MarkyMark

It’ll be quickly forgotten - but I imagine the press will be too busy taking the piss. Relegation wouldn’t leave the new owners or management blameless - there was time to turn it round - but if I was doing it on %s, it would be an 80-20 split in terms of responsibility. Years and years of neglect - and of course, luck has played its part for the last couple of years. But as Norwich are showing, you can make your own luck, too.

Has to be said, I still think a Norwich win is as good a result for us as a draw. The longer the four teams are grouped together the more chance we have of pulling away

The shocking lack of fitness was an absolute disgrace - and the press somehow ignoring that just as disgraceful. I find it harder to give Howe lots of credit for getting the players fit - I mean, that should be a basic requirement; our expectations need to be higher. Bruce deserves all the criticism though - it’s negligence.

We managed one shot on target against these cunts. At home. Christ.

Dean Smith looking a better bet atm

Didn’t NUFC win three of their last four games at the end of last season? And in the PL?

yeah, was thinking about that before posting …

Looks like a 4th win for Smith - appointed same week as Howe …

I’ll happily criticise the UK govt for its foreign wars until the cows come home. They don’t own NUFC though, and I’m not a moral relativist - the KSA govt are infinitely worse. I don’t think Staveley’s moral compass is the same as mine, but there you go.

Sorry, genuinely didn’t understand that …

Because she didn’t have the money, and he wanted to sell? PCP / Staveley aren’t dripping with cash. She also borrowed the £4m required to keep the club running in October off Reubens. It’s why the entire structure of club ownership brings into question the notion that PIF will be throwing money in, if they’re expecting investment pro rata’d based upon shareholding. He’s targeting Staveley because she’s the one with agreement. He can’t target PIF or Reubens because they paid with their own money, therefore this isn’t going after the ‘weaker’ party, it’s going after the person you have a contract with. It’s a matter between Ashley & PCP, not Ashley & NUFC. And on that basis, the horrible thin-skinned fat cunt can crack on as far as I’m concerned - it makes zero difference to NUFC or me.

Mike Ashley is a thin-skinned cunt; Staveley had to have read the Ts&Cs, and this has to be considered embarrassing; the KSA dictatorship are murdering bastards; Howe doesn’t need to apologise, and we don’t need to excuse. There ye gan; my two-penneth-worth

If Howe has took us down after having three quarters of a season, I think he’s cooked. It would mean continuing the same form as the first half of the season - I’d have serious doubts we’d suddenly start winning next season.

Trippier for c.10m was very sensible -as was his wages. Wood also not insane. You wouldn't need petrodollars for those. Again, Staveley said 50m above what the club could generate each window. Even if they signed BOTH Botman and Carlos for 40m each, that would be in line with that And yeah, I know we disagree on this one - always respectfully of course - we're both working on reasonable suppositions would be my view of it. I can't disprove what you're saying at all - it might well be the case. I'd be more than happy with seeing a major trophy on Tyneside in the next few years ...

I laughed at 'probably why it keeps increasing'. Love the notion that they're accomplished business people, rather than fascists who won the resources lottery. Kennedy is in line with the nuggets in the fanbase that think that acumen has built up the PIF rather than petrodollars. Staveley did talk about aiming to win the title in ten years - but that still doesn't mean hoying hundreds of millions in. Leicester didn't - the assumption seems to be 'sensible' investment (she talked of 250m over five windows) and capable management would get them there. Ashley talked about winning things too. Most PL owners do. It is a 'wait and see'. The fact that PIF have handed the entire club's running across on a management contract suggests that they do see it as a 'sensible' investment vehicle rather than a sportswashing exercise. A 30m offer for Diego Carlos isn't suggestive of that - and most of the transfer rumours are clear and obvious bollocks. The club could have comfortably been buying players at those prices for years under its own steam - and has been.

'Aye alright Charlie' Best part is that the guy that they think is Methven writes like a five-year-old. Maybe they're right

The vast, vast majority of the links will be complete horseshit - I don't think the scattergun approach which the rumourmill is currently suggesting is happening. Some of the links are just bizarre. The Botman and Carlos stories clearly have legs. I think the Lingard, Cantwell and Nunez ones have a ring of truth. The others are varying degrees of 'maybe' to 'Roberto Baggio in Wallsend chippy' in terms of ludicrousness. Those of us who are over 25 will 100% remember how normal clubs work, and how much shite transfer gossip usually is. Most of it was always a bit of fun for readers of red tops. Some of the young'uns on twitter will be on a rollercoaster atm.

I doubt any of the worries would be occurring if the two January fixtures were Man City and Chelsea away - patience would have been in abundance, as we'd all write off those games. The problem is that the two Jan fixtures are vs teams next to us. They should be winnable, and potentially we're damaging our chances of staying up by not getting in adequate replacements into vital positions. No-one should be going crackers, but concern is perfectly reasonable.

The issue is that football has a collective memory of Chelsea & Man City chucking stupid money at other clubs - and they think we’re next on that list. We’re refusing to do that, clearly - but the message hasn’t arrived at most other club’s doors. The issue isn’t that this is complicated - it is that the selling clubs think we’ll massively overpay without blinking. Nothing complicated at all about that.

But then, when the responses are in relation to this being super-duper complicated, that’s pretty hard to digest too. This process isn’t as straightforward as the howling banshees on Twitter are making out, nor is it as complicated as the ‘this isn’t FM/FIFA’ comments imply. The transfer fee part is easy part of a transfer - there’s only a handful of ways it can be done. There’s a valuation - you meet it (via lump sum or lower sum with incentives - payable either up front or in instalments), negotiate it, or walk away. There really isn’t much more to it than that - it is a price agreed between the two parties for the player’s registration. It’s probably a good idea not to give the press a running commentary either.

10m looks like massively overpaying for a player who doesn’t play and will be leaving for free in five months time

You are Simon Jordan and I claim my £5

Yep. The current press is a confused picture - if we’re arguing over a few million, then we may be playing with risk / reward too much; if Sevilla is asking for double-money, then that’s ridiculous- we’re best moving on to the next target What worries me is if we’re fixating on players for too long who are going to be too difficult to sign. Pretty much any centre half in the Spanish, English or Italian top flight will be better than our current rabble.

That reads like ‘they’ve tapped up the player, so we’ll just inflated the price - fuck ‘em’ Which they’re within their rights to do

I agree - though relegation would hit our FFP constraints harder than anything.