) of the grandad collar home shirt strip and then the maroon/blue hooped strip, blue denim strip and a yellow/green strip as a "family" of home/change/third/cup strips but on the proviso they're all collectively retained for two or three seasons. If those kits are done right then, as mentioned lots of times, it's pretty much a shit load of guaranteed money for the club and Adidas. If fans know those kits are going to be retained for a good few years and even though they may be inevitably pricey, I genuinely think more people would feel encouraged and confident to buy them knowing they have longevity. A family could buy a home strip one season and a change strip the next and not feel they've missed out or feel they need to be pressured into multiple purchases a season forever. Plus, this approach may mean that certain Chinese based retailers are not as attractive as before because strips with a longer shelf life become relatively more cost effective and every penny going towards the club would help too. If they're scared about being strapped for cash then I'm sure they can churn out a load of different training gear a few times a year for the doggers and joggers to bring in some revenue on a more consistent basis. Having a more consistent array of change kits would help re-establish a strong sense of identity with regard to colours. I totally understand, but am not thrilled with, the approach to cater for the Saudi market with the green and white kits because they're Saudi colours not Newcastle United colours. I think the long term approach should be for people in Saudi Arabia to love to wear Newcastle United colours (black and white, maroon and blue, etc) rather than a white shirt with a shitty green version of the club crest stuck on. Surely they can just buy a national shirt if that's their colour preference. For a club identity, I feel a consistent Newcastle United colour scheme is as vital as a city centre stadium. They've spent a lot of money on us because of who we are and not because of who they want us to be. If MLK can dream then so can I. It's obviously the same.

I kind of feel dirty admitting this but I'm starting to warm to Mike Dean. He's on Sky Sports now and he's ripping apart the refereeing decisions from last week as much as the pundits, it's actually quite refreshing and is a contrast to Peter Walton from BT Sport. I like his openness and honesty and it's just a shame the current officials cannot apply his reasoning.

I reckon they'd go wild for Barter Books. The café is great in there too, all of the rooms along the side are a cosy place for a coffee and a bacon sandwich. The drive up there is fun too as you're going through Amble and Warkworth and the coast just opens up to reveal Alnmouth. It's so good to hear her genuinely positive thoughts about the region and I think they're the perfect representation of the type of character and person the club are keen to recruit. We're not London but that's a good thing.

There could be some positives about this. I don't know if there'd be a large number of travelling fans but it might be a nice opportunity for those who have never visited the region or even the UK to see what we have to offer. Even as a tourist destination, I think we're criminally overlooked and even though I quite like us being Britain's best kept secret, we do have some pretty good stuff. On the High Street here we've got the Job Bullman for connoisseurs of high quality food and drink (to have a night off from high quality food and drink). We're just down the road from Scotland for those Costa Ricans who want to remind our friends in the North about the greatest night in fitba history from Italia 90. South Koreans love their technology so they'd have a great time down at the County Durham EPCOT Centre - Beamish: City of the Future.

Wings is only the hospitality the Platinum club could have been.

The pubs in Milan must be so awful if he reckons the Job Bullman is something to put a smile on his face (relative to him, of course). Get him on a crawl from Tyne Bank, Full Circle, down through the Ouseburn, back up to the Broad Chare, Bridge Tavern, Centurion and a swift half in the Town Wall. Actual route may vary.

Excellent point! I wasn't sure of the documentary date range, didn't know if it was just last season or from the takeover but I guess it makes sense that it's last season. I retract my statement regarding Alan Shearer's narration and personal relationships.

It'll be interesting to hear Shearer holding back the tears when he's narrating the scene where his dear friend is getting the sack. Unless he maintains a dignified silence? Sid Waddell always knew when to talk and when not to, let the drama and action unfold itself. Sid Waddell would have made a good narrator, unless us Northumbrians are excluded from being real fans

There's a scene in Men Behaving Badly that we loved when we were in sixth form. Gary and Tony are talking shit about football in the pub and Les, the landlord, walks over and wants to join in but doesn't know anything about football so Gary and Tony deliberately get more odd and obscure. They end it with something like "...well you have to go all the way back to the West Ham days for your last counter rabbit experience. Or is that just bollocks, Les?" We're now in our very own counter rabbit experience and we don't even know it.

Yes! Although we might be getting close to turning it into District 9 territory. As a compromise, a pirate themed kids play area should be fine or at the very least, a prominent portrait of Lord Westwood could do the trick too.

It would be mint if they named it Stock or Stick or something like that instead in reference to the good old days of beoutQ. Could even paint on a few buttons/lights to make the shipping containers look like receivers. Might be a wee bit of a touchy subject but it would make me smile at least, which is all that matters.